Article VI Blog

Leaders are not important when they do what their followers expect or what anybody can see should be done. Leaders become worthy when they lead their followers in good directions, nobody expected.

If you are the kind of person offended by Tim Tebow kneeling, stop reading now, because I am about to quote Jesus.

Jesus once faced people not in his “group” doing miracles in his name, but without his authorization. His friends and followers came and asked permission to put a stop to this doing good without permission.

Jesus said a wise thing, as He always did: “Those who are not against us are for us.”

Evidently there exists an aging group of Evangelical leaders who missed this hard saying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mitt Romney can repent of bad statements and decisions, but they will not believe him. He can do many good works for their causes over the last decade, but it must be “anybody but Romney,” because Mitt Romney is not “one of the gang.”

Newt Gingrich can say “sorry” for mortal sins and they are willing to forgive, as Christians should, but Mitt Romney must not be trusted.

Why?


Evidently, if you are for us, then you had better be one of us. These leaders are more inside Christianity than Jesus.

In a culture where one candidate for president has his name turned into a profane thing (Google Santorum) for his views of traditional morality, Romney’s defense of Santorum’s position is discounted instead of producing gratitude.

Mitt Romney is for us, but not “one of us” according to those leaders.

Romney betrays his class by embracing the ethics of the American founding. He is for us, but some “leaders” will not accept it. Nothing is enough.

Voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina need to ask an important question: “Will they judge their friends by the standards of Jesus or their ‘leaders? Will they judge a man by his fruit or by his group?”

We are not discussing admission to Paradise, but good works. If an “unsaved” man (by the doctrines of my church) feeds the poor, but does not have saving faith, then his works cannot save him. But this I know, the fed man does not starve.

If a demon is cast out in Christ’s name or a body is healed, it does not prove the holiness of the man casting out the demon or saying the prayer, but the family of both men will be grateful. He who is not against us is for us.

Mitt Romney is a good man, a gentle man, a decent man. He has done public and private works of charity and service. He has demonstrated love in practical and personal ways to his fellows. He belongs to a group that has sacrificed time, talent, and treasure to support us and has fed our poor and sick. We need not agree with them on every important issue to be thankful and it is churlish and unChristian to look for any candidate rather than Romney based only on his not being “one of us.”

Leaders might choose another one of the worthy candidates, such as Santorum, but it would be odious to do so only because Romney is not “with us” and so must be “against us.” Such leaders are “holier” than Jesus, which means smaller, less charitable, and certainly less thankful.

The time has come for these leaders to lead and remind their flock of the wisdom of the Savior:

Romney is with us and so he is for us.

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And Now For Something Completely Different…

So, Thursday last I was driving around and as is typical, listening to the Hugh Hewitt radio show.  Sounded like a pretty typical show and I had a lot of work to do when I got back in the office during the second hour, so I did not turn the show on while I was busy responding to email and otherwise documenting the end of a hectic work day.  And then, suddenly, every form of communication I own (email, texting, instant messaging, the telephone) ERUPTS into simultaneous activity!  It seems our friend Mr. Hewitt wants to talk to me on air and everyone that listens to the show is trying to tell me so.  I figure that there has been a Romney/religion story break and while I am dialing the show I am busy checking my sources to see what has happened.  When I am finally on line with Radioblogger what is it I discover Hugh wants to talk about? – The announcement that Superman is renouncing his American Citizenship in Action Comics #900.  Yes, it’s true, I am an avid comic book collector and have an unfortunate level of knowledge about such things.

First some background in in order.  Comics, it must be remembered, have their origins in the magazine publishing business, hence they are dated and numbered.  To publish 900 issues of anything is an amazing publishing achievement.  This is especially true of comics, despite beloved and continuing characters.  Sometime in the 1980′s, the comic market switched from stuff kids picked up in drugstores to serious collectors.  Number 1 issues are highly collectible so it has become the general market strategy to end a title after a limited run and begin anew with a slightly different title and a new #1.  Action Comics is one of the few exceptions to this rule.  Action, originally an anthology book, is where Superman made his first appearance in a short, quickly taking over as the title’s principle character until eventually it became a Superman title.  With Superman came success in the comics publishing industry, innumerable costumed hero/mystery man titles followed, and a genre was born.   DC Comics in deference to this history has refused to end Action’s run as it has so many other venerable titles, and the extraordinary milestone of issue 900 has been reached.  That fact alone is monumental in publishing and DC Comics is to be commended for it.

Under such circumstances, anniversary issues have become big events for those few remaining titles whose runs continue.  Anniversaries are marked not by publication dates, but by issue number.  Decades ago publishers pushed publication of issues so far ahead of the posted dates to aid in marketing that the dates are virtually ignored.  Hence any issue with an even hundred number is an anniversary issue.  Arrayed around this post are images of the covers of Action Comics 100, 200, 300…900.  As you can see, in the earlier years such issues were fairly normal, but as time progressed they have become “events.”  It should also be mentioned that Action Comics is far from the only Superman title, but it is the oldest, the originator.  If you are interested in others, please check this out.

As such issues began to gain in importance and recognition they took on the aspect of the retrospective on the character or perhaps the creative teams that had worked on the title.  In the 1980′s, as the collector’s market really began to develop, such issues became events – often marking major transitions in the character, and in more recent years marking a “reboot” in the character.  (For the completely initiated, a “reboot” is a reinvention of a franchise – think the most recent JJ Abrams Star Trek movie.)  Reboots often allow for similar story telling transitions as ending a title and coming up with a new one, so the buying boost achieved by this newer practice can be replicated.

Synopsizing the various hundred issues of Action Comics has proven to be difficult.  Many of them pre-date my life, let alone my comic reading, and are well beyond my means to add to my collection.  This link gives a synopsis of every Action issue since the mid-80′s (there’s that magic date again) but I simply could not find data any earlier than that.  However, this information when combined with the covers depicted here should give the reader a good idea of the transitions that have taken place over the decades.  Most especially notable on casual viewing is how much darker the images have become as time as moved forward, and it is highly notable in 900.

And now a different strain of background.  DC Comics is, and has been for quite some time, owned by Time-Warner.  It has been considered the most “corporate” of the comics publishers.  Major competitor Marvel is also very corporate, but until it was acquired by Disney a few years ago, it was small potatoes as a company (though usually beating DC in sales) compared to the Time Warner giant.  When Disney bought Marvel, there was much trepidation (and the jury is still out) that such would spell the end of the great story telling at Marvel.  Think about it, when was the last time you saw something really creative with Mickey Mouse?  Disney has been far more interested in preserving and protecting its iconic character than it has been in telling new and better stories about/with Mickey.  Many feared the same fate awaited Wolverine, Spiderman and several other iconic Marvel stalwarts.  They certainly felt like such had happened at the corporatist DC with it’s big three – Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

This has, over the years, made it hard for these titles to draw the best creative teams.  In the early 90′s when Todd MacFarlane rebooted Spiderman to the point that Marvel added a new Spidey title featuring MacFarlane, but not giving him profit participation, MacFarlane took a walk and went independent.  This problem was compounded as the cross-title publishing trend took hold (story arcs that cross multiple titles, thus meaning plots are handed down to the creative teams from a coordinating editorial board rather than allowing the creative teams to actually create.)  Superman, iconic to begin with, has suffered the most from this trend.  Not to mention the fact that as the most powerful hero ever it’s hard to create genuine conflict for him.  Supes has been for a couple of decades now, pretty moribund.  Sales have been reasonable, it is after all Superman, but creatively it has suffered.

With this background, it is unsurprising that with Action 900, the publishers and creators would want to do something to shake off the iconic mold and try and make the character once again interesting.  Consider the by now oft quoted words he speaks as he renounces his citizenship, “I am tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy.”  It literally drips with the desire to shake off the bonds that have constrained the character for my entire lifetime.

But that raises two essential questions.  Firstly, what is wrong with such constraints, and secondly, should not some icons be left iconic?

The fact that such constraints are viewed as bad is, as comics always are, reflective of our culture generally.  However, in my opinion that is a sign of creative laziness, not real creativity.  Consider an analogy to science.  Are the laws of physics to be considered constraints?  Can an engineer on a whim decide that electrons now carry a positive charge and therefore make a computer on entirely different principles?  Of course, not, and yet the creative nature of what engineers have been able to accomplish is extraordinary, revolutionary even.

At the turn of the 20th century, people began to ponder if Newton had pretty well figured everything out, and there was little left for science and engineering to do.  And yet, very creative people (not artists certainly, but creative nonetheless) have worked within the constraints of the laws of physics to transform the world in ways unimaginable in 1900.  There is much that could be done with Superman inside the constraints placed on the character by its iconic nature and its corporate worth.  In all the flotsam that has emerged under the Superman name in these last decades, there has been some very good work.  In can continue.

Should not some icons be left iconic?  Consider the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.”  In it, Jimmy Stewart, playing Ransom Stoddard – a US Senator,  attends the funeral of a little-known rancher in his home town.   Stoddard has achieved this lofty perch doing much good for the territory-come-state in the process, by being know as the man who shot Liberty Valence, bringing the first real justice to the then territory.  When the press asks Stoddard why he would attend such an unnoteworthy funeral, he tells them the true story of who shot Valence, and it was the character he had come to bury, not himself.  Yet, the press did not print the story saying, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”  In other words, Stoddard had done so much good as the man that shot Liberty Valence, that only harm could result from breaking the legend.

I indeed think that is the case when it comes to Superman and US citizenship.  Supes is iconically American and he has over the decades done so much good in raising American spirits.

It was barely a decade ago that he did so much to honor the true heroes of 9-11.  He was a war hero in WWII.  He has rallied the troops and the nation on many, many occasions.  He stands for the best that is the United States of America.

This move is another move away from the idea of American exceptionalism, and it is an important one.  But I also think it is temporary.  They have tried to break the Superman mold before, and every time he seems to be pulled back into it.

Our nation is much the same.  We have been pulled into the darkness many times, but we have emerged a better stronger place.

I got into comics because of that dreadful Batman television series in the 1960′s.  I was a kid – it worked.  But in discovering comics, I discovered a whole new world of things, and I discovered history.  The WWII exploits of Captain America (another iconic character currently gone horribly awry) were formative in my understanding of the nation and my place in it.  Maybe those people that pick up Action 900 will have the entire world of Superman opened up for them.  Maybe they will look not just at Action Comics 900, but at the decades of Superman product and they will discover the patriotism and goodness that has defined this nation historically.  They will create demand for Supes to rectify this outrageous slight.  The publishers will readily follow if it means sales.

One of the nice things about pulp culture like comics is that nothing dies, it just gets recycled.  It’s time to stop reading Superman, but it will only be for a short while.

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Sometimes we are our own worst enemies – I certainly felt that way as I did my morning reading this AM.  It started with very conspiratorial rumors surrounding CPAC.  (“Well, it was a full moon last night,” I thought to myself and moved on.)  Then I got a fund-raising email from the normally reasonable  Family Research Council:

But these conservatives face three kinds of politicians who threaten to continue Washington’s attack on the family:

[...]

Group #2: “Moderate” or “establishment” lawmakers who too easily compromise rather than stand unapologetically on conservative principle.

Now I am a little miffed.  There is no more bedrock conservative principle than the fact that our government is designed to create compromise based on healthy debate.  If we “stand unapologetically on conservative principle,” as that phrase is used here, there are only two possible results.  One would be that we simply lose – that’s not smart.  The other would be that we are as guilty as our opposition in cramming our agenda down the throat of the American public.  Do I like the direction of the nation in the last two years? – No, of course not.  However, more problematic than the policies themselves has been the brutal force with which it has been foisted on the citizenry.

There is no doubt that some Republicans have become a bit too “beltway” – so we vote them out of office – problem solved.  But we will not do ourselves any favors by ratcheting up our rhetoric to the point where we appear to be the radicals.

Then I read this MSNBC piece:

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned whether he can be fair to non-Christians.

“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,” Bentley said Monday, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News.

This, dear friends, is what is called an “unforced error.”  Anybody that reads this in context knows what the governor was saying, he was not implying an inequality of governmental treatment in any fashion.  But of course, the AP and MSNBC being who they are are going to be all over it.  Which is why the governor should have never given them the opportunity to begin with.

The very left MSM stands poised to attack us at any given opportunity, which is why we have to be a step ahead and a whole lot smarter.  Want proof? – Consider this diatribe masquerading as a op-ed my Michael Kinsley:

JP2′s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, waived the traditional requirement of a five-year waiting period before the process can even begin. But he could not waive the main requirement — those pesky miracles.

Some might consider bringing down the Soviet Union something of a miracle. Or maybe running the best school systems in America. But that’s not what the church means. It demands an old-fashioned, abracadabra type of miracle, such as appearing as a vision before a Catholic businessman as he is about to perform an act of illegal insider trading, or ridding an entire major sports team of athlete’s foot.

In this case, JP2 wasted no time. Once he got to heaven, he immediately got to work. He hadn’t been dead long when he answered the prayers of a French nun, curing her of Parkinson’s disease. You thought Parkinson’s was incurable? So did I. And I have it, as did JP2 in his last years. But apparently not — if you know whom to pray to. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre of the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards requested JP2′s intercession, and lo and behold she woke up one morning, two months after the pope had died, to discover that all of her symptoms were gone. According to the Associated Press story, she remains symptom-free today — no more trembling hands, no stumbling walk.

Of course, there is another possibility besides a miracle: Maybe she never had Parkinson’s in the first place. There is no way to diagnose Parkinson’s for sure; you just eliminate other possibilities — such as a brain tumor — until Parkinson’s is the last malady standing, and often a welcome one, considering the alternatives.

The sheer snark shows so little respect for faith, religious institutions or religiosity in general as to demonstrate unequivocally the fact that the left does not view us as political opposition, but enemy to be destroyed.

There is an old adage – “When arguing with a fool, make sure he is not similarly occupied.“  As conservatives of faith that would be an adage we would do very well to keep in mind.

Posted in Doctrinal Obedience, Miscellany, News Media Bias, Understanding Religion | Comment on this post » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

Luke 2:1-20
1    And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
2    (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3    And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4    And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5    To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
6    And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7    And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8    And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9    And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10    And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11    For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12    And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13    And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14    Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
15    And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16    And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17    And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
18    And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19    But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
20    And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
(KJV)

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Today we celebrate the day this nation declared its independence from Great Britain.  The reasons for that declaration are many and complex.  But one of the many independences that we have come to enjoy is independence in the practice of religion and from the establishment of a state religion.  I am grateful to celebrate that independence this day.

I am grateful that I can practice my religion with the same legitimacy that anyone of any faith can practice theirs.  Yes, I believe mine is TRUTH and that others are not.  But here is the thing, if I am right about that, in America my faith will prevail – for uniquely in America others have the ability to hear me proclaim the truth of my faith without the coercion of official government sanction.  When we rely on government force to uphold the truth claims of our faith we, in a sense, admit that our faith is less that self-evidently true.

The current administration is demonstrating to us, in full force and glory, that the government is capable of making people act in accordance with things that they disagree with.  Is that really how we want our faith, no matter what that faith is, to be promulgated across the land?

As conservatives, do we want people to say things about us that we are saying about the current administration?  That through shear political will and the exercise of brute force, we thrust our will and viewpoint on the nation?  I know I don’t.

So I am grateful to live in a nation where I can, and will if sufficiently qualified, vote for a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or even a Mormon.  In doing so, I do not endorse their faith – I endorse a nation that has allowed my faith to thrive.  I endorse a nation that gives a level playing field in the battle between faiths.  I endorse a nation where I know my faith can eventually win that battle, not because of what the nation does, but because of what I believe about my faith.

Happy Birthday America!  I am proud, grateful and happy to be among your citizens.

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Somethings require that one stretch beyond self-imposed limits.  This blog is not really about politics in general, but I just have to comment on Joe Biden yesterday.  If you have not heard, he wandered into a frozen custard shop in Wisconsin, asked for “ice cream,” was corrected and when he asked the owner how much he owed, the owner responded with “It’s on the house – just lower our taxes.”  Moments later, Biden’s “retort” (it hardly deserves that name) was “Why don’t you say something nice, instead of being a smart ass all the time.”  See the video here.

Most of the MSM reporting is trying to make this out as funny ha-ha, but its not, it reveals deeply the major flaws of this administration:

• a tendency to demand, rather than earn, respect
• an inability to listen to the voice of the people
• complete classlessness – a lot of trash talk

This nation simply deserves better.  When it comes to policy details, there is often little the POTUS can do – but one thing the person holding the job, and the VPOTUS should join him in, is set a national tone/mood – that is real leadership.  Often what makes people better in this world is not their circumstances, but themselves.  We cannot always control circumstances, but we can control our reactions to them.

If a nation reacts to circumstances with complaints. moans, self-absorption, and ill-temper little good can ever happen.  But, if the nation responds with humility, good humor and hard work, amazing things will happen.  History proves this out time and again.

And this, frankly, is where religion matters in politics.  Deep abiding faith, regardless of theological specifics, helps make people of humility, good-humor and industry.  These are character traits that it is very hard to develop without faith in a higher power.  What is truly sad to me is that when we get belligerent, nasty and discriminatory in politics over our theological differences, we are missing these essential character developing lessons of faith.

OK – enough preaching, sometimes it is just really hard to watch this administration treat people this way.  We deserve better.  Have a blessed Lord’s Day.

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