Friday Music Post - FFHAWDWM (plus links)

The week began with a debt ceiling agreement, and ended with...everything else:

I am sorry that I keep piling on Rick Perry, perhaps I am overcompensating for something (HuffPo): Rick Perry's College Transcript: A Lot Of Cs And Ds
Robert P. Jones (WaPo): Why Religion Will Matter in 2012
Mary Valle (Killing the Buddha): A blog post on odd religious categories
 
I highly recommend blasting this song as you drive on a warm summer night with all the windows open and perhaps your head sticking out the sunroof (PCG does not actually condone that sort of reckless driving).




-Tim

Captured Evangelicals

David Sehat:  [Billy] Graham shilled for Nixon during the 1968 campaign but consistently denied that he played a political role, even after he allowed Nixon to address a crusade in 1970. Deflecting criticism of the choice months later, Graham offered an explanation that betrayed either naivete or cynicism: “I wouldn’t think that you’d call the president political.”

Graham would have regrets after the Watergate scandal. He had thought that aligning himself with power would advance the evangelical cause. With the release of a partial transcript of the White House tapes, however, Graham was crushed. He said later that when he saw the real Nixon — profane, vindictive and petty — he “felt like a sheep led to the slaughter.” No presidential candidate ever addressed a Graham crusade again. Rehabilitating his image as a nonpartisan adviser to commanders in chief, Graham offered prayers at the inaugurations of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. “The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it,” he said in 1981.


I remember reading a book regarding the black vote in America, and how the interests of the African-American population were disregarded by the Democratic party they so overwhelmingly supported.  Despite being a huge voting block that could swing elections, Democrats could afford to look the other way because African-Americans had no where else to go.  They certainly weren't going to become Republicans, and did not want Republicans to be in power, so what else could they do but vote for Democrats?

I have been wondering for a while now if there is a similar phenomena going on with the Republican party and Evangelical Christians.  However, when I think about it, I am not really sure what the interests of Evangelical Christians are.  There are certainly moral causes, but presidents can only do so much in those arenas.  The article above discusses money that G.W. Bush promised to faith based organizations, so is it that?  Maybe something to do with Israel?  

God is Calling Me to Post This

What do politicians mean when they say that God has "called" them to do something (ie. Run for the presidency, vote on legislation, eat pie)?

Without a doubt this question can be extended outwards towards all Christians, but lets stick to politicians for a second.

I see the following possibilities:

1.  God literally spoke to them in some sort of sensuous (of the senses, not sexual...lets hope) manner, be it audible voice, a vision, writing on a wall, or through someone else who experienced one of those things.

2.  They had a feeling, akin to how one might feel anger when they see a mistreated puppy, and it motivated them to do something.  Something like, "I saw a picture of an aborted fetus and I felt God was calling me to become pro-life."  Perhaps we can say an emotional type calling.

3.  They have convictions based in philosophies they attribute to their particular faith.  This is the "God loves children, and so we are called to support child education" type.

4.  They attribute circumstances in their life to being divine, such as if the current legislator in one's district suddenly died in a freak planking accident and the party head asked them to run, God is calling them to run.

5. "There's a lot of different ways to be called. My mother may call me for dinner. My friends may call me for something. There are people calling from all across this country ... and saying, 'Man, we wish you would consider doing this,'"
- Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)

-Tim

Panic on the Streets

Ezra Klein: The political system that doesn't modernize and eventually finds its vulnerabilities exploited by interest-group pressure, internal divisions and reckless politicians? This is certainly the way of great nations. It’s the way they fall.


Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ? - The Smiths "Panic" (highly recommend watching this hilarious video of the Smiths)

Does anyone else find it ironic that conservative Christians, so ready to fight for the "founding principles" of our nation, so wanting to "reclaim" America for what it "was", so unwilling to change anything the founding fathers "wanted", often are the ones whose churches are so vastly different from the origins of the Christian church (Not that I have a problem with passionate guitar solos during worship time)?

And that its kind of the opposite for liberal Christians?

Either way, Ezra Klein paints a bleak picture for the future of this country behind the assertion that debt ceiling battles will become part of the norm.  And don't think for a second that the Democrats are above employing the same despicable tactics.  Politics is a sport, and success is always copied.

Three (Hypothetical) Terrorist Attacks

Three Terrorist Attacks I Worry About the Most: Jeffrey Goldberg:
The ambitious terrorist of this moment in history seeks not simply to kill large numbers of innocent people, or to terrify an even greater number of people. He seeks nothing less than to provoke the thing we have so far mainly been able to avoid: a clash of civilizations.


I was going to write this whole thing about the Book of Revelation, but it was terrible.  Just read the article please...it is fascinatingly disturbing!

Men Must Have Sex

Huffington Post: Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for health care as well as 
social mores.



"Viagra is used to help a medical condition, that's why its covered.  Birth control is not a medical condition, its a choice." - Bill O'Reilly

Have you ever seen a viagra commercial, where some older looking dude is hanging out with his wife at home, and they're doing something boring, and then all of a sudden they match eyes and get an "excited" look on their faces.  The wife is choosing to have sex. The man cannot help that his "medical condition" wants to "rise to the occasion" and engage in "sex". Thus he must take a pill.

The Myth of Progress: Debt Ceiling Compromise

Are we nearing an end to all this mind numbing debt ceiling business?  There are certainly a great number of things to read out there about how the deal currently being brokered is a win for Republicans, or a possible long term win for Obama and the Democrats, or blow to the progressive movement, or the best we could have gotten, etc. etc.  But if we take a step back and look at the wider picture here, certainly we can at least agree that something profoundly stupid has taken place in Washington, and it does not bode well for the future.

There used to be this great movement of progressive optimism, pushed in secular philosophical circles all the way to social gospel theologies, that believed humanity was on an inevitable march towards perfection.  From Hegel to Walter Rauschenbusch, the myth of progress was preached from the lectern to the pulpit.  For all that those like the rather dour looking Reinhold Niebuhr did to frown away this hope, for all that tragic events like multiple world wars and multiple genocides did to slap us back to reality, a great many number of progressives plastered back on that drunken smile after 2008's changing of the guard.

I can't believe its 2011 and junior House Republicans are steering the country like its a giant socialist, fat, debt bloated (ok this last ones true) pig towards something rather different than the perfect utopia where all light posts will be made of candy cane and police will only need to give out free hugs.

Maybe I am being dramatic here, and this is just a small John Boehner shaped bump on the road.  But, can you blame me?

Update:  I have since talked myself off this ledge.  This is not the end of the world, and there is still yet good in this world.

-Tim