Old Pope, New Pope

From the January-February 2013 issue of Forerunner.

When Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation from the papacy, very few had seen it coming. The Bavarian pope cited his declining health as the main reason for leaving his office, stating, "I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry." Many knew that the 85-year-old pontiff's health had deteriorated of late, but no Vatican observer ever thought that he would step down—especially because no pope had resigned from office since 1415, when Gregory XII ended his nine-year papacy. Benedict XVI's voluntary resignation is only the third such resignation in the nearly 2,000 years since Roman bishops have ruled the Catholic Church. 

Despite few anticipating such a move, The Economist reports in a February 16, 2013, article, "The Pope's Resignation: See You Later":

Benedict had been toying with resignation for almost four years. Visiting the earthquake-stricken Italian city of L'Aquila in 2009, he left his pallium, the woollen band that is a symbol of the papal office, at the tomb of Celestine V, a reluctant pope who resigned [in 1294] to pray. In 2010 he said that a pope who became unable to do his job properly "has the right, and in some circumstances even the duty, to resign."

And so he did, retiring initially to the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo, and later, once its renovations are completed, to the newly refurbished Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican.

Considered by many in the media as far too conservative and boring, Benedict's papacy has been reported as having been a failure. The truth is that, overall, his pontificate was quite successful. He steadfastly defended Catholic doctrine, as would be expected from the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (known historically as the Inquisition), the Church's doctrinal enforcement agency. He preserved his office and Church against the relativistic and progressive attitudes and ideas that so dominate today's world. Though the Vatican suffered a handful of scandals during his administration, Benedict did not allow them to soften his beliefs or approach. His holding the line against such staunch opposition obviously took its toll on his health and strength.

He has been succeeded by 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the son of Italian immigrants. The new pope, the first Jesuit to wear the papal mitre, chose the name "Francis" in honor of Francis of Assisi because, he said, he is especially concerned for the welfare of the poor. Of Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio once expressed, "He brought to Christianity an idea of poverty against the luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time. He changed history." His admiration for the founder of the Franciscan Order may portend how he will frame his papacy.

By all accounts, Pope Francis is a mild-mannered, soft-spoken man of the people who is known for his sense of humor. He has "a well-earned reputation for holiness and humility," as one writer for Maclean's put it. In the dozen years that he was head of the Catholic Church in Argentina, he never lived in the ecclesiastical mansion but shared an apartment in downtown Buenos Aires with an elderly priest, heating the place with a small stove. He took public transportation and cooked his own meals. He regularly visited the city's slums and washed the feet of the poor, the sick, the elderly, or the imprisoned every Maundy Thursday. In 2011, he did this for newborns and pregnant women.

As his papacy begins, he has not changed his habits in this regard. He has a "no frills" style that endears him to the public yet exasperates his Vatican handlers. Just after being elected, he chose to take the bus with his fellow cardinals back to his hotel rather than the papal car, and the next day, he picked up his own luggage and paid the bill himself. He has refused to take up residence in the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, preferring to live in the Vatican guest house, though he has conceded to an "upgrade," a suite of rooms where he can conduct meetings and receive visitors. On his first Maundy Thursday as pope, he continued his practice of footwashing, washing and kissing the feet of twelve juvenile offenders in Rome.

His easy, gentle manner could make some underestimate him. Underneath his plain white cassock and iron cross is a forceful personality that brooks no argument on the tenets of his heartfelt positions. He is solidly in the conservative wing of Roman Catholic theologians, as a disciple of John Paul II and fellow of Benedict XVI. Though holding traditional views on most doctrines, he cannot be said to be a hardliner in the sense that his predecessor was thought to be. His sermons and writings often contain language that makes fine distinctions between theological dogma and measured, merciful responses in light of living in a sinful world.

One of his heartfelt positions—one that could bring him into conflict with certain parts of the Western world—is his left-leaning criticism of global capitalism, calling it a "tyranny" that values human beings solely by the goods they consume and a "cult of money" that makes people miserable. Believing that unbridled capitalism has exacerbated poverty and led to the disregard of ethics, he advocates more stringent controls over financial markets. 

What his papacy accomplishes only time will tell. Despite rumors of its decline, the Catholic Church, 1.2 billion strong, is still a force to be reckoned with, especially in Europe, Africa, and particularly in Latin America, where more than two-fifths of its adherents live. There are already a few signs that this new pope may flex the Vatican's political muscles more than the old pope did—if only in his insistence that Catholics need to live out their faith in the world—and that could make for some interesting times ahead.

Past the Tipping Point

Every four years here in the United States, we hold a national election that is billed by many as "the most important election in the history of this country." It is often framed in black-and-white terms: good versus evil, the end of our Republic, a vote for individual freedom, a titanic battle of worldviews, a triumphant return to Constitutional America, the death or salvation of "the land of the free," and so forth. In most cases, such descriptions are so much hyperbole, red-meat marketing phrases guaranteed to rev up each party's base of supporters. Usually, however, the election is not truly quite so epochal. The electorate's choice is typically between two fairly similar candidates, one politically slightly right of center and the other slightly left of center.

When previous campaign seasons have not gone their way, those who believe that America is special among the world's nations—the common usage speaks of "American exceptionalism"—have always consoled themselves with the belief that the country is still basically Christian and conservative. The pundits describe the country as still having a "silent majority" of God-fearing, fiscally cautious citizens who comprise the backbone of the nation. When the more conservative candidate stumbled, supporters could be heard to say, "He may not have won, but we are still a right-of-center country."

Not anymore.

On Wednesday morning, after surveying President Obama's electoral victory over challenger Mitt Romney, conservative author and political commentator Jedediah Bila tweeted to her followers: "I always hear ‘We are a center-right country.' No. A center-right country does not elect Barack Obama twice. Time to re-evaluate." On her blog, she expanded the thought:

Would a center-right country re-elect the man who ushered in massive government overreach into the health care system? Would a center-right country welcome an Obama Doctrine that reeks of weakness on the international stage? Would a center-right country embrace class warfare rhetoric and redistribution of wealth? Not in my book.

We can look at the famous Red-Blue County Map of the nation's voting preferences and see that, except for a seeming handful of blue (Democrat-majority) counties, the country appears mostly Republican red. This seems convincing and reassuring until the map is overlaid with population density statistics, and then the truth becomes clear: Many of the blue areas are urban centers, and others are concentrations of minorities that traditionally vote Democrat. As one blogger put it, the Red-Blue Map "fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election." (The Electoral Vote Cartogram also shows this.) When looked at this way, America appears to be a majority left-of-center country.

What does "left-of-center" mean? The simple Left-Right political spectrum is a gauge of several attitudes toward government. Historically, Rightists have supported traditional governmental structures (thus the conservative moniker), while Leftists have felt free to try new ways of governing (thus, the progressive label). The most common American view is that those on the Left—liberals—favor big government and more governmental control and largess, while those on the Right—conservatives—prefer smaller government in all areas of life. More important to Christians is the fact that most traditional Christians and their denominations have aligned themselves with conservative principles, whereas secularists, evolutionists, and atheists mostly support liberal views.

Since true Christians do not involve themselves in the politics of this world, one might think that the ascendance of American liberalism should matter little to us, that we can continue to practice our beliefs just as well in a left-of-center nation as in a right-of-center one. But that would be naïve. Such a view ignores the lessons of history—both recent and biblical. When a nation goes past the tipping point of morality and upholding Christian principles, the angle of decent quickly steepens and recovery becomes nearly impossible.

Why? The answer appears in the selfish disposition of base human nature combined with the law of inertia, which simply put is that "an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Human nature, desirous of self-satisfaction, will do everything it can to keep the "unbalanced force" from correcting its course. People who reject God and His Word consider themselves to have thrown off the chains of His demanding way of life and think of themselves as "free" (see Romans 8:7). God observes in Jeremiah 5:31 that people do not want to be corrected but love deceit so they can continue in their sins, and Jesus agrees, saying in John 3:19 that "men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

In other words, human nature, influenced by Satan the Devil and his hatred of God and of good, has an inbuilt resistance to repentance. People tend not to like to reform. The repentance of Nineveh was a rare and marvelous exception, as Jonah's astonished reaction attests. God speaks of this reluctance to return to righteousness in Jeremiah 8:4-6:

Thus says the LORD: "Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?' Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle."

Thus, America's lurch to the political Left is tangible evidence of her moral and religious decline. She no longer teeters on the fulcrum, indecisive, faltering between two opinions (I Kings 18:21), but she has chosen to follow her own counsel and continue to ease God and traditional morality from the culture. In the coming years, Christians can expect to find themselves increasingly marginalized and ridiculed for holding "antiquated beliefs." Religious exemptions may well begin to disappear. If the United States follows Europe's lead, among other consequences, churches will empty, religious voices will be ignored, fewer will marry, abortions will rise and even wanted children will be scarce, euthanasia will be seen as a practical option, and ultimately, life will cheapen. The decline of Western civilization, built on the foundation of Christian values, will have successfully leaped the Atlantic.

To those who have been watching it closely, the nation's trend toward liberalism has been evident for many years, but the recent election may have confirmed it as permanent and irreversible. If that is the case, the promised curses will not be long in coming (see Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). It is time to make sure that God finds us faithful.

*Recovering Civility

A session of the British Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, can be almost hilarious. Speakers there are frequently interrupted with hissing, booing, and other forms of caustic disagreement, but through it all a kind of strange (and hypocritical) courtesy exists between the MPs. One of them might thoroughly demolish another's ideas, crushing his proposals with sledgehammer blows of ridicule, all the while calling him "our Distinguished Colleague" or "the Learned Gentleman." It is a strange mixture of courtesy and near-hatred.

In America, we have something similar in talk radio. Depending on the host, the atmosphere ranges from amiable to vicious. Every once in a while, even on the normally placid shows, someone calls in with venom dripping from his or her voice, and a verbal melee ensues. If the two sides were in a ring, it would be a death-match. On talk radio, everybody hates something and feels the need to vent it in public. It is refreshing to hear the rare caller who respectfully pitches his side of the argument and then takes his leave to let someone else have a turn.

And of course, we are thankfully near the end of another mudslinging political campaign. Politicians drag the country through the muck and the mire every election, something they have done for more than two centuries. They always begin by declaring to campaign cleanly and only on the issues, and it always ends up that they really focus on the other candidate's determination to take away Grandma's retirement or to sell the nation down the river. The electorate often chooses the candidate with the lesser amount of mud still sticking to him.

Such incivility filters down to all levels of society. When was the last time you heard a kid other than your own say, "Yes, ma'am," or, "No, sir"? When was the last time you saw a young person give up his place in line or his seat to an older person? When was the last time you noticed a young person not sullen or disrespectful to any authority figure like a policeman?

The April 26, 1996, issue of US News and World Report published a cover story by John Marks titled "The American Uncivil War: How crude, rude, and obnoxious behavior has replaced good manners and why it hurts our politics and culture." It featured a then-recent poll that revealed that 90% of Americans thought incivility was a serious problem, and almost half considered it extremely serious, "evidence of a profound social breakdown." The article continues:

More than ninety percent of those polled believe that it contributes to the increase of violence in the country; eighty-five percent believe that it divides the national community; and the same number see it as eroding healthy values like respect for others. 

Talk to Americans, and a picture emerges of a nation addicted to the pleasures of an unruly society with emphasis on individual expression, flouting convention, and its free vent of emotion, but shocked at the effect of this unruliness. Americans feel embattled in their personal and professional lives by a rising tide of nastiness. 

Says Martin Marti, a philosopher of religion who has written on this subject, "The alternative to civility is first incivility and then war."

It is good to remember the principle that if a thing happens in the world, it will eventually find its way into the church. Human nature will find a way to rear its ugly head. Living in the culture day by day, we find it difficult not to absorb its attitudes and behaviors and begin to practice them. We have to be especially concerned about this in terms of our children, who often encounter the world in full force at the nation's godless school and on the playground.

The apostle Paul calls these evil attitudes and behaviors "works of the flesh," listing a number of them in Galatians 5:19-21:

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

We will cull out five of those mentioned in verse 20: hatred, contentions, outbursts of wrath, dissensions, and heresies. A few short explanations from commentator William Barclay in The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians will help us grasp what kind of attitudes these are.

He writes, "The idea [of 'hatred'] is that of a man who is characteristically hostile to his fellow men; it is the precise opposite of the Christian virtue of love for the brethren." Hatred, then, is the exact counterpart of philadelphia love, love of the brethren. It is 180° removed from what God wants us to show in our lives. How can we love God if we hate one another (I John 4:20)?

"Contention" or "variance" (KJV), Barclay says, "more commonly . . . means the rivalry which has found its outcome in quarrellings and wrangling." It is competitive arguing, fighting another verbally to prove who is best. It is quarreling to win, to have the last word. Such contention occurs on talk radio every day, and sometimes our doctrinal "discussions" mimic it.

On "outbursts of wrath," which could be translated as "uncontrolled temper," he comments, "The word Paul uses means bursts of temper. It describes not an anger which lasts but anger that flames out and then dies." Normally placid individuals can be provoked to explode in fury and live to regret what their lack of self-control produced.

Of "dissensions" or "seditions" (KJV), Barclay says, "Literally the word means a standing apart. . . . Dissension describes a society . . . where the members fly apart instead of coming together." This word portrays a person who goes off on his own because he holds a different opinion than the group does. In this way, the group, community, or church fragments. Sound familiar?

Finally, Barclay writes, "[Heresies] might be described as crystallized dissension. . . . The tragedy of life is that people who hold different views very often finish up by disliking, not each others' views, but each other. It should be possible to differ with a man and yet remain friends." Unfortunately, "crystallized dissension" is the state of the church right now. One member will never again talk to another because they no longer agree on some point of doctrine. So we see many factions and a hardened and unbending party spirit. It is like the Hatfield-McCoy feud where the positions have concretized to the point that little chance of reconciliation remains.

These carnal behaviors reside at the roots of our society's incivility, creating the division and disunity that are hallmarks of our time. As II Corinthians 13:5 advises, we need to ask ourselves if, in the press of our daily battles, we have allowed some of these fleshly works to creep into our lives. A little more civility could go a long way in restoring unity among God's people.

The False Morality of Compassion

Flipping channels on Wednesday night during a commercial break in the Giants-Cowboys football game, I landed on the local PBS station that was airing the speeches from the Democratic National Convention here in Charlotte. Former President Bill Clinton had just begun to give his long nomination speech:

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own." 

Who's right? . . . 

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty, and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure, and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

On the surface, this sounds good, and the delegates on the floor of the convention hall loved it. His words skewered the Republicans and at the same time reconfirmed their own political beliefs. In effect, the former President was saying that members of his party hold the moral high ground because their policies help the poor and disadvantaged and lift everyone up equally. As the more compassionate of the two parties, he implied, the Democrats have the answers to humanity's problems that will last the test of time.

Perhaps that is overstating what he meant, but he and the Democrats certainly believe that they are more compassionate than and thus morally superior to cold-hearted Republicans. As some of the campaign ads imply, Mitt Romney and his supporters want nothing more than to do away with all welfare, push Grandma and her wheelchair over a cliff, pollute America's air and water, force everyone to own a gun, and unleash unfettered greed on the nation. While these are, of course, exaggerations, they illustrate the vast gulf that many Democrats see between themselves and their rivals across the party divide.

Seeing this "compassion deficit" in the image of the Republican Party, George W. Bush and his Republican cohorts in the 2000 Presidential election coined the term "compassionate conservatism" to spotlight the fact that people on the right care too. Unfortunately, this led President Bush to compromise on several social issues, particularly education and prescription drug legislation, to prove that he and his party had soft hearts. Democrats vilified them anyway, and many conservatives threw up their hands in dismay at the undermining of their principles. Vestiges of "compassionate conservatism" still linger in the thinking of the leadership of the Republican Party, which has contributed to the rise of the Tea Party.

It is apparent that this crude dichotomy remains in people's perceptions of the two parties. Because of their advocacy of minority rights, welfare, universal healthcare, amnesty, labor unions, choice, and the like, Democrats are considered to be more compassionate than Republicans are. However, as Christians, we need to realize that compassion is not an inviolable virtue—and in fact, it is difficult to think of any virtue that cannot be abused by impure motives. Just as love can be feigned to get a spouse's money or loyalty can be faked to attain a promotion, so can compassion be put on to gain sympathy, votes, and power.

Unless a person has a heart of stone, he will feel compassion for those who are suffering, and that emotional reaction often fuels a helpful response in the form of aid, much like the Good Samaritan had compassion on the man who was wounded by thieves on the road to Jericho (Luke 10:30-37). He saw the man in his plight, sympathized with him, and selflessly cared for him at his own expense. Jesus shows that we should "go and do likewise" (verse 37), as such compassion is the mark of a true Christian. We see compassion similarly encouraged in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where the righteous sheep help those in need, expecting no reward (Matthew 25:31-46).

It is instructive to see Jesus showing compassion in the few times it is mentioned in the gospels. The first appears in Mark 1:41, where He, "moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched [a leper], and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.'" Another time, recorded in Luke 7:13, He feels compassion for a widow who had just lost her only son, and He raises him from the dead. In Matthew 20:34, He has compassion on two blind men and heals them. Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus had compassion on the multitude that had followed Him "because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd" (Matthew 9:36; see Mark 6:34). He also has compassion on multitudes because they had nothing left to eat (Matthew 15:32; Mark 8:2) and because many of them needed healing (Matthew 14:14).

In each of these cases, Jesus shows compassion for people whose circumstances had reached a point of dire need, and they had no ability to help themselves. He then performs a miracle that alleviates the problem. Notice, however, that, like the Good Samaritan, He asks for nothing for Himself, except perhaps that they keep the miracle to themselves. He has little or nothing to gain by helping them—and in fact, His miracles could draw the unwanted attention of the authorities—but He helps them anyway out of outgoing concern. His compassion has no ulterior motive except to draw them closer to God.

Jesus was not a politician; He never demanded a quid pro quo. True compassion, as He practiced it, is an outpouring of agape love, a selfless concern for the ultimate well-being of another expressed in sacrificial action in the other's behalf. His compassion for humanity went so far that He gave His life for us "while we were still sinners," unworthy of aid as His enemies (Romans 5:8, 10). His compassion for our weakness and suffering will ultimately lead to our eternal life in His Kingdom, for when He expresses His love for us, it never ends (I Corinthians 13:8).

Examining Christ's true empathy beside the contrived compassion of America's political parties exposes the latter as mercenary, trite, and false. Neither party has any moral high ground to stand on because both use it to curry favor and attract votes, not to solve endemic problems. As the psalmist writes, "Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. . . . Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help" (Psalm 146:3, 5).

RBV: Psalm 146:3

"Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help."

—Psalm 146:3

The psalmist's advice in this verse is an oft-repeated notion throughout Scripture. Psalm 118:8-9 reads, "It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes." Jeremiah 17:5 puts it even more bluntly, "Thus says the LORD: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD.'" 

This is the essential understanding of this verse: Human beings, compared to God, are fundamentally untrustworthy. While people must be trusted from time to time in everyday life, in the most important matters, however, we cannot afford to lean on the broken crutch of human aid. Ultimately, we are bound to be disappointed because people—even the most well-intentioned—will fail us.

There are several reasons for this. First, people are weak; even the most powerful of men are limited in what they can do. Unlike God, they do not have sovereign control over people, nations, nature, or time. Their limitations make them inconsistent, unable to help when it is needed most.

Second, men are mortal. Several of the other scriptures that warn us not to put our trust other human beings mention that people are here today and gone tomorrow. For instance, Psalm 62:9 tells us, "Surely men of low degree are a vapor, men of high degree are a lie; if they are weighed on the scales,
they are altogether lighter than vapor." And of course, the verse after our subject verse reads, "His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish" (Psalm 146:4). Because men live and die so quickly, they  lack both the wisdom and the perspective to be trusted on the "big questions" of life. Only God has the eternal knowledge and experience to give us right help and answers we need.

Finally, human beings are unreliable. They blow hot and cold, as it were. They have self-interests that sometimes align with our own and at other times do not. Princes—leaders—especially, do not have our best interests in mind, as they have, not only personal desires, but also political goals to pursue. God, however, though the greatest Leader in the universe, always does what is best for us. Moreover, He is always faithful to what He has promised (I Corinthians 1:9), so if we go to Him and ask Him for help that He has pledged to us, He will give it.

This verse gives us good advice. We would do well to heed it.

Religion in Politics

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In the past few weeks, two significant events have transformed the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. First has been the surge in popularity of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee into the top tier of candidates. Various polls show him gaining substantially on the party's frontrunners, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Huckabee now appears to have secured a strong second-place ranking in Iowa, where he must score big to have any chance in later primaries. Huckabee, it must be mentioned, is an ordained Baptist minister. He frankly admits that his faith influences his policy decisions.

The second event of consequence was the December 6 speech by Romney at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, in which he answered his critics on the subject of his Mormon beliefs. Essentially, he argued that, while confessing the Mormon creed, he is still a Christian, saying, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." However, should he be elected, he said, "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. . . . I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."

He reminded his listeners of the fact that many of the Founders of this nation were religious men and that they enshrined religious principles into our founding documents. Despite their memberships in various denominations, they were patriots first, fighting for America's well-being. Romney promised that he would strive to follow their example: "A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States." The former Bay State governor cited the example of another politician from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, who "explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President. Like him, I am an American running for President."

In an era of mounting secularism, it is intriguing that religion has become such an integral part of the election debate. Members of the American Civil Liberties Union and other anti-Christian groups—their hopes firmly placed in the more secular Democrat candidates—must be beside themselves in frustration at the resurgence of matters of faith into the national discourse. Should an ordained minister like Huckabee attain the Oval Office, their fears of a fanatical religious takeover of America will reach hysterical proportions: the atheistic version of "the end is near!"

Nevertheless, true Christians should not take this religious turn of events as a sign of American revival. Despite their claims of piety, these two Republican candidates are not knights on white horses to the rescue. Romney, for instance, is a Mitt-come-lately to the conservative cause, having made a number of reversals in his stances on homosexual rights, abortion, and stem-cell research and more recently, on gun-ownership and the environment. His position on illegal immigrants is also seen to be hypocritical, having hired undocumented workers as landscapers at the Governor's Mansion. He is at best a Northeastern moderate running as a conservative.

Huckabee is no better. While he tends to agree with social conservatives on abortion and homosexuality, he is extremely soft on illegal immigration, having consistently supported giving benefits to illegals and their children, while opposing restrictions on them. He is also known as a tax-and-spend governor. The conservative Club for Growth writes of him: "His history includes numerous tax hikes, ballooning government spending, and increased regulation." In Arkansas, as Romney did in Massachusetts, he has governed as a moderate at best, though he talks about Jesus a great deal.

As this column has mentioned before, the Church of the Great God is apolitical, which means we do not become involved in the political process. We do not endorse political candidates or parties, nor do we lobby government on political issues. However, we often comment about politics from a biblical point of view because political trends eventually effect societal change. It is the church's job to be society's watchman and warn the people of coming destruction, whether internally or externally generated (Ezekiel 33:1-11). And while it may seem strange that we should caution people about this trend of including religion in politics, it is necessary.

We cannot for a minute discount the decades-long shift toward secularism in our culture, thinking that the tide has been stemmed and reversed at last. Nor can we forget that these men are vying for the nomination to the highest office in the land, the office with the most political power in the whole world—they would say or do anything to make themselves more electable. Finally, we should not diminish the fact that these men need the voting power of the Religious Right to catapult them to the nomination and the Presidency beyond.

Call me skeptical, but these men are playing the "religion card," which they believe may be their ace in the hole. It is an old ploy, using religion to gain temporal power. Our radar should beep like crazy when it appears on the horizon. What they are doing is not far removed from the behavior of the Pharisees in Jesus' day, and He castigated them for their hypocrisy (see Matthew 23). The truth and the true prophets of God were in mortal danger when they held the reins of power (see Matthew 23:13, 15, 27-35). History proves that religion and politics do not often mix well, as one corrupts the other with delusions of power.

It is indeed true that "when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan" (Proverbs 29:2). However, a religious person is not necessarily a righteous person, especially when so much is at stake. Americans would do well to discern the difference.

The Truth About Earmarks

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If we have heard or watched the news over the past two years or so, it is likely we have caught the word "earmark" in a reporter's mouth at some point. A strange word, certainly, but an earmark is not all that difficult to define once we get beyond its purposely obscure label. Originally, an earmark was just that: a mark made on an animal's ear to identify its owner. Yet, the word's etymology has only a slight connection to its political and financial usage today.

Congress' own definition, a quintessence of legalese, obscures the meaning even further:

"[C]ongressional earmark" means a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator providing, authorizing or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive award process.

The generic definition is far clearer: "funds specified or set aside for a particular purpose." Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to direct appropriations of money drawn from the treasury, including earmarking funds to be spent on specific projects. A member of Congress can use earmarks to take credit for funneling federal monies toward a project in his district. Committee chairs make use of earmarks to negotiate the passage of favored bills or to reward support for them. Another advantage of earmarking is that earmarked funds bypass normal government-agency regulations, and thus they reach their recipients sooner and bound with less red tape. One can see why they are so popular.

The latest furor over earmarks began with the so-called Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere." In 2005, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, a Republican, earmarked $223 million to build a bridge from a town of less than 9,000 to an island inhabited by only fifty people, saving these constituents a short ferry ride. Due to the controversy, the earmark was removed, but the money still went to the Alaskan government, which may still use it for the same purpose.

Earmarking is not a sin of one party or another. Also in 2005, Democrat Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii earmarked $574 million for his home state, which is a paltry amount in comparison to the year's total earmarks of $19 billion, which was divvied among 13,496 approved requests, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. (However, the Congressional Research Service says there were 15,877 earmarks for all federal appropriations, totaling $47.4 billion, a significant disparity that may be explained by the use of different definitions of the term.) In 2005, when Republicans had the majority, 35,000 requests for appropriations were made in the House, and by mid-year 2007, 32,000 earmark requests had yet to be considered under the Democrats' control. Obviously, the party in power has the advantage in earmarking, but this does not hinder the minority party from requesting and using earmarks to get what it wants. Earmarking is an equal opportunity practice.

Earlier this year, both houses of Congress passed bills to bring modern fiscal earmarking closer to its agricultural roots. Recall that farmers or ranchers used physical marks on an animal's ear to identify it as theirs. Now congresspersons must attach their names to their earmarks and certify that they have no financial interest in the measure. The law requires members of Congress to own up to their pork!

Earmarks are a touchy political issue. First of all, neither party wants to touch earmarking because doing so would, , eliminate an individual politician's ability to "bring home the bacon" for his district, making reelection more difficult. Second, restricting earmarks would diminish the majority party's arsenal of power-politics weaponry. Thirdly, despite stating that they receive no financial benefits from their earmarks—and perhaps they personally do not receive any—their families often do. In his "Evans-Novak Political Report" on July 25, 2007, Robert Novak exposes the dirty little secret:

In fact, family members of senators and congressmen from both parties and in all regions of the country have for years benefited directly from the "Washington economy" of lobbying firms and government contractors, many of which would not even exist without the infusions of taxpayer money that earmarks provide each year. . . . This has never been considered improper, but few Americans know that a very small number of Washington-connected families negotiate, appropriate and benefit from large expenditures of taxpayer money on a small number of companies through the earmarking process.

Hence the reluctance on the part of most members of Congress to support any kind of earmark reform. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican, is probably fighting a losing battle to make earmarking more transparent, as even his party leadership has decided to let him go it alone. DeMint wants full identification and disclosure of spending requests, the detailed posting of earmarks on the Internet, and the elimination of secret committee earmarks that cannot be challenged in open session. His party leaders, however, are willing to let Democrats—who want these restrictions no more than Republicans do—take the public heat for failing to pass meaningful reform legislation.

What is earmarking then? It is legal plundering of the public treasury for both public and private purposes, a kind of above-the-board payola that Congressmen and –women can use at their discretion to remain in office and to fund their pet projects. As Novak writes, "This has never been considered improper," but only because the Constitution "allows" it and everyone does it. The morality or ethicality of the way this Congressional power is used is rarely discussed.

Scottish jurist and historian Alexander Fraser Tytler is credited with observing:

A democracy . . . can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

This, along with God's promise of coming with a rod against those who gain "treasures of wickedness" (Micah 6:9-16), should brace us for a tumultuous future.

The Dark Side of Government

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The federal government just did the state of North Carolina a big favor. Over the past couple of years, it investigated, indicted, tried, and convicted the former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, Jim Black, a Democrat from the Charlotte area, on federal corruption charges. He has been sentenced to serve 63 months in federal prison and to pay a $50,000 fine. It seems that Mr. Black, an optometrist by trade, had taken several under-the-restaurant-table payments totaling $29,000 from chiropractors to move favorable legislation through the House. Many observers of North Carolina state politics believe that he was caught for only one among many instances of political skullduggery.

Black—oh, the irony of that name!—had been top dog in the House for four terms, giving him a tight hold on legislation for many years. Being a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat, he relentlessly moved North Carolina law toward the Left in just about every area from education to environment. He was also responsible for ramroding the state "education" lottery through the political process—and not without considerable controversy, as at least one pro-lottery lobbyist linked to Black has already been convicted of criminal monkey-business during that fight—after North Carolina had steadily resisted it on principle for many years. He was also implicated in shenanigans involving video poker.

He was a slick politician. A few terms ago, Republicans gained a two-vote majority in the North Carolina House, and for all intents and purposes, it appeared as if the tenure of Black as Speaker was over. But after a few weeks of public wrangling and backroom deals involving $50,000, a legislative job, and a representative switching parties, Black was suddenly back in the saddle, having arranged an unprecedented "co-speakership" with the leading Republican, and in the House it was business as usual. As new information comes out, it seems that this was generally how he operated when something he wanted done needed doing.

It is amazing to consider how he kept getting re-elected, when the general area of his district in southern Mecklenburg County has been fairly conservative in outlook. A look at the map of North Carolina House districts shows that his district 100 looks somewhat gerrymandered, especially in contrast to the districts around it. Whether it is gerrymandered or not to benefit him, his district returned him to Raleigh term after term because he brought home the bacon, as it were. Black was much-loved in the Charlotte area, particularly by the city's powers that be, because he routed to Charlotte-Mecklenburg state money and projects that would have likely gone to eastern North Carolina, as is traditional here. Somehow, he was a lock for re-election every time a vote came around.

All very interesting, right? As a quick chronicle of a corrupt political career, perhaps it is. However, the broader question that comes to mind is, "How many more Jim Blacks exist in the other forty-nine states and in the federal government?" Put another way, "Does Jim Black represent the way government works across the whole country?" Political corruption investigations and trials make the news often enough across the nation to persuade a person that crooked politicians outnumber honest ones. Or, perhaps we should not look at numbers but at the balance of power, and if that is the criterion, we can probably conclude that corrupt leaders hold more sway in this country than respectable ones. Call me cynical.

It starts at the top. With few exceptions, every U.S. President since at least John F. Kennedy has been embroiled in scandal and controversy. Two have been impeached. Several have had close aides or acquaintances serve time in jail. Even Ronald Reagan, hero of the conservative Right, was tainted by the Iran-Contra Affair. The present Chief Executive and his Vice President have had to face almost constant allegations of abuse of power in matters from detaining enemy combatants to firing federal prosecutors. So far, nothing criminal has been proven, but very few Americans think that their hands are completely clean. Many people believe, in fact, that no one can ascend that high in American politics without dirtying his or her hands.

Congress gets no better marks. Whether the charge is sexual impropriety, drunk driving, or bribery, Senators and Representatives are called on the carpet with stunning regularity. They openly trade pork projects costing millions or billions of dollars for votes on important legislation. It all begins with lying to the American people during their campaigns, and when they get to Congress, they follow the money. State and local politics are no different, as we have seen.

Government is a game of power and money, and frankly, it always has been. The corruption in politics that we see splashed on our television screens today is little different from what screamed in the headlines of yesteryear's newspapers. Corruption is a product of unbridled human nature, and it has marred every form of government—and possibly every government—in human history. Even the early New Testament church had its problems with fraud and bribery (see Acts 5 and 8)!

Whether corruption in government is increasing or not is hard to say. It certainly seems that it is, but such a perception might simply be a result of greater media coverage. Yet, it is a fact of human existence that we have to expect. It is the rule rather than the exception because the nature of humanity begins as a blank slate, but it is more often than not overwritten with the graffiti of the Three Big Pulls: the flesh, the world, and the Devil (Romans 8:7; I John 2:15-17; Revelation 12:9). A politician—and really, any person—trying to resist them alone fights a losing battle.

As Christians, what can we do? Within this system, very little or nothing. We have been called out of this world and made citizens of a perfect government (I Peter 2:9; Philippians 3:20). Our job now is, as the apostle Paul puts it, "to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called" (Ephesians 4:1). In other words, we have to scrub our slate clean of any corruption that still clings to it, and to conduct ourselves as spotless examples of Christian virtue. In the world to come, we are promised to be involved in the government of God (Revelation 5:10; 20:4). Then, glorified Christians will show the world how government can be done on the level.

What's Best for America?

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Not long ago, President George W. Bush made one of the most elitist, most egotistical statements in modern American political history. On Tuesday, May 19, 2007, speaking at the nation's largest law-enforcement training center in Glynco, Georgia, he said, "Those determined to find fault with this [immigration] bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like. If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it." Essentially, he equated opposition to his and Ted Kennedy's immigration bill to wanting to destroy America.

Observers of the recent American political scene have been witnesses to many examples of such "I [or we] know better" rhetoric coming from politicians lately. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not informing us about the need for ethics reform in government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is giving us a good scolding about what is best for the United States in Iraq. Senator Trent Lott recently opined, "Talk radio is running the country, and we have to do something about that problem." And not too long thereafter, a gaggle of politicians—most of whom are admittedly left-of-center—decided that what this country needs in order to do what is best for America is to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, the law that supposedly grants "equal time" to opposing political beliefs.

Beyond the particulars of any political opinion is the underlying philosophy of the politician or citizen. Usually, with a little bit of rumination on a person's stance on an issue, one can deduce at least the outline of his or her philosophy. The philosophy itself, rather than a person's various positions on issues, is more determinative of his ideas about what is best for America. Figure out a politician's philosophy, and his aims become plain.

For instance, how about George Bush and his immigration policies? What do we know about him? What drives him? We can tick off a few points that help us to understand his position:

• He is a political blue blood, that is, his family is among America's political elite and has been since at least the Hoover Administration.
• His family is wealthy, having made its money in West Texas oil and other subsequent ventures. He and his Vice President Dick Cheney have many close ties to Big Business, to the point that they have been accused numerous times of allowing business interests to shape their policies exclusively.
• His father's politics were centrist rather than conservative, and though George W. Bush ran his political campaigns as a "compassionate conservative," he has governed very much like his centrist father. His foreign policy, overshadowed by the Iraq War and the War on Terror, has been resolutely pro-American, but his domestic policies have earned the praise of liberal Democrats.
• His career has been guided by Karl Rove, a political genius whose main idea has been to expand the Republican Party into a "big tent," that is, able to include many ideas and diverse types of people and thus expand the voter base. "Compassionate conservatism" was an idea designed to change the perception of the Republican Party from hard-line conservative, in the Ronald Reagan mode, to welcoming and sympathetic, which, frankly, is the façade of none other than former President Bill Clinton, who made such an "I feel your pain" image work twice.
• As a former governor of Texas, and having grown up in a state with a large Hispanic population, he seems to have a soft spot in his heart for their "plight."

From these few points, we can begin to understand his pro-amnesty stance. First, he thinks he knows better what is best for America because he and his family have been part of the machinery of government for nearly a hundred years. As average Americans, we do not have either the perspective or the experience to make an informed decision on such a momentous issue.

Second, developed nations everywhere are crying out for laborers, and we have a ready pool of cheap labor aching to come here and work. What businessman would not leap at such a gift?

Third, his domestic policies tell us that he believes the socialist lie that America is a tossed salad, a diverse, multicultural nation that can only be enhanced by the addition of millions of immigrants. Is that not how America became great—by the influx of millions of immigrants? So he argues that America should open its arms wide to admit this new wave from the south to enrich its culture with its vigor and dreams.

Fourth, he hopes that, in gratitude for his compassionate stand on this issue, many of these new citizens will register to vote as Republicans, giving the next generation of Bush protégés a leg up in their future elections.

Finally, he can return to Texas as a hero of Anglo-Hispanic relations after his second term, build his presidential library at the University of Texas, and become the kingmaker of the Republican Party for the next few decades. Perhaps my analysis is a bit cynical on this point, but it cannot be too far off the mark in terms of his aspirations. As for reality, the bill's defeat this week makes such a fantasy coming true less likely.

What is best for America? In terms of Constitutional government, exactly what happened this week. The Congressional switchboard had to be shut down because it was receiving too many calls from concerned citizens. Talk radio was wall-to-wall talk on the immigration issue. Pundits and bloggers all gave their opinions. The will of the people became clear, despite the machinations of politicians to ram their destructive bill through. As Abraham Lincoln said, the American government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, for the people"—not of, by, and for politicians and their elitist cabals.

Of course, what is best for America would be for all Americans to turn to the God of the Bible and begin to follow His ways (Ezekiel 33:10-11). If only they would!

The Haditha Non-Story

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A year and a half ago, the bloodbath at Haditha, a city in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar, was big news. The major media outlets in the United States and worldwide reported that on November 19, 2005, Marines from the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians in retaliation for the killing of a comrade, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, by an improvised explosive device (IED). When the military's account of the fighting did not match media reports, which accused the Marines of wantonly massacring unarmed civilians—and even killing some execution-style—the Marine Corps opened an investigation, ultimately charging eight Marines with crimes, four of them with unpremeditated murder.

From media reporting, it sounded an awful lot like a My Lai-style atrocity. A company of soldiers, angered by the death of a respected brother-in-arms, goes rogue, taking its revenge on innocent villagers, killing until its bullets are spent and no one remains to be killed.

But not so fast.

Now that sober investigations have been done and pre-trial hearings have taken place, it seems that the media was once again horribly wrong. In fact, in the media's rush to judgment on these Marines, the reporters got the story backwards. The Marines were doing their jobs in accordance with the rules of war, while Iraqi insurgents used civilians as human shields, letting them suffer for the insurgents' terrorism. The situation is reminiscent of a wise proverb of Solomon: "The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17).

A more accurate account runs as follows: Intelligence gathered before the day in question pointed to an insurgent ambush of the Marines in Haditha. Two facts were certain: About twenty insurgents would participate in the ambush, and a white car was to play a major part in the attack. As the company rolled into the area, an IED exploded near a Humvee, killing Terrazas and seriously wounding at least one other Marine, Lance Corporal James Crossan. Due to the intelligence, the Marines were ready for such an occurrence and quickly went on the offensive.

A white Opal taxi skidded to a stop on the Marines' left, which was exposed to attack, and five men jumped out, and seeing that the Marines already deployed, turned to flee. The ambush had failed to surprise its targets. Sergeant Frank Wuterich and Sergeant Sanick P. Dela Cruz ordered the fleeing men to stop, and when they did not, the Marines opened fire, killing them. It was later discovered that four of these five men were known insurgents.

Shortly afterward, Lieutenant William T. Kallop arrived on the scene, and the Marines began receiving small arms fire from a nearby house, into which a known insurgent was seen to run. Kallop ordered the company to take the house. The remaining nineteen victims were killed when soldiers used grenades and automatic rifles on the house and the two houses adjacent to it. To a civilian, this may seem excessive, but Marines are trained to "clear a house" in this manner. Four of the dead in the houses were later identified to be known insurgents. Other insurgents fled from the rear of the houses.

It is true that the initial military report on the incident was misleading, as it said that fifteen Iraqis had been killed by the IED. As details began to be amassed, this report was soon proved to be wrong. For instance, a gruesome video soon turned up, supposedly showing the atrocity in all its gore. It was shot, wrote Tim McGirk of Time magazine in March 2006, by a "budding journalism student," later learned to be 43-year-old Taher Thabet al-Hadithi, the head of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring. This group has members across Iraq, two of which, al-Hadithi and Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, had been held for five months in the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison as insurgents or insurgent-sympathizers. Al-Hadithi was shooting film that day and in that place because Iraqi insurgents routinely film their ambushes and terrorist acts for propaganda purposes. It was later learned that the initial intelligence on the ambush had been intercepted from cell phone calls between al-Hadithi and al-Mashhadani.

Reporters also took the word of local Iraqis at face value. A nine-year-old boy told a story of the cold-blooded murder of his grandfather and grandmother, but his claims of Marines entering the house and killing his grandparents at close range do not accord with what is now known. In addition, a local doctor said that the 24 bodies brought to his hospital that evening did not contain shrapnel wounds, as the Marines claimed, but many of them had been shot in the head and chest at close range. However, the walls and ceilings of the houses were filled with shrapnel from the Marines' grenades, so his testimony is untrustworthy. No official reports on the state of the victims' bodies has yet been made public.

We must also recall the political environment surrounding the Haditha "Massacre." By November 2005, it was clear that the U.S. military would be in Iraq for an extended period, and support for the war at home was eroding. The President's political opponents were gearing up for an all-out assault on his Iraq policy in order to win the 2006 congressional elections. They had many willing accomplices in the media—in fact, it has just been reported that journalists support Democrat and liberal causes over Republican or conservative causes by a 9-to-1 margin. Thus, a "massacre" by Bush's Marines was just what the doctor ordered.

What can we learn from this? Simply, and unfortunately, we cannot trust what we are being told by the media. Or, at best, as Ronald Reagan said so famously regarding the Cold War's weapon's treaties with the Soviet Union, we should "trust but verify" what they report. This is especially true in "breaking news" stories. Not all the facts are known as an event occurs, and sometimes, as in this case, not for months or years later. In The Merchant of Venice, one of William Shakespeare's characters says, ". . . at the length truth will out." In other words, we should not be too hasty in judgment, which often cause a person subsequently to make serious errors, but we need to let the truth speak for itself as it becomes known over time.

A Day of Inconvenient Truths

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Former presidential candidate and senator from Tennessee, Albert Gore, Jr., spent the first half of 2006 jet setting throughout the United States and Europe to tout his new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In it, he proclaimed the end of the world as we know it, but despite his Bible Belt origins, his apocalyptic vision does not include even a whiff of biblical prophecy. He is a proponent of sudden, disastrous, worldwide climate change due to global warming, the kind imagined in another recent movie, The Day After Tomorrow. So, any day now—perhaps even as soon as this coming Sunday—everyone north of the Tropic of Cancer or thereabouts will either be frozen solid or huddled, shivering and blue, in their own custom igloos.

The irony of the Gore movie's title is delicious, right alongside Bill "The Gambler" Bennett's Book of Virtues and the late Sam Walton's Made in America. An Inconvenient Truth purports to marshal the facts on global warming and predicts the dire consequences of ignoring them. Yet, the movie itself turns a blind eye to the mounds of scientific evidence that contradict its premise. They are themselves rather inconvenient.

For instance, the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels has written two well-documented books, The Satanic Gases and Meltdown, both of which conclusively explain that, while there has been some increase in global temperatures over the past few decades, the warming trend has been quite gradual and natural—and certainly will not produce catastrophic results. In fact, temperatures rose much more rapidly in the decades before 1940, and there were no adverse effects then. Michaels' offerings are just a few of the many books and studies published in the last few years to balance the environmentalist left's Chicken Little scenario.

That is exactly what it is: a fake crisis, based loosely on debatable science, promoted to advance a political agenda. As Michael Crichton explained in his book, State of Fear, movers and shakers of all stripes have learned that manufacturing crises, producing doubt and fear in the populace, opens the electorate to suggestion and manipulation. Although these influential members of society and advocacy groups assert the truth is on their side, they really care little about it. Their first rule is "the ends justify the means."

In the past few weeks, another issue has moved forward in the face of inconvenient facts. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, a Democrat and soon-to-be powerful House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, has pledged to introduce a bill to reinstate involuntary conscription to the U.S. military—the draft. The crisis he has created, along with willing abettors in the mainstream media, is that of class warfare. He claims that the poor and disadvantaged comprise a disproportional percentage of the armed forces. In other words, the wealthy and elite in this country do not contribute their fair share to the nation's defense in terms of manpower.

What are the inconvenient truths that Rangel ignores? The Heritage Foundation's Dr. Tim Kane has engaged in an exhaustive study of the composition of U.S. military recruits since 1999. He and his associates have found that Representative Rangel has reached the exact opposite conclusion to the facts. For instance, Kane's "Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005" relates:

The current findings show that the demographic characteristics of volunteers have continued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. . . . Those who have been so quick to suggest that today's wartime recruits represent lesser quality, lower standards, or lower class should be expected [to] make an airtight case. Instead, they have cited selective evidence, which is balanced by a much clearer set of evidence showing improving troop quality.

. . . For example, it is commonly claimed that the military relies on recruits from poorer neighborhoods because the wealthy will not risk death in war. This claim has been advanced without any rigorous evidence. Our review of Pentagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005. . . .

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) support the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers. (Emphasis ours.)

What is Representative Rangel up to? How can he ignore such obvious facts? He is advancing a political agenda to punish the wealthy and privileged, as he imagines them, and to extort money and benefits for his poor and downtrodden constituents, as they are only in his own mind. Stripped of all its rhetoric, his proposal is sheer socialism, arbitrarily redistributing wealth and advantage to those who have shown no inclination to earn it for themselves. But then, socialists have never let the truth weigh them down.

As Christians, as keepers of the Ten Commandments, we are bound to the truth. Whatever kind of truth it is—religious, scientific, political, social, financial—we must give it its due regard. Yet, we live in a nation—in a world—in which the pursuit and respect for truth is waning and almost gone. God says through Jeremiah: "'And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,' says the LORD" (Jeremiah 9:3).

But we do know Him, and we have a responsibility to "buy the truth, and sell it not" (Proverbs 23:23, KJV). As liars and deceivers increase (II Timothy 3:13), we must be on the lookout for those who press on with their agendas despite the inconvenient truths of reality. No good end will come on those whose lives are built on lies.

What If ... ?

Over the past year I have read three books by science fiction author Harry Turtledove. He is well known in science fiction circles as the current master of the alternate history novel. For example, in one book, Gunpowder Empire, he tells the story, set in our modern world, of life under a Roman Empire that never declined and fell. In another, Ruled Britannia, he sets out a scenario for Elizabethan England conquered by the Spanish Armada. In a third, The Guns of the South, he ponders just what might have happened if the Confederacy had been victorious in the Civil War. They make for interesting, if not escapist, reading.

As we watch historic events take place, it is easy to fall into the habit of wondering, "What if. . . ?" What if the Soviet Union had invaded Western Europe after Berlin fell during World War II? What if Douglas MacArthur had gotten his way in Korea? What if John F. Kennedy had not been struck down by an assassin's bullet? What if Richard Nixon had played things square and fair? What if American forces had won in Vietnam? What if Jimmy Carter's botched rescue attempt during the Iranian Hostage Crisis had instead been successful? What if Ronald Reagan had been killed by John Hinckley? What if Gorbachev had not torn down the Berlin Wall? What if Bill Clinton had responded with force to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center? What if Al Gore's chads had given him the presidency in 2000? What if Iraq's Republican Guard had put up a real fight against the Coalition of the Willing? What if, what if, what if!

The mainstream media is portraying the 2006 midterm elections as a historical event of like proportions to those just mentioned. They are treating it as a world-changing event, the likes of which we have never experienced in our lifetimes. It is the second American Revolution! It means sweeping change for America! The Iraq quagmire will be solved! The world will love the United States again!

Does it mean these things? Hardly. Let's not be oversold. But what if the Republicans had not lost?

Most of us have heard the expression, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the parties." This is not really true. There is a great deal of difference between the parties, as one covers the vast expanse of the far-left to the center of the political spectrum, while the other holds the equally vast far-right to the center. In other words, the parties are two very large tents, within which are wide-ranging differences in ideology and approach. For instance, the Republican tent includes not just anti-sodomy evangelicals, but also Log Cabin Republicans, a group of homosexuals who support the party's fiscal policies. In the same way, the Democrat party houses both patriotic American soldiers and anti-war zealots. Looked at this way, it is a too general statement to say that Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative.

However, each party has a solid base, and it is here that the labels "liberal" and "conservative" can be applied to Democrats and Republicans respectively. On the Democrat side, the liberal base supplies the party with its bread-and-butter issues: minority rights, entitlements, increasing taxes, multiculturalism, cutting military spending, and the like. For Republicans, the conservative base calls for a strong military, reining in federal spending, smaller government, reducing taxes, privatization of Social Security and health care, strong foreign policy, etc. These general aims bob to the surface in just about every election.

One would think that, all things being equal, if a politician would support all the major ideals of his party's base, he would garner plenty of votes to win whatever office he desired. The problem is that not all things are equal. Essentially, each party's base matches the other party's base, but the great mass of people on either side of those bases is large enough to swing an election either way. Ergo, a politician will have difficulty winning, especially a national election, by clinging to the principles of his party's base. In other words, he must campaign as a moderate, a centrist, while giving lip-service to his base. This strategy has worked splendidly for every winning Presidential candidate since the 1988 election.

So, what if the Republican party had managed to hold on to both the House and the Senate on Tuesday? From this perspective, very little would have changed. Only a few true conservative Congressmen and women were voted out of office, and very few truly liberal ones were voted in. In essence, there was an exchange of moderates in our nation's most august chambers, the only difference being a few more blue jerseys than red ones. At least one pundit at a major news organization has speculated that in order to win, Democrats had to run more conservative candidates to beat sitting Republicans, thus Congress may actually be more conservative now than before! However, the Congressional leadership is almost entirely liberal, so the legislation that will come up before both Houses will likely reflect liberal ideology.

In effect, the American people voted for the status quo but with a liberal lean, whereas before it was canted conservatively. Unless a major crisis ensues, this should not produce too great of an effect on American culture and morality over the next two years due to the almost certain gridlock that will overcome Washington under a narrow Democratic majority and lame duck George W. Bush.

The real prize, the 2008 Presidential election, will more clearly indicate America's course. We can expect the winning candidate to run as a moderate, castigating his or her opponent for extreme ideas that will spell the ruin of this great nation. The electorate will vote for the candidate who promises them more of the center of the road—in other words, not a leader but a place-holder after what they consider to have been a reckless, controversial "cowboy" regime. While that may seem to be the safe way to go, they will not consider that a person sitting in the middle of the road is in danger of being hit from either or both sides.

Bible prophecy, of course, says nothing specific about American political events. However, it does say that, as the day of the Lord looms, "the remnant of Joseph" (Amos 5:15) has a terrible problem with seeking false religion, injustice, corruption, over-taxation, and "mighty sins." God's advice is, "Seek the LORD and live" (verse 6), a call to return to godliness and truth. He does not say, "Vote Republican!" or "Vote Democrat!" but "Repair your relationship with Me!" Elections mean nothing but decline and ruin if the people of this land neglect their obligations to the One who made them and rules them from heaven.

What if Americans actually took God's advice . . . ?