Why Obama? Israel/Palestine

The New York Times reported today:

“Mr. Obama said that the capital of Israel should be Jerusalem, but added that the matter should be settled through a negotiation by the parties.

“ ‘That’s an issue that has to be dealt with by the parties involved, the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it is not the job of the United States to dictate the form in which that will take,’ Mr. Obama said, ‘but rather to support the efforts that are being made right now to resolve these very difficult issues that have a long history.’ ”

The U.S. can’t dictate, but we can support. Excellent!

Why Obama? Iraq timetable

The New York Times today:

“President Bush agreed to ‘a general time horizon’ for withdrawing American troops in Iraq, the White House announced Friday, in a concession that reflected both progress in stabilizing Iraq and the depth of political opposition to an open-ended military presence in Iraq and at home.”

In other words, Sen. Obama was right all along. Kudos again to the Illinois senator.

Why Obama? Afghanistan

The forgotten front fortunately is being remembered. This is APs characterization today of Sen. Obama’s position on Afganistan:

“Obama has made Afghanistan a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terrorism threats. The Illinois senator has said the war in Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants are resurgent, deserves more troops and more attention as opposed to the conflict in Iraq. Both Obama and his Republican rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, advocate sending more forces to the country.”

Excellent! The focus should have been on Afghanistan all along. Irag diverted our attention from the real task of fighting terrorism. Both Sens. Obama and McCain get it, but McCain made the shift as a follower of Obama–my words, of course, not his.

Why Obama?

I generally wait later in the election process to make my decision, but I’m pretty sure this time that I’m going with Barack Obama. Why? I’m not totally sure. Something is special about this man, and some things have changed inside me.

As for him, it’s not just how he speaks; it’s what he says. The stuff about change does not grab me at all. Change is neither good nor bad in and of itself. There is good change and there is bad change, and sometimes we can’t provide the proper anaylsis regarding the goodness or badness of a change until after some time has passed.

I do resonate with bringing hope to people who have little hope on the economic or social side of things. As a spiritual person, I find my greatest and most lasting hope beyond the realm of the political and believe that is where all genuine hope is found. But our government should provide a sense of hope within its realm of influence. We should have reason to hope that wars can be avoided if at all possible. We should have reason to hope that we can improve our personal or family economic position if we work hard and are frugal. We should have reason to hope that the judicial system will, in fact, be just. The most economically and socially deprived should, in the United States, be able to have hope in a better tomorrow.

And now about the change inside of me. I’m officially a Republican; I believe in individual freedom and in the importance of a free-market system. I also believe in government restraint; that it cannot solve every problem, that individual responsibility is important. That has not changed. But I also care deeply about the down and outs of society; I care because Jesus cared. I thought a “compassionate conservativism” could deliver on all fronts; I am now having my doubts. Caring for the least of these is more important than caring for the rich and richer.

Another thing also has happened; I’ve realized that my pro-life position isn’t being advanced by electing so-called pro-life candidates. I haven’t made abortion a trump issue in my choices, but it has been very important; and it hasn’t made any difference. I’ve sacrificed a lot of other caring and life-honoring positions in my desire to drastically limit abortions. It simply hasn’t mattered much, so it doesn’t make sense to make that the most important issue in making my choice of candidates. I’m still pro-life and believe a woman’s right to an abortion should be more severely limited in order to protect the rights of the child, especially those that have reached the stage of sustainable life.

So, enough said of a general sort. I recognize that I need to get specific about issues so that I can either better explain for support for Obama or change to support McCain.

Loving Gore’s challenge

“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.” — Al Gore, quoted in The New York Times

Mr. Gore is doing our political system a great service. He is standing apart from the campaign battle in order to raise broader issues. His latest challenge is commendable — to move the entire U.S. energy grid to a carbon-free approach in 10 years. Even supporters of the direction question the timetable, but it conveys the urgency of this need for change.

There are two basic challenges–technological and political. I suspect the latter is the bigger.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from The New York Times story that I loved:

Like a modern Jeremiah, Mr. Gore called down thunder to justify the spending of trillions of dollars to remake the American power system, a plan fraught with technological and political challenges that goes far beyond the changes recently debated in Congress and by world leaders.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” he said in a midday speech to a friendly crowd of mostly young supporters in Washington. “And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”

God comes to Arkansas

God is on Interstate 30 in southwest Arkansas tonight. Of course, He’s in other places, as well; but I met him in Arkansas.

We are driving south back to Texas. My wife is driving, and I’m now typing. The magic of an air card gives me Internet connection as we drive, although somewhat intermittently in Arkansa.

This encounter has been building. Let me work backwards.

About dark, my wife took over the driving, and I reclined in the passenger’s seat. Casting Crowns played in the stereo. As their CD “Lifesongs” came to the end, my wife said she wanted to listen again. Then the second song came up again, “Praise You in This Storm.” An hour earlier, when I was driving and it played, I told my wife that I would like this song played at my funeral; she said she wanted the same thing. The second time around, this song just grabbed me again. It always does; it’s just one of those songs that connects.

Now, let me go back a few of hours. After an afternoon of strolling around Memphis, we returned to our downtown hotel only to learn the car had been towed. It was complicated; but the hotel had parked it illegally but gave me the key. I tried to be kind but firm, and eventually they paid the $135 to get it out of the city pound. Frustrating, but not a freak-out time.

Back a little further, my youngest son and I sat at an outdoor table and enjoyed some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream after visiting the famous ducks at The Peabody. Several times he said how much fun he had with just the two of us spending time together.

Back another step, my son and I visited The Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The National Civil Rights Museum is attached. It reflects the history of African Americans in America–an excruciatingly sad and disturbing tale. The first part of the museum ends in the room adjacent to where Dr. King spent his last night. The wall between the two rooms has been replaced with glass. It’s like being a voyeur into the past of 40 years ago–the bed covers disturbed and used cigarettes snuffed out in an ashtray. To think back to what lay on the other side of the door–death–the end of one life, but the beginning of the impact of a martyr.

Back to the night before, a woman at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly spoke about ministry to prostitutes and strippers in Europe. She spoke of just loving them in the name of Christ and seeing how God touched them, healed them, changed them gradually, not always perfectly.

Back to the dinner before hosted by Associated Baptist Press and reminders of the impact for good of a free press in America, specifically in the civil rights movement. It made me proud that I had been a journalist, even though I no longer practice the art; and it reminded me of why I became a journalist in the first place. Kate Campbell sang an amazing song, “Freedom Train.” Moved; I was moved.

One more step back, I heard John Killinger speak about salvation. His view is not a common view among Baptists; it is a more open, freer way of understanding salvation.

Enough backward looking. It all built up in me, so that as God turned out the heavenly lights and my wife took the wheel of the car, I had time to think. I believe God told me something, but I’m going to sleep on it before I share it.

No, wait. I must give the nutshell now before new light scares the thought away.

I think conservative, so-called Bible-believing Christianity has gotten it all wrong, which means I have gotten it wrong for so long, way too long. I simply think real faith in Christ should produce more people who are really like Christ. It’s time to really get serious about loving God and loving people. And doing that, I suspect, is going to mean that I’m going to have to get more serious about putting Christ at the center of my faith and interpret all of the other parts of Scripture, including Paul, by what Christ said and did.

I need night to think; but there it is in a nutshell. Nothing drastic for me; but it is for me.

So long away

It has been so long since I have written. The busy-ness of life has taken over. I blog some as part of my job; and, as so often is the case, job takes over. It’s amazing to me that people still find things I wrote months ago and comment; I, however, have not been a good conversationalist. Maybe I can return.

Quote search – Worldview

Today’s topic: Worldview.

I have a number of quotes from one wonderful article in First Things journal, but I’ll share only one here:

“First Things means, first, that the first thing to be said about public life is that public life is not the first thing. First Things means, second, that there are first things, in the sense of first principles, for the right ordering of public life.” (Editors, “Putting First Things First,” First Things, Mach 2000, p. 11)

 

Quote search – Philosophy

Another quote search: Philosophy.

If you don’t know what this is about, look back a couple of entries.

Here’s what I have so far on Philosophy, and it even includes one of my own:

“I have at times feared philosophy, but I love it — what little I have dabbled in it. It is about knowing, and knowing can be scary, but it is also rewarding.” (Ferrell Foster, “Overwhelming Importance” blog, Sept. 6, 2006)

Philosophy “builds cathedrals before the workmen have moved a stone, and it destroys them before the elements have worn down their arches. It is the architect of the buildings of the spirit, and it is also their solvent: –and the spiritual precedes the material.” (Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925, pp. viii-ix)

Quote search – Spirituality

Same search as yesterday, just a different topic — Spirituality.

Here’s what I have so far:

“[T]he spiritual precedes the material.” (Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925, pp. ix)