Politics makes strange bedfellows - it's often the lure of money and power that does it.  I wonder what's doing it in this case.

Here's Dobson, a leading voice for "family values," still supporting men whose unsavory characters are on public display and whose personal and political actions have done much to damage our world's families and little to support or protect them.

[Crossposted from PublicChristian]

We visited the Tutankhamen exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago with my daughter and her family on Tuesday.  Of course the Field is awesome, and the Tut exhibitions are moving.

But I had two reactions that I've not had before, at least not so strongly, when studying antiquities.

The collapse of an evil regime does not make things right, though it DOES make great improvement much more possible.  

The sad testimony of history is that the collapse of an evil regime has often been only the beginning of times of real terror and chaos.  

So if a major Republican (neocon / dominionist) collapse is imminent - which may or may not be the case - it does not guarantee smooth sailing thereafter.  It does guarantee that a whole lot more effort will be required from those who love democracy or care about the better parts of the American dream.

[Any political theologians out there who'd like to comment on this?  I put it up a couple of weeks ago at PublicChristian.  There is at the bottom some discussion ... ]

My wife heard on the radio the other day that resistance to Bush is clearly "Satanic."  "Christian" radio is promoting some strange ideas, but this is one in particular to be very wary of.

We do need to judge spirits, but according to Jesus backwards judging of the spirits is very dangerous.  He says there is an unpardonable sin, and it has to do with mis-judging spirits - calling movements of the Good Spirit satanic.

[Published as a letter to the editor September 20, 2006.  Feel free to copy or otherwise use it if it seems appropriate.  We must keep speaking the truth into our culture however we can.]

I am a church person, a person of faith.  But I don't think the US needs a government that rules as if it were the voice of God.  This nation's Constitution was written partly in order to help us avoid theocracy.  

Theocrats claim to know just what God wants - therefore their decisions are in effect the very will of God.  And you WILL obey.

The Founders were wise to resist that.

I received an inquiry a few days ago from a "conservative, Christian Republican," asking for my take on things. The questions seem to spring from honest anguish about the intersection of Christian faith, public issues, and political partisanship.  I'm a publicly active Democrat, and sometimes a preacher, but a little anguish about the overlap of those roles does not seem inappropriate to me!

Here's the email.  My responses to issues the email brought up are in the boxed blockquotes.

First, as I say at the end, I appreciate the courage and courtesy it takes to write an email such as you have written. ...

Cross-posted at PublicChristian

I've been asking people around McCook (Southwest Nebraska) a question that varies in form, but today came out as "What are the top three issues you are concerned about, whether on the national-international level, state level, or local level?"  A majority of the people interviewed are registered Democrats.  But I did not "seed" the conversation with issues or ideas - I just asked the question.

[cross-posted at PublicChristian and Red Willow County Democrats]

It's been a kinda rough two weeks since Chelsea's surgery.  And, believe it or not, our internet access has been limited, so updates have been posted only over at http://www.publicchristian.com, not here.

But it's looking good.  "The Kid" seems to be doing well.  She has started eating again (rather vigorously! - a good thing) and showing other signs of returning to her old self.  She finally returned to her home in Grand Island, NE (Mosaic) on Monday evening.

Chelsea was named after a park.  Pretty cool, huh?  So, as with her park-namesake, her name is pronounced "Chelsa" - like Chelsea Park in Santa Monica, CA.

"Chelsea is broken," her brother said when they were both very young.

Prayer (with or without PD's asterisk) is clearly a big deal to many who visit here.  This little meditation, from a fairly traditional Christian perspective, was inspired as my wife Connie was reading to me the other night from the book quoted below.

[It will be cross-posted at PublicChristian soon.]

What moral consequences can we expect at home in the US when we continue to practice unjustified and indiscriminate violence against countries, cities, and families around the world?  What can we expect among the great masses of America if the rulers are self-indulgent, dishonest, violent, or exploitive towards their own citizens?

I don't know the dynamics in any detail, but I believe we should fully expect that corruption at the top will sooner or later breed violence and indifference locally in the cities and the neighborhoods - not only in the broader American economy or towards people in other nations.  

[Cross-posted from PublicChristian.com]

[The Bonhoeffer references are below the jump.  Connie and I first met Hahn in Omaha at a candidate training weekend last summer.  Turned out he and I were both re-reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy at the time.  And Hahn was the first donor to my legislative campaign. (That ended with a heart attack on Jan 1.  Sorry; don't mean to get morbid; I seem to be in good shape now.)]

Democrat David Hahn is not your typical candidate for governor.

So said the Omaha World Herald recently.  Seems to me we could use some untypical candidates.

Ask him about tax cuts, and the first thing he does is defend a government's right to tax.

Ask about abortion, and he doesn't dance around his belief that a woman has a right to choose.

He also isn't afraid to tangle with the religious right.

"I feel there has been too much push by one side in the religious area to make those of us who are pro-choice feel as if, or try to make us feel, that we can't be religious, believe in God or believe in Jesus, if we don't hold that view," he said.

"That's just wrong."

[cross-posted from PublicChristian]