Fresh from the New Hampshire Republican debate we have some of Governor Mike Huckabee’s comments on why we have to continue the surge in Iraq and why we can’t leave the country the way that Congressman Ron Paul wants us to:
We have to continue the surge. And let me explain why, Chris. When I was a little kid, if I went into a store with my mother, she had a simple rule for me. If I picked something off the shelf of the store and I broke it, I bought it.
I learned don’t pick something off the shelf I can’t afford to buy.
Well, what we did in Iraq, we essentially broke it. It’s our responsibility to do the best we can to try to fix it before we just turn away because something is at stake.
I should say this before I go on to say mean things about Governor Huckabee: I like him for the most part. I think he’s a nice guy who is probably genuine in what he says he believes and I think he probably loves his country, and clearly, he listened to his mother and all that.
But on the other hand, what does breaking something in a store and having to pay for it have to do with Iraq? We weren’t looking at Iraq and they slipped out of our hands. We weren’t playing with Iraq and let them fall to the floor. And does it mean that once we pay for it, we will own Iraq? Or does it?
No. Instead, we engaged in military action with Iraq based on the terms outlined in the cease-fire agreement from the 1991 Gulf War. We invaded their country and we overthrew their government. In other words, to try and use Governor Huckabee’s analogy, we were in a store and shopkeeper Hussein tried to kill us and in the ensuing battle we broke something. Do we still have to pay for it? And to who? The new shop keeper? The international police? Governor Huckabee’s mother? I have no idea. The real point I’m trying to make is not that the Iraq war was justified, but that the analogy is lame and just doesn’t work. We don’t need to try to make foreign policy by applying the Huckabee Customer Code of Conduct, we look at what happened and ask how we should respond righteously.
It gets worse, because he went on to say this:
Senator McCain made a great point, and let me make this clear. If there’s anybody on this stage that understands the word honor, I’ve got to say Senator McCain understands that word — (applause, cheers) — because he has given his country a sacrifice the rest of us don’t even comprehend. (Continued applause.)
And on this issue, when he says we can’t leave until we’ve left with honor, I 100 percent agree with him because, Congressman, whether or not we should have gone to Iraq is a discussion that historians can have, but we’re there. We bought it because we broke it. We’ve got a responsibility to the honor of this country and to the honor of every man and woman who has served in Iraq and ever served in our military to not leave them with anything less than the honor that they deserve.
What does this mean? I mean, I know what all the words mean, but what does it mean to not leave them with anything less than the honor that they deserve? Grammatically, the ‘them’ in the sentence refers to the troops, but what does this really mean when it comes to leaving Iraq? How can we know when we’ve fulfilled our honor to the Iraqis or to the troops? What is the criteria we should use so that we know when we’ve acted with sufficient honor? Do we ask Senator McCain? Do we ask presumably-then-President Huckabee? I have no idea.
But what scares me most of all about Governor Huckabee’s rhetoric is this statement:
…whether or not we should have gone to Iraq is a discussion that historians can have, but we’re there.
What Governor Huckabee is doing here is using the word “honor” as if it doesn’t matter that the word means different things to different people. He is using the word honor, in part because no one can object to being honorable. In many ways, he is like a 15 year old boy telling a girl he would like to bed that he “loves” her. They both hear the same word, but they think of very different things. A week later when he is no longer as infatuated, he will say quite sincerely, “It doesn’t matter that I loved you then, what matters is that I do not love you now.”
I would like to submit that we cannot determine how to act with honor unless we determine whether we went into Iraq rightfully or wrongfully. And while it is all well and good to say, “we’re there”, it is also necessary to ask how we got there, for no other reason than so we can properly answer the question of what we need to do now. It’s something that must be treated seriously.
You could say that our honor demands it.
Posted: September 7th, 2007
at 7:55pm by gymbrall
Tagged with Honor, Politics
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments: 3 comments
In the New Testament, the Greek word peirasmos, is the word that is typically used when we read the words “temptation”, “trial”, or “test”, and it is the idea of trying or testing that I think sums up the nature of temptation (the other aspect of being tempted, which is being drawn away by our lusts or desires, I still want to talk about, but that needs a whole post to itself). At this point you might be saying, “what’s the big deal, I’ve always thought about temptation this way. It’s a trial that we have to face, a time of difficulty, a test.” And you’re right in a way. But sometimes, the concepts that we hold about a word or an idea don’t translate as neatly as we think they do. Sometimes, they actually introduce contrary concepts into the mix.
Let me try to explain how it happened to me. You see, I always used to think of a trial in the courtroom sense, and while that works on a certain level, I would let the other aspects of a courtroom drama invade the way I thought about the word. The essence of a trial is that something is tried against a standard, in the same way something that looks like gold is tried to determine if it is, in fact, actual gold, or in the case of a courtroom, the way a defendant is tried against the law to determine how they stand in relationship to it.
To my mind, temptation functions much the same way. When we are tempted by our desire for something, we are tested against the law based on whether we attempt to achieve our desire in accordance with the law.
As an example, let’s take a look at the three clearly documented temptations of Christ: He was tempted to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger, he was tempted to take his rightful place as ruler of the world, and he was tempted to use his position as the Son of God to bring glory to himself. (If these descriptions sound odd to you, go back and re-read the text.)
With the stones to bread, I think there is little controversy. Christ was hungry from his fasting, but his time of fasting was not yet complete and/or it was not His Father’s will that he do miracles yet.
When Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world, Christ’s temptation was not to worship Satan, but rather the thing that he rightfully desired was to take his place as King of King and Lord of Lords. Worshipping Satan was the unlawful means that he was offered to bring it about.
When he was taken up onto the pinnacle of the temple, he was tempted to extricate himself from a physical location in a way that would bring glory to himself (think angles streaming down from heaven to catch him). The unlawful means that Satan offers Christ was to tempt (test - same Greek root word) God by putting God in a position where He would have to act to save Christ.
One last note that I’ll make in this post is that the things that Christ was tempted by were not evil, but were good things (feeding his hungry body, taking his rightful place as the King of the earth, and bringing himself glory.) It was only the unlawful means that Satan offered that would have been sin. For me, this ties right into Galatians 4:4
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law
What do you think?
Before we can get into the issue of answering whether Christ could sin or not, we need to do some groundwork. Specifically, we need to talk about temptation.
Let me start out by saying this: I think most Christians would agree with me that being tempted is not a sin in and of itself (if you hold that being tempted is sinful by nature, you need to be asking the question, “Since Christ sinned, what does that mean?”) Outside of that concession, opinions on temptation seem to vary quite a bit, both as to the mechanics of an actual instance of temptation and as to temptation’s overarching purpose.
So, I’d like open a dialogue about temptation. What is the purpose of temptation? What is temptation actually? What does Christ being tempted and never sinning tell us about Him? What does our failure in the face of temptation tell us about ourselves?
Anyone want to take a shot at it?
For the past several months, members of our church have been meeting on Sunday evenings to work our way through the Second London Baptist Confession. The format is pretty informal, with two of the elders leading the discussion and keeping things loosely on track and more importantly, orthodox (which is not to say that people can’t bring up completely unorthodox positions and try to prove them, but that the elders have a responsibility - as all Christians do - to make a reasoned defense of the faith)
Anyway, last week we were covering point three of chapter five and we got off on an interesting rabbit trail. The question was asked, “Could Christ have chosen to sin, and if not, does that mean that he was not tempted in every way that we are, and does that therefore mean that He can not identify with us and understand our position?”
One of the interesting side effects of having discussion like these is that you are very quickly made aware of how difficult it is to articulate anything, much less topics that depend on prior topics and concepts being defined. You also find that the very act of articulation changes the way you understand the subject.
So here’s what I’m proposing: I’ll let this sit until Thursday of this week, possibly longer if there is some activity, and I invite anyone and everyone to leave a comment describing their take on this subject. Be as brief or as verbose as you like. But understand something, saying what you mean so that someone else gets it is harder than you think. (Man, I hope that made sense.)
From an Associated Press article by Christopher Toothaker:
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting Venezuela will be expelled from the country … “How long are we going to allow a person _ from any country in the world _ to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program.
That’ll show ‘em who’s not a tyrant Hugo. That’ll show ‘em…
Posted: July 23rd, 2007
at 8:13pm by gymbrall
Tagged with News, Politics
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments: 1 comment
Over at Bittersweet Life, Ariel, who claims he was just thinking out loud, has churned out a quality post on free will, determinism, and prevenient grace. You should go read it. Right now.
Are you still reading this? Sheesh…
Last week I wrote a bit about free will and now I want to do so a little more. Specifically, I want to talk about the nature of choice.
Choice is a tricky beast, partly because it is a holistic process. The Nature vs Nurture camps can debate all they want but as far as I’m concerned the issue is settled, neither nature nor nurture can be said to reign supreme in shaping our lives (though Proverbs 22:6 does give a big nod to the effectiveness of appropriate nurture). We are as far as I can tell composite creatures, shaped by father Adam’s sin and the sin of our immediate fathers, shaped by upbringing, by knowledge and by experience, by things both physical and spiritual. We are shaped by all of these things, and coupled with the specific circumstances from moment to moment we approach every decision in our lives. And we do not possess the ability to separate these things from who we are and how we choose.
The problem is, if you accept this, then God must walk a very careful line of interacting with us, lest He tip our scales one way or another. In fact, if one were to take this seriously, the list of areas where God would not be allowed to exert His will would be incredibly large. And if He did choose to act, He would have to nudge us back towards perdition every time He did something that pushed us in the direction of redemption, lest He be accused of making our choices for us.
And this leads us to the problem of understanding the nature of choosing. How much chance has to exist that a person will choose either option for it to be properly called a choice? We know that all decisions aren’t 50/50. We know that there are many days that given the choice to live or die (and don’t we almost always have that option) there would be no thought involved, our choice is already made. “But I could have chosen death,” you say, “if I had really wanted to.” But isn’t that part of a choice? Yes, we choose what we want, but many little somethings have gone into making us into the sort of person that wants some specific thing. And how many of those little somethings bear the mark of the work of God? None? One or two? All of them?
I’m not trying to say there is no such thing as free will. I’m trying to say that we have defined it in such a way that it cannot exist with a God who wants to do any specific thing. It cannot co-exist the way we have defined it with a passage such as Romans 9.
Does that make sense?
Free will can be defined in a number of different ways, but lately the definition that I hear most often goes something like this:
Free will is the ability of a man (or woman) to choose what he will do or what he will believe, and while certain situations may limit the number of options he has at any given time (for instance, all men can not choose to be able to dunk a ball, or fly an airplane), there must always be at least two options (one of which may be the choice to do nothing at all).
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I do not agree with this definition. To those who do hold to this definition I would like to ask the following question:
From where in Scripture is this line of thinking about free will derived?
I will freely acknowledge that Scripture talks about choice, but it doesn’t define choice in such a way that each person must always have two options. When God called Abraham there was no requirement that the possibility of Abraham saying no existed, and it is not obvious from the text that God chose Abraham because God knew Abraham would obey. If anything it makes more sense to say that Abraham obeyed God because God chose him.
Any takers?
If you haven’t been to Wikipedia and read their article on Ron Paul, you should do so, right now. This guy is sharp, he’s humble, and he is according to both his own party members as well as his political opponents, an excellent example of what a congressman should be.
Some of the things that stood out to me about Ron Paul:
- He is strongly pro life (something very few presidential candidates can claim in this election)
- He has never voted for a tax increase.
- He has never voted for a congressional pay raise.
- He does not participate in the Congressional pension (calling it immoral).
- He sometimes spends three to four days a week in his district addressing constituents’ concerns, often accompanied by one of his 17 grandchildren.
- Paul’s Congressional office returns money to the government each year; in 2000, the sum returned was $50,000
So, if you haven’t done so, it may be time for you to take a look at Ron Paul, because he’s running for President, and so far, he has my vote.
“If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow and made it ready.” —Psalm 7:12.
How many of us are like men who see their faces in a mirror, and then walk away and forget what we look like! Yes! My friends, it is not your promise of repentance that can save you; it is not your vow, it is not your solemn declaration, it is not the tear that is dried more easily than the dew-drop by the sun, it is not the momentary emotion of the heart which constitutes a real turning to God. There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin, and a turning to righteousness in real act and deed in every-day life. Would you say you are sorry, and repent, and yet go on from day to day, just as you always have before? Will you now bow your heads, and say, “Lord, I repent,” and in a little while commit the same acts of sin again? If you do, your repentance is worse than nothing, and will make your punishment yet more sure; for he that makes a promise to his Maker, and does not keep his promise, has committed another sin, in that he has attempted to deceive the Almighty, and lie to the God that made him. Repentance to be true, to be evangelical, must be a repentance which really affects our outward behavior.
Repentance to be true must be total. How many will say, “Lord, I will give up this sin and this other one; but there are certain favorite lusts which I must hang on to.” O friends, in God’s name let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin, nor fifty sins, which is true repentance; it is the serious giving up of every sin. If you conceal one of these accursed vipers in your heart, then your repentance is nothing but a fake. If you indulge in only one lust, and give up every other, then that one lust, like one leak in a ship, will sink your soul. It is not sufficient just to give up your outward sins; it is not enough just to give up the most wicked sin of your daily life; it is all or nothing which God demands. “Repent.” And when he commands you to repent, he means repent of all your sins, otherwise he never can accept your repentance as being real and genuine. The truly repentant person hates all of their sins, not just certain ones. He says, “Cover yourself with the finest gold, O sin, I will still hate you! Yes, cover yourself with pleasure, make yourself flashy, like the snake with its turquoise scales—I still hate you, for I know your venom, and I run from you, even when you come to me in the most illusive clothing.” All sin must be given up, or else you will never have Christ: all evil must be renounced, or else the gates of heaven must be locked to keep you out forever. Let us remember, then, that for repentance to be sincere it must be total repentance.
REV. C.H. SPURGEON - Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 7, 1856, by the at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. [Courtesy of GalatiansC4V16]
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