This is a blog post I drafted in my mind back during the heat of the Republican primaries. It was more timely then than now. And it’s almost certain to offend more people than it pleases. So naturally, here I go . . .

There has been much speculation about how Evangelicals voters will respond to the nomination of Mitt Romney–a Mormon. Will the enthusiasm and support Republican nominees usually enjoy from Evangelicals be dampened with a Mormon at the top of the ticket? Will a critical percentage of them simply stay home on election day?

Four years ago when Mitt Romney was battling John McCain for the nomination, much was made of a survey which indicated that a majority of evangelical Christians would not vote for a Mormon candidate for president. Of course, that was before they  experienced three years of “Christian” Obama–the most pro-abortion, pro-union, anti-capitalist, arguably anti-American president in our nation’s history.

Perhaps that’s why recent surveys reveal evangelicals are warming up to the idea of voting for a Mormon–a man with whom they share a lot of common values if not a common faith. Nevertheless, some still consider the prospect alarming, as this new book by my old friend and co-author Stephen Mansfield testifies.

Some Food for Thought for My Brethren with Mormon Qualms

I hear some of my fellow evangelicals declare that they can’t vote for a Mormon because Mormons believe weird stuff . . . stuff that’s not in the Bible . . . stuff we evangelicals view as heretical. I’ve heard more than one crack about “holy underwear” in the White House.

But hold on . . . Here’s the thought that frequently occurred to me during the heat of the Republican primary.

Romney’s two principle challengers were Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich–both Roman Catholics. From a strictly evangelical perspective, don’t Roman Catholics believe a lot of weird stuff? Stuff that’s not in the standard evangelical Bible? Stuff that we Protestants at one time viewed as so heretical that rivers of blood were shed for the freedom to dissent.

We could play a game. Name a bizarro Mormon doctrine and I’ll name an equally bizarre Catholic one. I’ll see your magic underwear and raise you a transubstantiation. I’ll see your Golden Tablets and raise you a papal infallibility or a perpetual virginity of Mary.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not calling for evangelical avoidance of Catholic candidates. On the contrary, I think the support many evangelicals gave Rick Santorum was appropriate and reasonable.

I’m saying I’m puzzled by evangelicals who can think nothing of voting for Rick Santorum but recoil at the thought of voting for Mitt Romney.

I personally am less interested in a candidate’s personal faith than I am his political philosophy and the policies he or she will pursue if elected.

Frankly, some of the worst and most disastrous presidents we’ve had over the last five decades were church-going Protestant Christians:

• LBJ (Disciples of Christ)
• Richard Nixon (Quaker)
• Jimmy Carter (Southern Baptist)
• Bill Clinton (Southern Baptist)
• Barack Obama (United Church of Christ)

Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, was initially viewed with a lot of wariness by evangelicals because he “never went to church.” I don’t think the country can survive many more church-going presidents like Carter or Obama.

Follow your own conscience. But as for me and my house, we’ll vote for the most conservative electable candidate irrespective of what he believes about God or underwear.

Not a Nickel’s Worth of Difference?

Of course there are those who contend it doesn’t matter which party’s candidate get’s elected in November. That there’s “not a nickel’s worth of difference between them.” I usually hear this assertion from my friends who have classified all candidates for president into two groups:

1. Candidates who are named Ron Paul
2. Candidates not named Ron Paul and who are therefore statist, globalist, insufficiently libertarian and evil.

From these friends I hear that the Candidate-Not-Named-Ron-Paul will still allow the country to drift in a statist direction–if admittedly less severely than Obama will shove it. (And trust me, if Obama is reelected, his second term will make his first look like his right-wing phase.)

I’m sorry, but the argument that if Car A will take you toward a cliff at 80 miles per hour and Car B will take you toward the same cliff at 35 miles per hour, it doesn’t really matter which car you climb into strikes me as a ridiculous one.

So, come November, I’ll be casting my vote for Romney. And I’ll feel great about it.

About a year ago I wrote a couple of ranty blog posts about the way husbands and fathers are portrayed in television commercials.  These:

Madison Avenue’s Go-To Guy – The Clueless Husband/Father

More on Doofus Dad/Hapless Husband

As Providence would have it, these posts came to the attention of Joshua Levs, a writer for CNN, working on a piece for CNN.com centered on that very topic. He shot me an email asking if he could interview me for the piece. I agreed. And a few days ago it published:

No more dumb old dad: Changing the bumbling father stereotype

I was a little nervous about the angle the piece would take (it being CNN and all) but I thought Levs produced a very good, very fair piece of journalism.

Sadly, the advertising industry’s lazy habit of defaulting to the Doofus Dad/Hapless Husband schtick shows no signs of diminishing. The most recent example that has my wife and I rolling our eyes is the Valspar paint spot in which the standard “all-knowing, all-wise, ever-patient” wife asks the standard “bewildered” husband to grab a magenta paint chip from rack at the home improvement store.

It didn’t make it into the CNN article but one question I was asked by the author was, “What’s the harm?” In other words, why should we be alarmed or dismayed about this trend?

My response was, “The issue isn’t whether this trend of pandering to women by disparaging men creates a specific harm. The interesting question is what the trend reveals about us as a culture.” I contend that a culture that happily holds fatherhood, husband-hood up for consistent ridicule and mockery is a culture in trouble.

Finishing the most recent book project meant I could finally take a weekend to run up to the hills of southeastern Oklahoma and check in on my mom.

It’s been more than a year-and-a-half since dad passed away so she usually has a healthy “honey do” list for me on those too-rare occasions I can visit. This was no exception. In fact, two nights before I arrived a thunderstorm knocked down a large tree behind the house.

A chainsaw was borrowed and the fallen tree was dispatched.

My Life Offers Me Far Too Few Opportunities to Wield a Chainsaw

The demise of the tree above is good news for the tree it was crowding–a peach tree that was so laden with fruit this last weekend that several of the branches were bowing nearly to ground level.

Peachy

Went to church with mom on Sunday morning. It’s the same small sanctuary I attended between the ages of 5 and 18. The aisle I walked at the age of eight looks the same. The same pews are in place. Only the upholstery color has changed.

My best friend from high school is now the Music Minister/Associate Pastor there. He has succeeded in introducing a few touches of modern worship to the place. They still sing the old hymns but now instead of turning to Hymn #245 in the Baptist Hymnal, the words are projected onto a screen. And a few classic praise choruses have been gingerly inserted into the song service. Nothing too radical or current. But progress is progress in this corner of Oklahoma.

After a long, dry period of blog neglect my good intentions here are to now resume regular posting (providing the work crew currently resurfacing the road to hell doesn’t need my good intentions for paving material.)

Pretty much all of my discretionary hours over the last nine months have been wholly owned by a book project. As you may know, I took a real job back in January of ’11 because I and my family were in the habit of eating and not sleeping in cardboard boxes beneath overpasses. That pushed book writing into nights, weekends,

This book isn’t one of mine. It’s another of my “ghost” projects. This will bring the number of published books I’ve written or edited for other people over the last 18 years to “34.” That’s not quite two books per year for not quite two decades–but there have been some years recently in which I wrote four books. Of the previous 33 books, three have made the New York Times non-fiction list. And precisely two have contained acknowledgement with my name in it.

I’m not complaining. That’s the deal with ghostwriting. Ghosts are supposed to be invisible. It’s in the job description.

Of course, those years of cranking out a book every three or four months were those in which I didn’t have a fulltime, 8-5 job. I was self-employed or freelancing. This book I just finished last week was begun last September and was supposed to be  complete by the end of December. That’s right. I was supposed to submit the manuscript almost five months ago.

Blessedly, I had a profoundly patient client and publisher. The whole ordeal made it abundantly clear that books are not going to be a part of my life for the foreseeable future.

In any event, I now have a significant chunk of my life back so blogging will recommence, along with exercise, recreational reading, date nights with my bride and other evidences of having a life.

Stay tuned.

Recently came across this promotional poster for the Avengers . . .

I’m looking forward to the move. So much so that it might actually get me to darken the door of a movie theater–a rare occurrence. But something bothered me about the rendering of Thor in this image. He didn’t quite look like the actor in the Thor film. Here’s a close up . . .

He reminds me of someone. But who? Wait a minute . . .

I don’t know. Is it just me?

I recently came across an online display showing how the offical face of the Betty Crocker company has changed over the decades. I thought I would go ahead and provide the interpretation of what each iteration is saying to you:

Message: The overall image says, “We’re living in the dawn of a golden age of technological wonders. Like radio. So make some cake.” But the eyes . . . the eyes are saying, “Help me.”

***

Whoa. What the . . .? Geez, what did we do? Whatever it is, we’re sorry. Can we have the radio lady with the helmet hair back? Please? The message seems to be, “I’m staring hate daggers at you because there’s a Depression on, some guy named Hitler is treating Central Europe like his personal hobby farm, and you’re bellyaching for chocolate cake? You’re too selfish to live.”

***

Ahh, that’s better. This Betty is kind, sympathetic, and apparently trying to hide her profound sadness behind a weak attempt at a smile. Message: “You sure have been drinking a lot since you got back from Korea, son. What happened over there? I wish you’d talk about it. Anyway . . . if you get out of bed . . . I made bundt cake.”

***

“You can have it all ladies. Successful husband. Your own career. Family. Social status. Pearls. Look me right in my serenely confident eyes. Would I lie to you? Relax. There is zero percent change that your children are about to become smelly, promiscuous, drug-soaked, anarchists. Care for a brownie? The kids made them.”

***

“So, our kids are smelly, promiscuous, drug-soaked, anarchists. That’s okay! We’ve got to loosen up. No need to be so uptight. See, even my hair has relaxed. Everything’s going to be alright. Have a cupcake. Oh, and one other thing . . . I want you.”

***

Or not. “Sorry about that brief lapse in judgement, America. Not sure what I was thinking. I actually suspect someone slipped LSD in the icing but I can’t prove it. Anyway, Nixon is about to be reelected, the country is back on track, and so is my hair. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment to be dipped in starch.”

***

And now for something completely different. This Betty isn’t forcing a smile, she’s suppressing one. She’s in on the joke. Message: “I find traditional gender stereotypes confining and bourgeois. I’m wearing this big bow ironically. I like my architecture and artists like I apply my make up–minimalist.”

***

“Hi. I’m Jimmy Fallon’s mom. Look into my black, soulless eyes and abandon hope. I have. Also, I’m a computer-generated composite designed to be more racially ambiguous and therefore more inclusive. Less WASP-y. Am I part Latino? One-quarter Asian? Of Italian Catholic descent? Why yes! Thank you for noticing.”

Excellent essay on the unscientific underpinnings of the green movement over at the “Defining Ideas” site:

“The vogue of environmentalism stems from two ancient myths disguised today by a thin veil of scientific authority.”

I don’t actually have the time to spare for this, but I cannot NOT comment on President Obama’s invocation of Jesus and his personal Christianity in support of forced redistribution of wealth by the government in the same week his administration was deploying the coercive power of the Executive Branch to force Catholic Charities to pay for birth control and abortions.

First, the President’s statement:

But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.” It mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others.

This largely theological argument was put forth in support of raising taxes on the rich. It’s a familiar one. I’ve seen similar arguments from the prominent politically liberal Christians such as Jim Wallis, Brian McClaren and Tony Campolo and the whole Sojourners crowd.

It invariably sounds holy at first blush. But there is a common fallacy in these arguments–one that is essentially heretical and idolatrous at the root. Allow me to explain.

As many have observed, President Obama’s statement above takes the God who requires much from those to whom He has given much and substitutes the government in His place.

In the view of the Christian Socialist, it is the government that bestows the privilege of earning wealth and it is the government’s right and responsibility to determine how much of those earnings any individual deserves to keep, AND who deserves to be the beneficiary of that confiscated wealth.

As John Hindraker at Powerline succinctly put it:

In drawing this equivalence, Obama implicitly substituted the government for God; in Jesus’s teaching it is God, not any earthly ruler, who gives us much and expects much from us in return.

My Sojourner-y friends make frequent appeals to Jesus’ calls for charity and compassion for the poor. And those calls are real, legitimate and vitally important. But as I tried to explain to a earnest left-leaning young brother a while back:

“The teachings of Jesus and the rest of the Bible absolutely compel me to reach into my wallet and help the poor, widows, orphans and the oppressed. But those same teachings forbid me to reach into my neighbor’s wallet and force him to do the same against his will. Or to vote to use the coercive power of the government to achieve the same end.”

Why? Because true Christian charity is voluntary–an act of the will that comes from the heart. If it is forced or coerced, it does not please God nor comport with the Bible’s manifold encouragements to share, give and help.

There is, however, a Bible word for resenting the fact that someone has more stuff than I do.

The Bible calls it covetousness. And the ugly truth is, the spirit of covetousness is at the heart of virtually all “soak the rich” political policies. Ironically, President Obama’s “to whom much is given” quote was drawn from the 12th chapter of Luke–a chapter in which Jesus warns His followers to “beware of covetousness.”

But the most egregious sin of  this line of political thought isn’t envy and resentful coveting. It’s pure, old-fashioned idolatry. The arguments of politically liberal Christians consistently put government in the role of God or Messiah.

As Hindraker’s colleague at Powerline, Scott Johnson, wrote in a post titled “Render Unto Barry:”

Reverend Obama not only offers up the endorsement of Jesus for his economic policies, he also presents himself as standing in the shoes of Jesus, requiring much from those to whom much is given . . . As for Obama’s invocation of Jesus, when Obama demands that “the rich” pay their “fair share” — the text implicitly underlying yesterday’s sermon — Obama is closer to Caesar than to God.

Biblically speaking, the role of the Messiah is to bring deliverance and relief from poverty, sickness, lack and oppression. This is the role Jesus–the one true Messiah–claimed for Himself in a synagogue one day as he chose to read from the 61st chapter of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Today there are many who claim the name of “Christian” who view Messiah to be the legitimate role of government. Our president is one of them.

It is no accident that four years ago candidate Obama encouraged and stoked the frenzy of messianic fervor that surrounded his campaign. (For a great overview of this phenomenon in images, go to the blog “Is Barack Obama The Messiah)  Obama was and is the perfect embodiment of this idolatrous liberal Christian exaltation of Government-as-Messiah. (By the way, George W. Bush was infected with a mild strain of this flu, too.)

This is not new. For much of the last half of the last century there were European political parties that called themselves, Christian Democrat, Christian Democratic Socialist, etc. (Check out this 1953 Time Magazine article about the movement.)

These were the principle force behind the construction of the anti-capitalist welfare state that is currently bankrupting Europe and making it impossible to enact the reforms necessary to save it.

When you make government a false messiah, it becomes a jealous god. Which is why this week we saw the government claiming the right to override and supersede the conscience of the Catholic Church in the name of “women’s’ health.”

If you really want to understand the roots of this phenomenon, and you’re up for a very meaty, very philosophical read, I enthusiastically recommend Prof. Herbert Schlossbergs’ masterpience book. It’s appropriately titled:

Idols for Destruction

Destruction is where idolatry invariably leads.

I’ve thrown together a little video of my first few hours on the ground in Nepal. It runs about four-and-a-half minutes. Have a look. A little commentary follows:

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, click here.

To get to Kathmandu required about 32 hours of travel–including a 15-hour non-stop flight from Chicago to Delhi– with very little sleep.  After a few hours sleep at the very nice Hotel Himalaya in Kathmandu, I was picked up by a wonderful local Christian man who coordinates much of the work of Puresa Humanitarian in Nepal.

We needed to pick up our film crew at the airport but had a couple of hours to kill, so my host took me to one of the holiest spots to the world’s 800 million-plus Hindus.

I was jet-lagged, disoriented, and on sensory overload as we walked along the Bagmati river opposite Pashupatinath Temple. I’ve traveled all over the world but this was the “other-y-ist” place I’ve ever been.

The opposite bank of the river is lined with “ghats”–stone steps that allow pilgrims to come bath in the river and for families to burn the bodies of deceased loved ones and then toss the cremains in the river. (Yes, the same river in which the pilgrims are bathing, not to mention cows are walking and pooping amid the ubiquitous monkeys.

The wind was blowing toward us across the river, which meant we were constantly walking through the smoke of about a half dozen burning human bodies. The smell was . . . distinctive . . . and unforgettable. Gongs and bells were randomly sounding along with an occasional blast from a conch-shell horn. Cows, monkeys, snakes. All that and the jet leg combined to make this feel like a walk through the outer suburbs of hell.

Oh yeah . . . and then there were these guys:

More video and pics in the days to come. More than you probably care to see.

A week of traveling in Nepal has left me grateful, dazzled and utterly exhausted. Kathmandu. Bairahawa. Pokhara. And a little mountaintop village we could only reach on foot.

Nepal is a place of astonishing beauty. The people are largely warm, friendly and industrious. Oh, and the children are ridiculously cute.

Nepal is 80% Hindu, 11%, Buddhist, 4% Muslim, 4% Kirant, and .9% “Other.”  Somewhere in that .9% are Nepal’s Christians. In those statistics lies the answer to the question: “Why is Nepal such a poor nation.”

I’ll share more thoughts, pics and even a video or two in the days to come.