Random ruminations on the 2012 election

-- Don't let the results of the Iowa caucus this week fool you -- absolutely nothing is settled on the Republican side. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the winner, of course is the choice of the "establishment"; former Sen. Rick Santorum, finishing a strong second, is the favorite of the social conservative wing; and the curmudgeon Ron Paul, with very, very deep philosophical support, went a close third. Keep in mind, however, that Santorum thus far has escaped media scrutiny in this race, which won't last long -- there are reasons why he was crushed on his second reelection attempt in 2006, and we'll find out why.

-- If there was a loser this week it was the tea-party movement, whose favorite candidate, Michele Bachmann, decided to pack it in. Another social conservative, Rick Perry, probably will, although at this point he hasn't done so yet. Newt Gingrich didn't do all that well either, but that may be meaningless.

-- You want to know why the GOP will have trouble winning elections from here on out? Check out recent remarks that Gingrich and Santorum made about what they would to about poor African-Americans. Such people apparently don't mind offending folks for the sake of their base; the trouble is that they risk turning off undecided voters -- just as the GOP did in 1992 with its "culture war" convention -- in the process.

-- Nothing that has transpired so far has made me change my mind about Barack Obama's being reelected, which I've believed since he was elected the first time. One, the Republicans have always spent more time and energy trying to defeat him rather than telling people what they would do differently would one of them ascend to the top spot. Two, the people who might have a chance to defeat him on those grounds literally can't afford to run against him -- he has already raised $750 million and could push that total up to $1 billion. (Recall that he bankrupted Hillary Clinton, not the easiest thing to do.)

Losing the future

Things are obviously getting desperate.

You know that's the case when the Christian political organization "Winning the Future" endorses former suburban Atlanta congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination for president.

Think about this for a second: This group is supporting a man who has held only one political office in his entire life. A man who cheated on his first wife with his second and his second wife with his third. A man who sought power for its own sake, going up against Bill Clinton -- and totally lost, resigning his seat after being embarrassed in 1998. A man that, to my knowledge, has not produced a credible testimony as to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a changed life as a result.

No, it seems that "Winning the Future" has only one goal: Reestablishing the clout of the "religious right," even if it has to compromise essential tenets of the faith to do it.

And that won't happen -- the 2006 general election pretty much put an end to that, what with the shellacking the Republican Party took despite James Dobson's efforts with his "Stand for the Family" rallies. Let's not forget that conservative Christians never took folks from their side of the fence to task for supporting an immoral (some say illegal) war in Iraq and especially in response to the Jack Abramoff-fueled lobbying scandal.

What's worse from that perspective, it especially has no chance to unseat Barack Obama as president. None of the Republican candidates in the race has the money to compete with him -- it's no accident that the better prospects decided to sit this one out -- nor do they have the temperament to do anything but bash him. In short, they have nothing to offer but the same old, same old culture and class war which that side lost long ago but refuses to acknowledge.

More to the point -- why are Christians endorsing any candidate at all? Do we realize that we're not going to change the basic sin nature of the human race simply by legislation or "changing the culture?" Or is our goal simply to change this world so that we can live in it and avoid spiritual warfare? (Do you really believe that God will allow that?)

That's why I yawned when I learned about the endorsement -- it won't make any difference, either now or in the long run. And when I mean the "long run," I mean eternally.

David Barton -- in denial about race and racism

Do you ever wonder why so few African-Americans vote conservative? David Barton should remind you. The modern conservative movement has never fully accepted its complicity in maintaining racist ideology and in fact has consistently tried to run from it, and Barton doesn't help matters.

Barton, head of the WallBuilders organization, which can be kindly described as giving a right-wing Christian spin on American history, and who once headed the Republican Party in Texas, has no training as a historian. Rather, from WallBuilders you get the kind of agitprop that distorts history and causes division. Earlier this week a friend forwarded me a number of his papers on black history which proved either irrelevant or misleading.

Let's take an entry on Richard Allen, founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. According to Barton, "Allen began to preach regularly at the St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia. He suggested that Blacks should have a separate place of worship apart from Whites; and although his suggestion was at first resisted, his forceful preaching attracted such a vast number of Blacks to the church that when objections were raised, Allen's idea of a separate congregation was finally accepted."

However, Barton fails to note that the vestry of St. George had voted to build a segregated section of the church and that he had led a walkout in response. And that was hardly uncommon; black churches were established in the first place because black parishioners were abused or neglected in white ones.

In an entry on black voting rights published in 2003, Barton consistently mentions -- without perspective -- that the Democratic Party was the chief agent of racial segregation and discrimination (that was true only in the South). He's correct in saying that the Republican Party was founded specifically to take down chattel slavery -- but wait a minute. By the 1880s, with slavery gone and Reconstruction abandoned, the GOP had left its anti-racist past behind.

Moreover, what became known as the "New Right," pushed by William F. Buckley Jr. and developing appeal mostly in the West, was proving increasingly influential in the GOP in the 1960s, so much so that it was able to get Barry Goldwater on the ticket as its presidential candidate in 1964; Goldwater, who publicly opposed the civil-rights movement, was later denounced by Martin Luther King Jr. as "the most dangerous man in the country" at the time. Two years later, Richard Nixon enacted the GOP's notorious "Southern Strategy" which reached out to white Southerners by emphasizing, among other things, the national Democratic Party's commitment to civil rights (which was recast as "big government"). Slowly they began to trickle into the GOP but came full-scale with the election of Ronald Reagan -- who also opposed MLK Jr.

I wonder why Barton never mentions King and the civil-rights movement -- which of course came out of the black church and even to this day informs much of the African-American community -- in his writings. Perhaps because it clearly came from the political left and thus causes embarrassment to those on the right who want the exclusive franchise on religious activism. But that's a shame, especially considering his partisan view of history which leaves out much of the truth.

Tim Tebow -- hot now, but wait

Tim Tebow, the former missionary kid, has made quite a name for himself over the past few years. The first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy while attending the University of Florida and the subject of an anti-abortion ad during last year's Super Bowl, he now plays quarterback for the Denver Broncos, who have lost only one game since he was given the starting job about two months ago.

Lately he's been somewhat of a lighting rod for his open displays of Christian faith both on the field and in the media. Some love it, but others have said that he should tone it down. (One of his critics is the now-retired Kurt Warner, himself a believer who led the St. Louis Rams to their only Super Bowl championship in 2001.)

Here's the problem I have with all the attention Tebow gets: There does appear to be a lack of humility, let alone depth, on his part. He has played for winning teams throughout his short career -- UF plays in the Southeastern Conference, arguably the toughest in the country and whose games are broadcast on CBS. It's easy to "praise God" in such situations.

But wait until he starts losing games. Then we'll see what he's really made of.

In 1996, after losing a close playoff game to the Steelers, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh still gave props to Jesus. Going further back, consider pitcher Orel Hershiser, whose Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series in 1988. However, two years later he needed surgery that prematurely ended his season; at a press conference, he said, in effect, "The same God that was there when we won the World Series is going to be there now."

And let's look at Warner, who played at the University of Northern Iowa, which participates in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-AA) and had previously worked in a grocery store before resuming his career. Because he didn't go to a football factory, virtually no one knew who he was -- that is, except for pro scouts.

In the early 1980s I used to watch the 700 Club, and I couldn't help but notice that when it broadcast athlete profiles only these qualified: 1) star players; 2) from winning teams; 3) with Christian parents or spouses (or, in one case, a fiancé). Yet it's very possible that a third-stringer from a losing team who's unattached and doesn't come from a Christian home may maintain a deeper walk with God than any of them -- and needs to.

In such situations I'm reminded of the line from "Blessed Be the Name of the LORD": "Blessed be His name/On the road marked with suffering/When there's pain in the offering/Blessed be the name ... " It's easy to be "on fire for God" when you're on top, but when things start to fall apart -- that's when you learn what you're made of.

'Occupy Wall Street' -- highlighting the unspeakable

Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.

-- Isaiah 5:8

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

-- James 5:1-5

Republican strategist Frank Lantz has admitted recently that he's quaking in his boots over the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has called attention to the excesses of corporate power in this nation. As well he should be.

You see, by its mass ongoing demonstrations, which stated in New York's financial district but have since spread to other major cities, OWS has touched on a far bigger issue, one which few have ever addressed: Class warfare.

There, I've said it.

If you think I'm simply channeling Karl Marx, I challenge you: On what else was the opposition to civil rights for African-Americans based? The targeting for destruction of the labor union movement? The elimination of social programs that actually help the poor? Tax breaks and cuts for the super-wealthy? The weakening of regulation of large financial interests? The trashing of public education? And on and on and on ... if these don't represent an attempt to build a quasi-aristocracy, I don't know what does. And folks are waking up.

That said, over the years, especially in the recent tea-party movement, some have actually tried to scapegoat "government" as the ultimate source of all our ills. Let me remind you, however, that we have government in the first place due to a chronic problem called sin, that left to their own devices people will, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "take the low road" -- which is why the Apostle Paul told the first Christians to respect the government. (And don't forget that he was referring to highly corrupt Rome, which many of his Jewish audience despised with a passion.) Here in this country especially, because our system was built to give political power to private entities, the idea of "too much government" comes across as so much hooey.

Have you ever wondered why major Christian media "ministries," with all their bellayaching about abortion, gay rights and the "War on Christmas," never talk about the plight of the poor, a major theme in Scripture, especially the Old Testament? Check their donor lists and boards of directors and find out just who's paying to keep them on the air -- you'll be unpleasantly surprised.

So let's place the blame right where it lies: With the moneyed interests able to "buy off" any opposition. And that's just what OWS is protesting.

Moreover, OWS has to date never been part of any political establishment and thus truly represents a grass-roots movement. Contrast that with the tea-party movement, a picture of whose first local demonstration was placed on the front page of the Tribune-Review (its publisher is a supporter), that has run candidates for Congress and which now has several candidates jockeying for the Republican nomination for president. The tea-party movement has already been brought to heel, which OWS won't be -- and that freaks Lantz to no end.

None of this is to suggest that God is specifically endorsing Occupy Wall Street, although a few individual Christians and ministries have done so. Rather, I suggest that He is using OWS to send a message to the nation and perhaps also the church that business as usual -- with the emphasis on "business" -- will not be tolerated in the "last days."

A church that does it all

I was first introduced to my present church back in 1980 by a fellow first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh whom I met through the school's Inter-Varsity chapter. Two years later, when I was searching for another church and I was living on campus, I visited several times.

In those days, however, it was an almost-all-white, drive-in assembly which focused on maintaining conservative doctrine and foreign missions. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but I decided not to join then in part because I wasn't sure if I could fit in.

Eighteen years later, at a time when I was again church-shopping, I decided to give it another shot. By the end of that service, I knew that I had found home.

You see, the church had changed drastically in that time. Before my return, the then-new and current lead pastor encouraged the church to minister to the largely-poor and African-American neighborhood where it was located, in the process tearing down the spiritual stronghold of racism that had previously gripped its membership.

On top of that, the church also began focusing upon "social justice" -- take that, Glenn Beck -- because of some of the political decisions that left that immediate area destitute. Eventually, members of the church began businesses that employed folks in the neighborhood; some years ago it received an award from the area Chamber of Commerce.

Learning that I was attending her old church, my friend came to Pittsburgh for a visit 2 1/2 years ago -- she has spent much of her life on the mission field and hasn't lived here since she graduated from Pitt in 1984 -- and decided to check things out. Even with its emphasis on neighborhood ministry, which I certainly agreed with, I assured her: "Don't worry -- it's still heavily involved in missions." (Which, with updates from four different missionaries, was borne out that day.)

I have come to appreciate my present church, which has grown in attendance about 10-fold in the past quarter-century, because of its willingness to do everything that the LORD tells us to do. In addition to what I've already mentioned, it has always believed in reaching the "lost" in this city. This is not to say that every person is involved in every ministry -- that would be impossible -- but there's an awareness of God's entire agenda and his/her place in it.

I bring this up because I've noticed that most churches don't do this because of what's considered "spiritual." White evangelicals, while rightly concerned about "saving souls" here and abroad, usually fail to recognize the suffering of people in this country of plenty. Black Christians, on the other hand, found themselves often in the forefront of social change by necessity, but suffered from theological shallowness and a focus on entertainment during worship services.

Given these strengths and weaknesses, it just makes sense that folks should come together and build each other up. After all, even though we have many members, we belong to one Body, and all the parts have to function properly. A former member of my church who is now a pastor in California noted that, when he was in seminary, four groups of students prayed with and for each other. One was focused on missions, another on social justice, two others had concentrations in other areas that I don't remember now. But all were aware of the passion of the others even though they were different.

For my part, though I've always been aware and contributed financially, I have never had an inclination to do foreign missions myself. About 25 years ago I was wrestling with God about going overseas but confessed to Him that "I just don't hear the call!" He had to tell me, "No, I am not calling you to the mission field -- I have special work for you." That was all I needed to hear, and I'm grateful to be in a church where I don't have to leave the country to demonstrate my fidelity to God and His Kingdom.

Random thoughts about the Penn State scandal

In the fall of 1983 and while hanging out at my fraternity house -- I wasn't in school at the time -- I became somewhat friendly with a Pitt sophomore woman who started visiting us regularly. She and I even went out a couple of times, and eventually she decided to pledge our "little sister" program. Keep in mind that I had a deserved reputation there of not just being a straight-edge but standing up for moral values.

One night I saw her in the room of one of my brothers who had a reputation of being a lech and saw a look on her face that, perhaps, she didn't want something to happen. This time, however, I think I panicked and ended up doing nothing, and I'm not sure why. Bottom line, she never came back after the next year, and I never saw her again.

I never did find out what happened that night and am not sure if I ever want to know, but in that instant I betrayed my highest principles.

In one sense I can thus identify with Mike McQueary, the former Penn State quarterback who, as a graduate assistant in 2002, witnessed now-retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sodomizing a boy in the shower but never went to the police -- an inaction which eventually cost head coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier their jobs, with athletic director Tim Curley stepping down because Sandusky had been engaging in that kind of behavior since the mid-1990s, according to some sources.

Was McQueary motivated by fear of unpopularity, not being taken seriously or the potential loss of his job? We may soon find out.

-- Many folks have complained for years that Paterno, who will be 85 next month, had been a coach at Penn State since 1950 and got the top job in 1966, had been there for too long. In 2004 he was asked to step down but responded, essentially, "Get lost" -- the team was still winning and graduating players, so he still had all the leverage.

I never took such longevity seriously until last week because it seemed that Paterno may have been bigger than the program -- and that was a real problem because things could be, and in this case certainly were, swept under the rug.

Contrast this with its former chief rival Pitt, which in Paterno's tenure as head coach has had, by my count, 12 head coaches. Last year after pushing out Dave Wannstedt the administration hired Michael Haygood, formerly with Miami University; however, after two weeks he was let go the day after he was busted on domestic-abuse charges. Paterno had not wanted to play Pitt because he couldn't get Penn State into the Big East Conference, whose main sport then was basketball, while admitting Pitt. That may change now.

-- The Sandusky scandal will hurt Penn State in another way that isn't yet obvious to most: With African-Americans. The main campus has always had a reputation, deserved or not, of being inhospitable to people of color; minority enrollment was the lowest of just about any school I looked at in the late 1970s, and it has always had trouble fielding a consistently competitive men's basketball team.

You see, Sandusky founded the "Second Mile Foundation," which helped underprivileged kids in that area and through which he found his victims, and it turns out that one boy who stepped forward was black. (It's suspected, but not yet proven, that other of the boys he abused were also African-American. Why? Because they were often fatherless and thus emotionally vulnerable.)

-- On Facebook one person blamed "liberals" for the fact that such a scandal could take place, quoting a militant gay group's alleged motto "Sex at eight before it's too late!" Here's the problem: Pedophilia is about power, not really sex, and has gone on for thousands of years (with the Roman Catholic Church especially suffering a black eye for the behavior of a number of priests).