Remember when everyone thought we needed Tim Geithner?

Michelle Malkin is thinking about that very thing. If you spend any time viewing his times before Congress and not just listening to his words but looking into his eyes, you sense the one thing missing – courage. He does not have the courage to do the right thing. If courage goes, all else goes.

Yes, we need smart people in office. Believe me, I love having a President who reads Richard Niebuhr and does not say that Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher. See here. I would love to invite President Obama to my philosophy classes and give the students the chance to discuss with him some of the great thinkers. I think he could do it. But I don’t think that is enough. He must also have moral courage.

I think back to the best and the brightest of the Kennedy years, particularly Robert McNamara, a man who has tested me on the second greatest commandment like no other. McNamara’s fall was his cowardice. He thought that it all came down to great ideas. He was wrong. And he ended up being a liar, a deceiver and the reason so many young men had to die. They died because McNamara could not tell the truth about Vietnam once he knew it.

Of course, we already know that Geithner will lie. No one questions that. But the greatest loss is that we have a boy rather than a soldier in the foxhole at Treasury. And nothing can make up for that.

Universal Health Care

I can’t remember when I have not been for universal health care. It seems that as a civilized and (previously) rich nation we would find it unbearable for our fellow citizens to go without medical attention. It just seems something we would want to do. 90% of the medical attention we need is nuts and bolts technology, and it doesn’t take a $300,000 a year medical doctor to do it. Yes, there is that other 10%, and it poses a problem that lots of money paid to an individual doctor by an individual client who has the money can take care of.

I had believed Obama had a chance to bring this about. I no longer do. He has botched the management of this financial crisis so badly that the amount of money it is going to take for universal health care is going to be denied him – and us. He is already signaling a willingness to compromise. I think I know what that means.

Once again, when we were on the edge of a breakthrough the President makes it worse, as the Clintons did. What a shame.

Believe it or not, Red Envelope Day can bring out the worst in people

Go to iMonk and witness all the snarky comments about Red Envelope Day. It’s hard to believe people could be so harsh on what appears to be a good faith effort to keep prolife sentiments on the front burner. What ever could be wrong with addressing an envelope to our President as a protest against abortion I can’t imagine. And I can’t imagine why iMonk can’t get it, either. I visit there regularly and have found a place where a lot of things get addressed that usually don’t get addressed. But these kind of postings make me ask what kind of people are drawn to this site and why am I one of them?

For those of us who find the Christian life really simple and easy…

I have a hunch that evangelical churches are more conservative than their pastors

My experience time and again is that the guy and the gal in the pew wishes the pastor would not be as “liberal” as he seems to be. (Yes, I know there are exceptions and you are one of them, but hear me out.)

The people who attend the church on Sunday go along with the pastor by and large. They know he went to a good evangelical seminary, has a solid testimony, isn’t divorced, is kind and welcoming and in conversation is clearly a Bible believer. He cares for people and inspires ministry that reaches out to hurting them. So far, so good.

But something is missing from that picture. He seems relatively silent about some of the great moral issues of our day. He’ll talk about them if he has to and only when he has to. He doesn’t actually call people to repentance but to faith.  He is as afraid of politics as he is of the small pox. People could be taxed at 110% of what they make and he wouldn’t make a sound. He would preach on the wonders of sex in marriage and never tell his people to stop divorcing one another. He will tell people to give but live a lifestyle that is an example to no one in terms of the kind of car he drives, the vacations he takes, the salary he makes, or the house he owns. He can’t really be taken seriously, like a Gandhi could be. (Just wondering here, but I can’t imagine Gandhi preaching on the joys of conjugal love in the midst of India’s struggle for liberation and the relief of the poor – he swore himself to celibacy even while in a committed marriage, like a soldier on leave will not have sex while his buddies remain on the front lines, a la Uriah in the David and Bathsheba story). He seems incapable of moral indignation.

The people in the pew are looking for more.  They are actually looking for a moral leader. No, they don’t want a bigot filled with self-importance. They understand, after all, their leader is only human. They are under no illusion that he is more or less. I think they really do want someone who will stand against even them, even though they will make him pay a price for it. They don’t want someone who knows how the Red Sox season is shaping up or hear from him about the kind of coffee he really likes at Starbucks. They don’t want to see his pictures on Facebook about his recent cruise. His jokes might be okay but they aren’t eager for him to be the one to tell them. He is one of them, but the church has paid him a decent salary to make sure that he isn’t just one of them. They expect him to take advantage of it – to take the time to pray, know his Bible, practice the spiritual disciplines, and bring earnestness to the journey that we are all on. They don’t want him to want to be liked. They want him to love, love enough for it not even occur to him what people think.

They want a God-intoxicated man who is set apart to holiness and fearless service. This reminds me of John Wesley. He was asked the secret of his “success” as a preacher. He responded, “I set myself on fire and people come to see me burn.”

I think the people in the pew want the guy with an open Bible in his hands on Sunday to burn with love for the good, the true and the beautiful. Which is to say that pastors should spend a bit less time thinking about what is cool and take some cues from the church herself. It deserves more than us pastors have given her. We are like men who have married above ourselves and need to measure up to the woman to whom we have made a pledge.

God as pooper-scooper

Hope I don’t sound too irreverant but this is a metaphor that works.

From Erwin McManus: “Most of us want God to fix every wrong choice we make without taking from us our right to choose wrongly. We want to make God into our own pooper-scooper following right behind us, cleaning up our mess. [But] God lets us make our bed and makes us lie in it.”

Thanks Jesus Creed for the quote.

We need to increasingly look at the salvation Jesus gives as not relief but strength, not relaxation but peace. It is when the consequences won’t go away that many Christians give up and float away, like the two NFL football players that were just lost of sea. They took off their life vests, let go of the boat and drifted out to sea. The one guy who made it is simply the guy who held on. Reminds me of the motto for Spurgeon’s training school. Referring to the cross, “I both hold and am held.”

Red Envelope Day – March 31

This is an event where on March 31 everyone who opposes abortion and wants to let President Obama know about it will send a Red envelope addressed to:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington , D.C. 20500

On the back you should write:

“This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion.
It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world. Responsibility begins at conception.”

Go to Red Envelope Day for more info. And, by the way, don’t buy anything from their store. Make your own doggone red envelope.

Go to iMonk for comments by many who think this is not a good idea. I don’t get it but there is a lot of anger out there toward us “do gooder evangelicals who have nothing better to do than stick our nose in others people’s business.”