The present Administration is making a concerted effort to change the face of governance in this era of image and information. These past few weeks of trying to push through a health-care reform package offer a study in the new approach to governing President Obama and his cohort have determined to pursue.

Essentially, we might call this government by campaign. The President pursues his agenda of policies and programs as if each one were an item to be elected by the people. He trots around the country speaking at town hall meetings, rallies, and invitation-only events, holds more press conferences than any president in history, and makes deals with every hesitating lawmaker in order to ensure that the votes he needs will be there when he wants them. This looks more like the run-up to a party convention than the serious business of managing the public weal.

In governing a nation, elected officials are bound by law, precedent, and the processes of legislative creation and review. This in itself can be a rather nasty business, as backroom bargains and sweetheart deals are often added to the task of vote-getting when more noble appeals, such as to the common weal, fail to do the job. Add to this the incessant campaign rhetoric - rife with cliches, anecdotes, hyperbole, and spin - that has become the stock-in-trade of this Administration, and all semblance of good governance becomes swallowed up in the imperative of getting what the President wants. Almost nothing is pressed on the basis of Constitutional necessity, sound reason, or even common sense. What matters most is accomplishing an agenda, striking while the iron is hot, while Democrats still hold a majority, in order to further and fasten the grip of government on the lives of its citizens.

But can this constant cajoling, badgering, and promising everything to the public make us a stronger nation? Or will it only wear us down, until we give away more of our liberties to elite cadres of lawmakers in our nation's capital? Campaign rhetoric is temporal, trivial, and, very often, truthless. Government control over our lives and liberties, by contrast, is difficult to roll back. If we yield to the campaigning approach to governance, we can be sure of this much: more politicians will be fanning out to fan the flames for whatever might be the next big thing, promising us the moon but leaving us only with fewer liberties.

If I thought President Obama spent as much time talking with God about his policies as he does stumping for them around the country, I might be willing to give them a closer look. As it stands, I don't believe the President is interested in governing. What the President wants, it seems to me, is to win, and winning is the work of campaigns. Serving is the work of governance.

T. M. Moore

Unable to convince members of their own party to commit political suicide, Democratic leaders are contemplating the use of a procedure called, "deeming," to bring the health care reform bill to passage. In this procedure House members do not need to actually vote for the Senate bill; they can simply "deem" it to have passed, then amend it as they like before sending it back.

Sounds all very Constitutional, doesn't it? The sort of thing the Founders would have written into the document they hoped would inaugurate a "new order of the ages." Except, of course, they didn't. Turns out our contemporary politicos are turning the novis ordo seclorum into something right out of the pages of the most egregious, self-serving, and corrupt political orders of the past and present. Most astonishing of all, they're counting on us, the electorate, not noticing - or not caring.

The "deeming" procedure also goes by the name "the self-executing" procedure, referring to a bill's ability, magically, to execute itself into law. More likely, if this procedure is used, the "self-executing" will refer to those House members who support it. It's also called the "Slaughter" provision - and that, too, may have a prophetic element to it.

Let's face it: Democrats want this bill because of the control it gives them over the private sector of American life. But they don't want to take responsibility for it. We can almost imagine House members, as the dust settles after using this procedure, Saul-like, before their constituents back home: "I didn't vote for the health care bill; the Senate, they..." And so on.

It is not comforting to know that the affairs of the nation and the common weal are in the hands of spineless, self-serving schemers, or that our self-proclaimed Christian president would allow such a blatantly dishonest and deceitful tactic to be used in the pursuit of his agenda.

T. M. Moore

As of this writing we're still awaiting the final House vote on health care reform, although, with the President's "cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die" executive order promise to Bart Stupak, the outcome seems anticlimactic. It's pretty clear that, by the time you read this, health care reform will be the law of the land.

This past year of the Obama Administration has focused the attention of the American people on the politics of Washington, D. C., like few issues I've ever seen. Politics, it is now plain (if it wasn't before), is the art of getting what you want by whatever means is necessary. Politicians are the players, together with those whom they must either manipulate or own in order to secure their desire ends. At bottom, the goal of all political activity is to secure and retain, if not increase, personal power. Politicians are drunk on power - the sense of importance and the perks and deference that come with power are, for those who have tasted it, too alluring to deny or refuse. Once tasted, power must be acquired by every possible means.

All the deals, compromises, off-line agreements, budget fixes, amendments, and assorted other legislative devices are merely ways of gaining and keeping power. You may say you need that $100 million for a hospital in your state, or that break for the elderly or those affected by natural disaster, but it's really all about you, and what you have to do in order to get the people who ceded their political power to you to allow you to keep it and keep expanding it.

The framework of American politics is just; the practice of it is corrupt, encouraging just about every form of self-serving machination anyone can invent to help make sure that everyone gets what they want by whatever means. The abuses are about equally distributed on both sides of the aisle, because the players on both sides are unable to restrain themselves when power is on the line.

I can't help but feel sad for our country as I watch this dance of drunkards cavorting around the halls of Congress and the White House high-fiving one another for their latest achievement. The process sickens me, yet the only way to change it is to stay in it and try to influence for good at least some of the players, so that matters of truth and goodness will one day, hopefully, supplant matters of mere self-interest.

But don't hold your breath. Politics is not the way to lasting change in this or any nation.

T. M. Moore

 

 

I spent a good part of yesterday catching up on some of my journals and periodicals. I must have read a dozen articles in three or four different publications.

There was an interesting article about the competition in ebooks now that Apple's iPad is out to rival Amazon's Kindle. A musing on how inflation might be just the thing to cure our national debt. A piece by a writer about his early years as a literary agent (so to speak). An assessment about the state of marriage in America. Four or five poems - one about trout fishing, with intimations of transcendence.

Now all these pieces were interesting; however, none of them really matters. Nothing is going to change as a result of the thousands of words these writers bothered to inscribe in their separate periodicals. But there they are anyway. A writer's gotta write, I suppose, even if his words are little more than trivial. Makes me wonder why people like me pay good money to subscribe to journals of so little consequence.

But maybe having no consequence is the point? Do writers just need to write, as if writing were an end in itself? Do we need to keep saying to ourselves, over and over, "There's this and that, and those things over there; and while none of it matters in the long run, well, there it is." Is the art of living just a matter of observing, reflecting, and commenting, without any thought of why or to what end?

And what about conversation? Do people just talk to fill up dead space with meaningless vocalizations to act like they're interested in one another?

People of the Word should be careful with their words, don't you think? Both the words they consume and the ones they produce. The Word of God tells us that everything matters and that we will be accountable for every word we speak. Perhaps we should consider the implications of that for how we use our words day-in and day-out?

Do your words matter? You who read and study the Word of God, do you consider your words carefully, deploy them adeptly, and bolster them with additional words aimed at the same purposeful result? Do I?

A Gresham's Law of words is threatening to bury meaning-full discourse in our day. The least we, the people of the Word, can do is to make sure our words are thoughtfully chosen and fitly spoken, no matter what the subject of our speech or writing might be.

T. M. Moore

The tentative state of all things economical has spawned more commercials for banks, investment houses, and retirement programs than I've seen in a long time. The message sounds a little like, "Hurry! While you still have some money! Invest now!"

Undoubtedly there is wisdom in seeking to make the best decisions about long-term financial needs. So I don't begrudge these commercials; they're just trying to encourage people not to get so bogged down in the present gloom that they lose sight of the light they'll want to have at the end of the tunnel.

Actually, this is a message I'd like to hear more of from churches. Not with a financial focus, of course, but with a view to eternal rewards. The focus in churches these days seems to be, in large part, on trying to get as much as we can from God here and now, whether what we seek is material prosperity or just peace of mind. The faith of Christ is, in the main, presented as proffering something for everyone, whatever you need (within certain moral bounds, of course).

But, "Hurry! Invest now!" is really the Lord's message to all who choose to follow Him - right out of the parable of the talents (Matt. 25.14-30). The servant who was most commended was the one who, having received his endowment, "immediately" set about working to create a return on investment for the Master.

Everything we have comes to us from the grace of God. None of it is our own. We are not our own. We belong to the Lord, and He calls us to invest everything we have and are, all we say and do, every relationship, role, and responsibility, toward bringing the knowledge of the glory of God to light in our everyday lives.

Whatever lies ahead of you today, whatever you do with whatever you have, "Hurry! Invest now in the Kingdom of God!" The servant in that parable who did not follow this tack, you will recall, was the one from whom his endowment was taken, and he was cashiered.

T. M. Moore

I think I first began to be aware of how powerful the idea of feelings had become in our society back in the early '70s. Olivia Newton-John sang, "I love you, I honestly love you" in a breathless voice that seemed so sincere. Then she explained that she knew this was a true and genuine love because "it's comin' from my heart and not my head."

Thus she enthroned the idea that if you feel something really strongly - "honestly", as it were - it must be true. Feelings have become more reliable for many people than even sound reason. Christians are not exempt from this folly.

Matthew Mutter provides a solid overview of the state of thinking about feelings in a review article in the current issue of The Hedgehog Review. In a survey of recent scholarship on feelings Mutter explores the wide range of ideas about what feelings are, how we can assess them, what is the nature of their relationship to reason, and so forth. It's clear that, even at the highest levels of thinking about feelings, we're as confused today as we've ever been.

Mr. Mutter suggests that what would help all this muddle is if we could decide on some moral framework for thinking about feelings. This is what Jonathan Edwards supplied in his work, A Treatise on the Religious Affections - still the best book you'll ever read about emotions, why they matter, how they work, and how to discipline them for godly living.

Simply feeling some way is no valid criterion for acting according to your feelings. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17.9). We need to keep a close watch over our feelings, in order to make sure that they do their proper part in helping us to serve the Lord (Prov. 4.23). Feelings are important, and the world is confused about them today. So perhaps there is an open door of opportunity for Christians here, to rediscover the proper role of feelings in our lives, and to fine tune our feelings in such a way as to show the love of God to our neighbors. Edwards is as good a place to start as you'll find.

T. M. Moore

The Fox News network is the most powerful and influential cable news network in the world. Two of its star commentators, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, are near the top of their field. Each of them commands a large following, both on television and through talk radio; each is devoted to a conservative political agenda; and there is in the programming of each them an overtone of revival that, we might think, would cheer a revival-hungry heart like mine.

But it does not. The view of revival hawked by Glenn Beck is misguided and misleading, and the self-serving way that Sean Hannity promotes revival is flatly offensive.

Beck's program on Fox News is routinely filled with all kinds of God-talk, especially when he harangues his audience about the faith of America's founders. He has even created icons of three of the founders with the words, "faith, hope, and charity", inscribed beneath them. Beck wants a revival of the civil religion that became the faith of America early in the 19th century and survived until the 60s. He's not really interested in a genuine revival of God's Spirit in His Church.

Hannity has a vulgar way, in "comforting" his audience, of saying "let not your heart be troubled" as he smiles his reassuring smile (Sean has landed; the situation is well in hand), as though Sean Hannity were the key to overcoming our present fears and discovering the way to a new future.

I find each of these men offensive, misleading, and misguided - which is not to say that I don't agree with much of what they preach. America does not need a revival of civil religion, and we don't need demagogic pundits who think their latest book is the answer to all our needs to rally us toward a conservative political renaissance.

America needs genuine revival, and genuine revival is God's work, which we must seek from Him in prayer. For if we do not, we will not be revived, and, given the state of things economically and morally in this weary land, not even a conservative renaissance will stay the hand of judgment against us.

T. M. Moore

Everywhere I look, the nation feels adrift. Politically, we're more untethered from our founding concepts and ideals than we've ever been. The economy is in a state of flux, obviously. Even though Wall Street seems to be on a rally, it's difficult to tell if this is the harbinger of a true economic rebound or just the effects of artificial government props and promises. The schools are devoted to relativism, materialism, and individualism; pop culture undermines long-standing values and all things non-trivial; the nature of the family is up for grabs; and the churches are more marginal than they've ever been.

And, of course, there's more. The Republicans, meanwhile, intend to make a run for the Congress by focusing on everything about President Obama that they're against. Very inspiring. The Tea Party Movement continues to grow, but they don't seem to have many serious ideas or people in their entourage. The only clear and resolute vision for the country is emanating from the White House, and, increasingly, most Americans are not in favor.

A people without a vision becomes grasping and opportunistic; we hold on to whatever is familiar and seems secure as we lunge for whatever promises to deliver us from whatever we dislike or fear. No one seems to have a vision to capture the imagination of the American people. This is the fruit of a generation devoted to the pursuit of self. Self and the satisfaction of its needs does not a compelling vision make for the nation as a whole. And where there is no vision, the result isn't pretty.

Shame on the churches of the land, and, in particular, the preachers. Why is there no vision resonating from the pulpits of the land such as moved our forebears to stand up for liberty even at the cost of their fortunes and lives? If this country continues to unravel as it has over the last two generations, don't blame the politicians, and don't blame the Wall Street financiers. At least, not in the first instance. Blame the churches, and especially blame the preachers of God's Word. Here is a Word filled with hope, wisdom, and power for newness, reconciliation, righteousness, peace, and joy. But, for some reason, we don't hear much of that, nothing like a vision for the revival of the Church, the renewal of the nation, and the awakening of the world.

Those preachers who turn the faith of Christ into a salve for the self will have to give an account one day. Do them - and all of us - a favor: insist that your preacher search the Scriptures for a new and compelling vision of what God might do in our midst, then insist that he preach it and preach it until we begin to hear and are revived.

T. M. Moore

I am not one to be a knee-jerk critic of the Roman Catholic Church. As a participant for fifteen years in the discussions known as Evangelicals and Catholics together, I have made many friends within that communion and have come to appreciate - without wholeheartedly embracing - its theology and methods, as well as its heritage and vision.

The sex scandals coming, with increasing regularity, to light within the Church, however, leave me disgusted. Why does it always seem that the Church's first response is to protect the Church from embarrassment, by hushing allegations, moving offending priests away into safer confines, and refusing to discover and resolve whatever the root causes of this horrible evil might be?

The Church in all its communions exists as the Body of Christ to overthrow the works of the devil, not to shelter them. Our first response when sin comes to light must not be to protect offenders but to purify or, that failing, purge them.

How can any communion of Christians expect its message to be taken seriously when the most visible communion acts as shamefully as Rome does each time these perversities come to light? It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, no matter where it needs to fall. And let the other communions of the Body of Christ take note and take action to cleanse themselves of whatever shameful little secrets they are presently refusing to address.

This is an occasion for tears. All the Body of Christ stands convicted in the shameful actions of one of its members. Do we need yet more evidence, or any more pointed word from the Lord, that the time for repentance has come? If we condemn Rome, while holding on to our own sins, or if Rome treats this latest round of scandal they way it has in the past - only acting with a modicum of justice when they're finally outed - then the Church as a whole will suffer yet more scorn and despite.

If, however, we repent with tears, pleading with God to cleanse and renew us, our tears of sorrow for our sins, coupled with earnest prayer for reviving grace, may bring a season of refreshment at last.

T. M. Moore

The growing number of lawsuits by states against the new health care reform law is bringing to light a troubling underside of American politics. I watched last night as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell explained why he would not support his Attorney General's desire to join other states in their suit against the federal government. The governor explained that doing so was a waste of time and, besides, when the opportunity was at hand for so many Pennsylvanians to get health insurance for the first time, he wasn't going to let anything stand in the way.

Not even the Constitution? The challenges being mounted by state attorneys general have to do with the constitutionality of this law, in particular, the requirement that each American purchase health insurance or be subject to fines, the collection of which would be supervised by the IRS. Governor Rendell is not the first I have heard make this response to these suits. An Illinois Congressman even went so far as to say that, when it came to matters this urgent, he wasn't going to allow the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or anything else to get in the way.

So has politics in America been reduced to sentiment and power, merely? It would seem. Not even the health care of American citizens is more important than following the Constitution. If the current reform law is unconstitutional, we need to know, so that we can pursue one that will conform to the law of the land and satisfy the demands of its supporters.

But it seems, increasingly, that may politicians feel only the loosest of couplings to the Constitution. If that's the case, then these lawsuits are good, if only to draw such people out into the open so that they are compelled to state their views clearly.

The electorate can decide from there what must be done.

T. M. Moore

President Obama is on a roll. The successful passage of health care reform, a delayed victory after so many early triumphs (stimulus, auto takeover, banks bailout), has emboldened him in new directions.

A second, albeit much smaller, "jobs" stimulus package was rushed through without much fanfare.

Now the first star shots have been fired in the direction of a Value Added Tax to help pay for all these triumphs.

Education reform is underway.

The President will be nominating a new Supreme Court justice over the next few weeks (look for a liberal to replace a retiring liberal).

He has authorized limited off-shore oil exploration (which, truth be told, is not really an advance, but a further delimiting of previous Congressional approval).

And we can expect cap-and-trade (which will affect even how sale-worthy your home might be) and who knows what else over the next few weeks and months.

This is a lot of new government presence and pressure on the American people. But, so far, the people, Tea Party activists excepted, seem OK with all the new intrusions of government into areas formerly reserved for personal or corporate responsibility. If, as the President promises, immediate benefits of the health care reform package are beginning to reach the public by November, then the revolution Republicans are promising might never occur. The people will snap up the hors d'oeuvres of this biggest ever government pig fest, and they'll be smacking their lips for the main courses.

Let's hope, even if November provides merely a continuation of the political status quo, that, over the next few years, the people will get too much of government junk food in too short a time, and become sick from their own over-eating. Like the quails God gave to Israel in the desert, we can hope that too much government junk food too all-at-once will make the people sick to their political stomachs, and they'll re-examine their cravings - whether freedom or serfdom is the better diet for the long term.

T. M. Moore