Safe Haven

 I got into a discussion on capital punishment, because Gov. Newsom in California had a rare attack of good sense, and is commuting the death sentences of all of those in his state. Some stranger started off talking to another person with the usual, “Tell that to the families of the victims!” We’ll come back to that. I simply said that the juxtaposition of justice and death was inappropriate, because we serve justice all the time to people without killing them. Therefore, there is nothing inherent to justice that requires death, per se. In fact, wouldn’t most people be alarmed if the death penalty expanded to other crimes? That is one of the telltale signs of oppressive dictatorship. Then the guy backed off a bit and conceded that lethal injection was barbaric, that it doesn’t work well, and is needlessly cruel. I should be inclined to celebrate progress, maybe, but I didn’t. I need you to hear me: I’m fully convinced of my position. It’s been 20 years now. There is no circumstance...

 Christian theology makes the classic distinction between nature and grace. Grace is the order of revealed truth; it is not contrary to reason, but it is beyond it. If I told you the true God was one God in three persons, we probably wouldn't be debating it in the Senate. You can present supernatural truth as a function of sharing what you believe to be someone's ultimate good, but that is not, strictly speaking, a political matter. It's not unrelated to politics, because what is unreasonable is also contrary to God. But if a person isn't a Christian, I cannot have a spiritual debate or discussion with sources and supernatural content that the other person doesn't accept. I can share, I can invite, but I cannot impose. And the content of all that is not, of itself, political. Reason is the accessible ground available to all people without exception. Reason is the shared ground of the political, the public. I might say that a person is in heresy based upon the conten...

 I read "The Religious Right And Christian Faith" by Gabriel Fackre when I was 19. It was the same time that I essentially got saved, and started getting mailings from Missouri Right To Life. I was primed to be anti-abortion anyway. That will happen when you meet the world on a gestation week in which you can be legally killed. 24, if you're scoring at home. I have a question: Are you saying you want me dead? Because I know my mother had it tough. Single mother with 2 boys under 2. She definitely had a choice, and to be frank, she had a severely disabled son. Most people wouldn't even flinch, if she'd made the "choice." Even 46 years ago, maybe even a lot of Christians would quote to themselves, "Do not judge, for the measure you use, it will be measured to you." I digress. Fackre's book is good, as theology, properly speaking. But this is why natural law having been discarded by so many Christians is so harmful practically: because we dema...

 I admit that I enjoy raining on the parade of all these hopeful people. Because it’s not a “new kind of Christian,” it’s the same progressive crap, in a slightly more presentable package. Beto went to “church” and cleaned up his language. I don’t even grant Talarico a distinct (political) existence apart from him. I suppose it grinds my gears that we’ll have 6 years of Talarico’s smarmy nonsense, but that’s the fruit of the cult of personality for you. Obama was a huge cult of personality, but you’d have to give him and the rest of the Democrats some credit for adjusting somewhat, and not sniffing their own farts into electoral oblivion. Whether anyone Trump-adjacent can adjust is an open question. I might even grant for the sake of argument that abortion is not in the Bible. It is, plain enough that you’d have to be dense to accept intentional abortion as acceptable, but OK. I’ll go with it, for the sake of argument. Plenty of secular people can make a fine argument against it. R...

 I’m sorry; admittedly, I’m being provocative. Someone even had the gall to suggest that I should respect him because he went to seminary. Well, from the seeds planted and what they’ve grown into, I do not. As one friend put it, “There will be a lot of theologians in Hell.” This will not be a love letter to his contemptible opponent, Ken Paxton. Not even close. The loss was probably inevitable, and perhaps even deserved. There are vanishingly few people willing to stand up and say, “You know what? Unfettered access to abortion is not a moderate position. Gender ideology is not part of a moderate position or program.” What it means to be a social conservative is at least this: You are willing to challenge harmful garbage, as a matter of public policy and human rights. And you have the credibility—the ethos—to make the arguments. If the Texas GOP wants me to run, I’ll break out of this mostly exile from politics to challenge him. I’ll move. Just say the word. Because I don’t care if ...

 I showed a new friend a picture of my sister, Alyse. All the grief came back. Not in a big display, at least not in my terms, but it was real. She’s here. She’s not here. Christian hope is real. It also increases pain. Hope is the impetus for Heaven. It’s that virtue that pulls us out of the muck and the mire to go toward God. My Redeemer lives, and so does Alyse, but I am still here. You have to live right there. If you ignore death or Heaven, you have pretty close to nothing. Let the tears come, if they need to, because it’s not about the tears. We would both agree that Heaven is better than this place. We have both had our fill of this place and its suffering. Anybody could say, “How I long for just one more conversation!” But aren’t we longing for the little taste of Heaven that is every eternal soul? Hasn’t God left his mark and his voice here upon us? The God of the living, not of the dead.

 Let’s get right to the point: I think Democrats are going to lose most of these “good chances” in red areas. Talarico will lose; Susan Collins will win in ME. I’m calling it 51-49, GOP. You need to be safely outside the margin of error as a Democrat, because loyal GOP voters 1. Don’t answer phone calls from pollsters; and 2. Will lie to a pollster’s face. I have no idea why Democrats were ever so confident about the Senate. I don’t know what Nate Silver is thinking, either. Some of these pollsters must literally do the polls to cheer up Democratic partisans; I have no other reasonable explanation for what I see.  We need to talk about margin of error: if it’s above 4, it’s a complete garbage poll. This isn’t North Korea; our elections are tight, and they should be. Good rule of thumb: Add 3 points to every Republican in a poll. If you’re connected to the Democrat in some way and you still feel good about the outcome, fair enough. By way of self-defense, I will tell you that I...

 “O Captain, my Captain!” It seems appropriate here; Star Trek is so formative for me. I can remember drawing pictures of the Enterprise-D when I was small. Not enough people are nerds; one dumb teacher drew a smiley face on it. That’s the Enterprise, you Philistine! He did other things, of course. And thankfully, he did Shakespeare; I thank him and so many others for preserving it. He was great in David Lynch’s Dune, in a film nobody smart seems to like. He was probably miscast a bit; he’s too good-looking to play Gurney Halleck. Nevertheless, he’s the only Gurney who matters, in that adaptation of another science fiction classic. Admittedly, I don’t know how to pray for an avowed atheist. I’ll just have to hope that some useful conscripted Anglicanism got him baptized. Speaking of conscripted Anglicanism, he guest starred in the adaptations of John le Carre’s most famous works, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, in 1979 and 1982, respectively. What’s memorable abou...

 I don't care what he spends his money on. And quite honestly, I'd probably oppose all these Democrats if I had an obscene amount of money. It's the same stuff, different day for the Democrats: abortion on demand, alternative sexuality, and sometimes communism. Literally. They don't learn, and they don't listen. Not that I'm voting Republican. I can't vote at all, because I moved a couple times, and failed to fix my registration. Besides all that, I know very few people excited to vote GOP, and if I did, I wouldn't trust them. These people are crazy, too. Back to Musk, he's just the Howard Hughes of his day. He's probably nuts, but "dangerous" seems like a stretch. Seems like the Left turned on him because he doesn't get emotional, and therefore, they couldn't lead him where they want him to go. He's fonder of Trump than I am, to say the least, but I have resigned myself to the fact that most people appreciate Trump more tha...

 In the midst of a comment somewhere, I said, "If I am honest, I don't like liberals." First off, this isn't strictly true; I've voted for enough of them that my commitment to opposing liberals in America is in serious question. On the other hand, I started as a conservative and a Republican, and I'm still very much that guy, modified by new information. I mean to say, if I went into a room full of bog-standard Republicans, I'm more comfortable in that room than in an opposite room. Someone has every right to question my judgment in that, but I'm just telling you. It was really painful to stop identifying as such, and it still is. I like those people. I understand what matters to them. When you get some young Republicans in a room, and they're college-bound, I know what books they are reading. I don't check in on the Wall Street Journal editorial page much--no time or money--but those associations from my young adulthood are all fond and positi...

 So this is what I'm trying to do now. It allows me to work around some health and physical challenges, as well as actually use the considerable gifts--and education--I've been given. I suppose that it could be fraught; we live with the separation(s) in Christendom each day, even if we don't realize it. The East-West divide is tragic, but less painful, I think. I have been brought toward my brethren in the Reformation by friendship and service. In any case, my most pressing goal is biblical knowledge spread far and wide. Before I left my Presbyterian seminary, one of my favorite professors told me that there were too few great Catholic biblical scholars and teachers working today, in his opinion. For my part, I consider myself unworthy to untie his sandals. But by God's grace, I hope to make a difference. (I attended seminary with the founder of Faithtree, as you might surmise.) Please consider prayerfully giving, and please share the link with anyone who might benefit...

 There was an academic who was recently worried that young liberals—whatever that means—aren’t proud of their country. It worried him. He’s an immigrant from an Islamic country. To be fair, he easily could be second-generation. I’m trying to say he’s not named Steve. It was a clip on C-SPAN. From the Kennedy School of Government. Find it for me. Anyway, Democrats often get dinged on this patriotism thing, and I appreciate the effort to put flags everywhere at the convention and stuff. As much as anyone, I will say that the critic often loves her country as much or more than the person who says “If you don’t like it, leave” and wants no changes at all. On the other hand, if I could put all the far-Left academics and Christian theocrats (sometimes called nationalists) on the moon, where they’d be forced to cooperate or die, let’s just say that would be a great season of Survivor. Believe it or not, I’m more on the, “This could be better” side, though I am really patriotic. I can’t he...