Someone asked why I don’t write much about politics. It’s not that I think politics are unimportant, it’s just that they have become such a distraction to my stated purpose here  of offering “observations on living life faithfully and fully in our ‘not the way it is supposed to be’ world.” And they are a personal distraction to what the Catechism tells me is my chief end – “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

One dictionary defines politics as “the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed.”  Another speaks of “activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government.”  The polis, of course, is the city and it is a good thing for men and women to be engaged in politics as they seek to influence and guide the life of the city. I am not necessarily opposed to getting or keeping power, either, as that power is used to implement policies for the common good of the people of the polis. I am all for politics and politicians, whether I am in agreement with their direction and principles or not.

So, how have politics, arguably a good thing, become a distraction? Perhaps it is that politics have become more about power and less about the common good of the polis. Noble principles have been replaced by base ideologies. Politicians have become personalities in our personality-obsessed culture. Base ideologies and the cult of personality share a common home in the life of the ideologue, the “blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology.”

The ideologue extoling the warmth of collectivism is a poor substitute for lifting the principles of justice and caring. Coveting Greenland is more about one person’s lust for power than the nation’s security. Addicted to ideology, devoted to personalities, we have become bitter and angry with those who have different addictions and devotions.

The bitterness and anger that marks our time is more the result of our allegiance to ideologies and personalities than it is to our adherence to worthy principles or our insistence on personal integrity in our leaders. Ideologues and their ideologies are more than a distraction, though. They too easily become false gods. When I glorify the ideologue and base ideologies, I exclude the possibility of glorifying and enjoying the God who has loved me and given me my chief end in Jesus Christ.

Why don’t I write much about politics? I am not strong enough to write or think too much about them. I cannot resist the allure of ideologies and personalities.

Yes, praise to the principled politician. But in the meantime, I will seek to glorify and enjoy God.

We’ve been out traveling the last week or so – Christmas with one branch of the family in Memphis, Tennessee, and then a few days after Christmas with the Florida panhandle bunch. What wonderful times in both places! Yesterday was our last leg home – up I-65 north of Nashville through Kentucky and Indiana and on to a snowy welcome in Auburn.

The day, New Year’s Day, began with a reading from Psalm 103, and I pondered the words of its first two verses as we headed towards Bowling Green and Louisville, passing Mammoth Cave and the Jim Beam distillery:

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

I am not much of a New Year’s resolutions person, but it seems that remembering God’s benefits to us might be a good thing for any year. His benefits, not my list of happy memories or my collection of things accumulated. Benefits – life, family, friends, purpose, the call to discipleship. Benefits – enjoying and glorifying him forever. 2026: forget not all his benefits. Continue reading →

. . . in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

The story as told by Luke:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. (Luke 2:1-20 [ESV]}

Like a glass ornament falling from the Christmas tree to the hard plank floor below, our cultural Christmas traditions have shattered into a thousand pieces. We will never put them back together again. But as we sort through the colored shards scattered below the tree and under the furniture, we recognize parts of the design.

Of course, our Christmases have long been split between sacred and secular celebrations, the commercial and familial, the sentimental and recently the political.

I am not much of a partisan in the Christmas wars; I don’t insist that the clerk at the post office wish me a Merry Christmas instead of happy holidays. I am not inclined to think of an army of heavenly host appearing to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night made up entirely of pudgy cherubs, but that’s okay. I am completely fine with the Magi showing up at the cattle stall, though the image (both the cattle stall and the Magi at it) is not scripturally warranted. I love Luther’s lullaby even if the little Lord Jesus made a lot of crying.

On the more secular side, I still tell our grandkids that I believe in Santa Claus though every one of them is now a non-believer and mocks my naiveté. I am not sure why Jimmy Stewart and the people of Bedford Falls sing “Auld Lang Syne” on Christmas Eve, but, yes, it’s a wonderful life. Continue reading →

Long ago and far away, a much younger me was teaching an adult Bible class to a wonderful group of people mostly much older and most definitely in higher income brackets than the junior staff church member teaching the class.  I don’t remember the text we were dealing with; maybe it was Proverbs 22:7: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”  In any event it seemed pertinent to mention something I had recently read about consumer debt. People were swimming in it. Fortunately, the junior staff member in the lower income bracket had avoided debt, and so, when I spoke of those about to be swept under by a riptide of debt, I spoke with some disdain, shaming those who would allow themselves to be enslaved to a lender.

I would later discover that more than one member of the Bible class was one of those whose weight of debt was pulling him down like a swimmer being pulled to the depth of the sea by a concrete block tied around his ankles.

My disdain and shame had only added guilt to the fear of pending financial ruin. Continue reading →