Author: Weaver-Swartz

Here’s a conservative the evangelical left would like. Check out this column by Andrew Bacevich at the Front Porch Republic:

In recent decades, the Republican Party’s version of conservatism has emphasized three major themes:

First, in the realm of political economy, Republicans favor small government and unbridled capitalism, looking to the market to solve our domestic problems.

Second, in the realm of foreign policy, Republicans favor big government and unbridled activism, looking to the military to prolong the American Century.

Third, in the realm of culture, Republicans have spoken in defense of so-called traditional values, making much of their putative opposition to abortion and the defense of traditional marriage.

Republicans have made the first two themes the actual basis for policy.  On the third theme, they have offered little more than symbolism and sanctimonious posturing.  So the real guts of GOP conservatism in recent decades have focused on unleashing the market and the military – less state regulation of the economy, more state resources funneled to the Pentagon.

I submit that neither of these qualifies as a genuinely conservative position.  To the extent that I have accurately characterized the Romney campaign’s position, I am glad Romney lost.

The essence of conservatism should be to conserve, showing respect for what is good in our inheritance.  I refer both to our human inheritance and our inheritance in the natural world.

The market does not conserve.  Capitalism is good for one thing:  creating wealth.  As an arena in which the pursuit of profit takes precedence over all other considerations, the market destroys much of what conservatives should value.

Except when used prudently to defend what is truly dear to us, the military does not conserve.  It consumes and wastes.

Interested in starting an intentional Christian community? I am. If you are too, you should probably consult The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus. Written by David Janzen, a long-time member of Reba Place, the book addresses both theoretical and practical issues of family, accountability, eating together, work schedules, decision-making, spiritual practices, and gender.

Bloomberg Business projects what Obama and Romney would look like after four years of the presidency. Given the stresses and severe aging effect of the job, did either one of these guys really want to be president?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meet at the Asbury main circle at 6:15 p.m. or go directly to Lexington by 7 p.m. For more information, click here.

As the election wraps up, two prominent characters in Moral Minority have issued a plea for civility and compassion in the Huffington Post. Echoing the old bumper sticker that reflects the politically homeless nature of the evangelical left, Jim Wallis and Wes Granberg-Michaelson insist that “God is still not a Republican or a Democrat.” While critics might argue that Wallis and Michaelson have thrown their lots with the Democrats (and I’d be very surprised if they haven’t), I’d still suggest that each feels a deep ambivalence about voting for a pro-choice president who continues to bomb with drones. Here’s an excerpt:

And because no candidate or party comes close to expressing all of our values, we need to respect the different choices that Christians make. For all of us believers, we pray that acts of citizenship may reflect, above all else, allegiance to a vision announcing that God’s love and justice continually seeks ways to break into this world.

Yesterday I drove into the public television station KET in Lexington, got worked on by a makeup artist, sat in a green room that wasn’t green, sat down behind a desk on a futuristic set in a cavernous tv studio, had technicians string piles of wire up and down my shirt, and then waited . . . for a full 30 minutes until a producer suddenly said, “Here we go!” Then four cohosts of “The Cycle” started asking me questions as I stared into a big camera lens fifteen feet in front of me. They sure didn’t make it easy on me, asking questions about abortion and gay marriage. 🙂 But the conversation went pretty well, I thought, though much of the material wasn’t what I expected. At one point the audio went out on me, and I couldn’t hear what was happening in New York, and then at the end, the producer started yelling “Wrap, wrap!” into my earpiece to signal that I needed to stop right away. A lot of technicians and a lot of tense moments–all to produce three minutes of television!

Very nice review over at Christianity Today. Here’s a taste:

Swartz has produced a must read not only for those interested in American religion and politics, but also for students of global Christianity. In relatively short order (the book’s main text comes in at 266 pages), Swartz gives a richly textured narrative of some of evangelicalism’s brightest thinkers, most creative activists, and most controversial provocateurs.

Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia and chair of the Democratic National Committee, is an anti-capital punishment, Midwestern social-justice, faithful Catholic Democrat in a socially conservative southern state. How does he pull it off? Find out in this fascinating profile in the Washington Post.

This really has nothing to do with anything. But this kind of potty humor is pretty funny coming from a renowned theologian. I never expected that my four kids under the age of six would remind me of St. Augustine!

“We do in fact find among human beings some individuals with natural abilities very different from the rest of mankind and remarkable by their very rarity. Such people can do some things with their body which are for others utterly impossible and well-nigh incredible when they are reported. Some people can even move their ears, either one at a time or both together. Others without moving the head can bring the whole scalp-all the part covered with hair-down towards the forehead and bring it back again at will. Some can swallow an incredible number of various articles and then with a slight contraction of the diaphragm, can produce, as if out of a bag, any article they please, in perfect condition. There are others who imitate the cries of birds and beasts and the voices of any other men, reproducing them so accurately as to be quite indistinguishable from the originals, unless they are seen. A number of people produce at will such musical sounds from their behind (without any stink) that they seem to be singing from the region. I know from my own experience of a man who used to sweat whenever he chose; and it is a well-known fact that some people can weep at will and shed floods of tears.” (Augustine, City of God, xiv.24)

HT: Running Heads

George McGovern, an antiwar politician in the 1970s and Democratic candidate for president in 1972, died yesterday. See some helpful commentary here, here, and here. McGovern is important in the narrative of the evangelical left. In fact, the group Evangelicals for McGovern led directly to Evangelicals for Social Action, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary next year. Here’s an excerpt from Moral Minority:

In August 1972 Messiah College professor Ron Sider opened a letter that asked for donations toward Mark Hatfield’s re-election campaign for the U. S. Senate. After sending in some money, Sider asked himself, “Why can’t we do the same thing for the Democratic Presidential candidate, George McGovern?” In September, Evangelicals for McGovern (EFM) was born among a small circle of evangelical social activists in Sider’s Philadelphia home. As the effort turned national in the following months, many in both the press and the evangelical communities took note. Not only was this the first explicitly evangelical organization in postwar American politics to officially support a presidential candidate, EFM was endorsing a liberal Democrat.

Progressive evangelicals found McGovern’s political ideology far more congenial to their own reformist impulses than Nixon’s. “We like the way McGovern is getting his feet dirty. He’s concerned about hunger, war, poverty and ecology,” explained Wheaton professor Robert Webber to a Newsweekreporter. Jim Wallis, who served as a regional manager for McGovern’s campaign, called the candidate “a first ray of hope in the midst of widespread despair.” Official EFM documents praised McGovern’s evangelical background, his religious rhetoric, and his stances on school busing, poverty, and the war. “A rising tide of younger evangelicals,” asserted an early news release, “feels that the time has come to dispel the old stereotype that evangelical theology entails unconcern toward the poor, blacks and other minorities, and the needs of the Third World.”