They Just Don't Get It

I’ve commented before on the utter failure of the media and the entertainment industry to understand Christians. I have never seen a portrayal of Christians that is consistent with the life I or other Christians I know live. Christians always seem to be hypocrites, bullies, and if not actively malevolent, at least “poor, uneducated and easy to command.”

The media leaps on a deserving Pat Robertson but fails to note similar gaffes and bad behavior on the part of Harry Belafonte and other prominent liberals. Once in a while that predisposition to categorize us in this way leads to outright error, as John at Powerline pointed out today.

I’m no fan of Jerry Falwell, but I had a bit of sympathy for him when he was accused of equipping Liberty University students of “assault” ministry. It turns out that Falwell meant, “a salt ministry” as in being salt and light.

I have no doubt that liberals feel victimized and assaulted when they hear the gospel. It’s in direct opposition to what they preach and few people really enjoy competition.

(Sermon notes about Christians being salt are here. Audio is here.)

Democrats Admit the Truth

Democrats admit the truth – now that it’s convenient to do so. The Corner noticed some moonbats who are threatening to out a male Republican Senator who they say engaged in oral sex with another man in retaliation for this Senator’s Alito vote.

Apparently oral sex really IS sex, homosexuality is something of which we should be ashamed, and cheating on your spouse is morally wrong. Go figure.

Alito Will Get an Up or Down Vote

The votes are in; Judge Samuel Alito will have his chance to take a seat on the Supreme Court. It was basically party line with a few crossovers, 57-38. Well, in spite of the fact that Ginsberg ended up with 98 votes, this is about what we’ve come to expect from Democrats. The concept that elections have consequences seems quite beyond them. Perhaps the ballot box drubbing they’ll recieve this year will finally hammer the point home. I am quite disappointed, because we probably will not have another chance to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate (as it has been discontinued in the House) for a long time.

After the vote, some Senators took the opportunity to do what they do best. Bloviate. Senator Max Baucus (D) is now on C-SPAN 2, and I had to laugh. He is upset that Alito will end up on SCOTUS, of course, and one reason he specified is that Alito is apparently in favor of the signing orders Bush has been adding to bills that cross his desk, where he interprets the bill. Senator Baucus says that usurps Congressional power, because only Congress has the right to write laws. Coming from a member of the party who has spent thirty years enabling and encouraging a liberal, activist judiciary to write laws that fly in the face of what their constituents want (gay marriage, abortion are two examples), this hypocrisy is breathtaking. And further proof that Democrats just don’t get it.

The reason many of us voted for Bush is not because we especially like Bush. It’s because one of the promises he made was to get us a conservative court who will stop making up the laws as they go and stop referring to other countries’ laws, but will instead interpret the law according to our Constitution. That is why we went ballistic over Harriet Miers. We feel that Roberts was not conservative enough for the top job, but was for the most part acceptable. He would have been suitable for the O’Connor “swing vote” seat. The fact that Bush nominated a moderate for the Rehnquist seat and someone unqualified to replace O’Conner was very frustrating for most conservatives. We are tired of everybody but Congress writing our laws. We’re tired of the courts doing it, and we’re getting tired of lobbyists doing it. There isn’t enough time left of Bush’s term to build up a big backlash against him for doing it, but woe betide his successor if he or she keeps it up.

We want Congress, quite simply, to do their job. To write the laws and to take responsibility for doing so, so that if we don’t like it, we can vote them out. And the more they continue to play these partisan games and allow the moonbat wing of their party to yank them further left, the worse they look. I hope they keep it up; it’s rather like the way the Palestinians just elected Hamas. The mask is off, and we can see clearly just what principles the Democrats hold most dear.

Time is not on my side.

After Saturday’s sermon (above), which was quite possibly the best tithing sermon I’ve ever heard, I’ve been pondering the concept of tithing time. What would it be like to devote about one and a half hours a day to God? (Based on a day of about 16 waking hours.) I was reading Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Procrastination and this passage really struck me.

Fifth, men behave themselves as those who depend on another day, when they neglect anything today which must be done before they die. If there be anything, which is absolutely necessary to be done sometime before death, and the necessity of it be sufficiently declared and shown to the person for whom it is thus necessary, if he neglects setting about it immediately, sincerely, and with all his might, certainly it carries this face with it, that the man depends upon its being done hereafter, and consequently that he shall have opportunity to do it. — Because, as to those things which are absolutely necessary to be done, there is need, not only of a possibility of a future opportunity; but of something which is to be depended on, some good ground to conclude that we shall have future opportunity. Therefore, whoever lives under this gospel, and does not this day thoroughly reform his life, by casting away every abomination, and denying every lust — and doth not apply himself to the practice of the whole of his duty towards God and man, and begin to make religion his main business — he acts as one who depends on another day; because he is abundantly taught that these things must be done before he dies.

Those who have been seeking salvation for a great while, in a dull, insincere, and slightly manner, and find no good effect of it, have abundant reason to conclude, that some time before they die, they must not only seek, but strive to enter in at the strait gate, and must be violent for the kingdom of heaven. And therefore, if they do not begin thus today, they act as those who depend on another day. — So those who have hitherto lived in the neglect of some particular known duty, whether it be secret prayer, or paying some old debt, which they have long owed to their neighbor — or the duty of confessing some fault to a brother who hath aught against them, or of making restitution for some injury — they act as those who depend on another day.

I have been acting as though I have all the time in the world to do all kinds of things. But the fact is that the clock is ticking. And the choices I make about my time, perhaps even more than the choices I make about my wallet, are the best indicator of my commitment to the Lord. After all, I’ll make more money sooner or later. I can’t make time. It’s a very sobering thought.