I do a lot of commenting around the web, but really mostly on Josh Brown's blog. Something about the discussions there just sucks me right in.

So I decided to start quoting myself every now and then. Kind of vain, I know. But every now and then I just say something that I think, "I should write a blog post about this." Due to my laziness, I'll just give you the back-of-the-book quotes.

If people were half as worried about babies getting their brains sucked out of their head while being halfway through the birth canal, I’d take liberals a little more seriously in their concerns about waterboarding. (from Huckabee Is An Idiot)

The whole process of picking a president was never supposed to be this way. Presidents, initially, were chosen by electors who were chosen by state legislatures. So none of this beauty contest type of thing. Presidents (and senators, for that matter) were chosen by the states. I would really love to see someone push for a more simple system like that again. It would give the national news media a LOT less to talk about. (from Oh Politic Where Art Thou?)

I think the ideas of transforming culture, and us redeeming the world, are very appealing. But therein lies their danger. They make us important. Following what Christ personally did, and what He commanded His followers to do, will not really help us transform the world. It’s too radical. Too crazy. Too dismissive of worldly systems. When we become followers in God’s kingdom, we’re aliens here. I don’t know, I just see so much in scripture that goes against the idea of us redeeming the world, whereas I think you have to try really hard to read those ideas into scripture.

Look, we have a hard enough time following Christ’s explicit commands. Trying to obediently serve my place in the kingdom of God is simple, yet really, really hard to do. I don’t think Christ burdened the entire church with the transformation of the world into God’s original vision of it - something that is described in scripture, but something that is described as God doing, not the church. (from Oh Politic Where Art Thou?)

Compassion means “to suffer with.” If our efforts are based on funneling money from the “evil rich” to the poor with no interaction between them except for a cold, soul-less government, it’s very little service to anyone. I think it’s perhaps the most heartless form of ministry imaginable. (from The Politics of Heaven)

When Jesus is telling us to sell our possessions and give to the poor, I don’t think he was suggesting that we encourage the government to do so by force. To me, that sounds like a joke - if I could only figure out how to turn it into a punchline. (from The Politics of Heaven)

Good comments from the other side on each of those posts as well, lots of stuff to think about.

Labels: church, politics