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Albert Mohler on the Palin debate
In an article on his website, Albert Mohler reacts to the controversy surrounding the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Dr. Mohler believes that Palin can serve well as VP, but adds that “there is something to give us all pause in this picture, and those who care for the future of the family should take note and think hard.”
Concerning the revelation yesterday that the Alaska governor’s unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, Dr. Mohler acknowledged the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation but pointed out:
The Palins spoke of their pride in the fact that their daughter would keep her baby and marry the father. Once again, the Palin family chooses life over death, birth over abortion, when aborting the baby would be justified by many and considered the easy way out of an embarrassing situation. Yes, that baby is a gift, as is every single living human being, born and unborn.
On whether Palin, as a mom, was taking on too much by accepting the nomination just four months after giving birth to a child with Downs syndrome: “If I were her pastor, I’d be very concerned for her and her family,” Dr. Mohler told The Wall Street Journal. “But it looks as though she’s found a way to integrate it all in a way that works.” He later added in light of yesterday’s announcement: “Well, I would be even more concerned now.”
Concerning whether a woman can and should serve as vice president:
Do I believe that a woman can serve well in the office of Vice President of the United States? Yes. As a matter of fact, I believe that a woman could serve well as President — and one day will. …
The New Testament clearly speaks to the complementary roles of men and women in the home and in the church, but not in roles of public responsibility. I believe that women as CEOs in the business world and as officials in government are no affront to Scripture. Then again, that presupposes that women — and men — have first fulfilled their responsibilities within the little commonwealth of the family.
I encourage you to read all of Dr. Mohler’s article here.
back to top190 Comments to “Albert Mohler on the Palin debate”
I had to laugh about this.
Hillary Clinton has been in the spotlight for 16 years. First she forced herself on the American public by riding Bill’s coattails and then as a NY Senator.
Now she is upstaged by a gun-toting, pro-life, beauty pageant contestant from the state of Alaska who no heard of until recently.
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Nick: Governor Palin has been on the radar of some of us for a long time.
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I’ve been speaking to my parents about Palin for several months. They’ve been hoping McCain wouldn’t take their excellent governor away. Vain hope that.
Like OutKast says, she’s been on our radar for a while now…
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Palin is everything that McCain wasn’t, and is the antithesis of Obama and Biden…
What’s not to like?
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With respect, the Queen didn’t lobby for her job and had plenty of help (too much help, not enough Mom, if you ask Charles who blames his parents for every stupid thing he’s done) and Lady Thatcher’s children were grown when she became Prime Minister, though she must have been working in politics all along to get that far.
I have had misgivings about this myself since the pregnancy was announced, mainly because I think they’re very young to get married in the first place (I’m not knocking it), but also because this is a time when I suspect Bristol would like to have mom to herself, so to speak. Where will this young couple live? In Alaska or Washington? But I don’t know these people personally, so I don’t really know the truth about the support system. I even feel for the 7-year-old having to leave Alaska for a school in Washington. But I have to trust that the Palins know their family and their situation well enough that they made the right decision for their family.
I think it’s their call.
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Hillary Clinton “forced herself” on the American people? Last time I checked we still live in a democracy, where people are free to vote for or against someone. The people of New York freely elected her to the Senate. She ran for the Democratic nomination, and the majority of the people freely declined her.
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I do have to agree with Nick that Palin’s selection must stick in Hillary’s craw a bit. Her own turned her down and now this upstart comes along. When you let yourself think about it for awhile, it is really very funny. But that’s life, and stuff like that happens to all of us.
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To NJ Lawyer
What do you think about a woman with a 5 month old Down’s syndrome baby and 17 yeard old pregnant daughter running for Vice-President?
Will she have enough time to devote to office?
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Gov. Palin is running with McCain – whatever people think, and it seems there are a number of ideas, the Palin’s daughter is NONE of OUR BUISNESS – Bristol and her boyfriend are getting married, again, NONE OF OUR BUSINESS –
I’m surprised at Evangelicals even suggesting to tell the Palin’s what to do – playing the game of “if I were their pastor” – Liberals and the left are EXPECTED to have the ‘nose out of joint’ syndrome, but we as Believers are to support and help one another.
There are numerous threads on this issue, it’s beginning to look rather odd that we can’t get on with what McCain and Obama have done, and haven’t done, but settleing for a gossip session about a seventeen year old girl – sounds very much like women’s gossip, but in this instance the men are just as bad if not worse than the women ——– YUCK!
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By the way, kids leave their states, cities, etc., when dad gets a promotion or the family decides to move. Palin’s kids will do just fine – kids adjust, they make friends faster than their parents.
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To Anlir
My point was we elected Bill into office and not Hillary. She acted like she elected and was constantly in the news.
After she actually elected into office we now have to tolerate her.
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If we were talking about a 17-year-old black girl of an ordinary poor family who got pregnant, you guys would be moaning about the declining moral standards of the country, the need to teach abstinence, the terrible effect of “liberal” culture, etc. etc.
Because it’s the daughter of a right-wing extremist that might be vice president, you’re all cooing about the wonder of life, the admirability of her keeping the baby and planning to marry the father, yadda yadda.
There are some declining moral standards in this country all right, and if you conservative Christians want to see them, that’s why you have mirrors.
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To Steve
Who are the left-wing extremists in this country?
No one is defending this pregnant girl. We just admire the fact that Ms. Palin is not a hypocrite.
This pro-life woman gave birth to a baby knowing it had Downs while she was pregnant and she did not take her daughter to an abortion clinic.
How can anyone not respect someone who has the courage of their convictions, whether we agree with them or not.
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Steveg,
YADDA YADDA – I haven’t heard that one where I live in almost a year. LOL
Make it up as you trot down the thread – we are used to your silly made up stories about how we Evangelicals would react. All of which is ALL IN YOUR MIND, — maybe Drill can come to your rescue and cleverize your fictional excuse for gossip –
Where’s DRILL?
Calling Drill, calling Drill –
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Do you people honestly think that teenagers just discovered sex? It has been going on since the beginning. Instead of abstinence and abortion we ought to be discussing why these young girls are getting pregnant at such an alarming rate when they have more access to more birth control than at any other time in history. I know I grew up sheltered but I have asked several people recently who are quite a bit older and quite a bit younger than me how many sexual partners they have had in the past. The numbers were mind boggling. I am talking about people I would consider my peers. Most of the oldr ones managed not to get pregnant. Many of the younger ones have. Recently I talked to a woman who has been pregnant 9 times. She has 4 children but only 2 live with her. What happened in 15 or 20 years that girls can’t seem to comprehend birth control? Heck when I was at the University of Maryland they gave me condoms when I sprained my foot.
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Nick, that’s a tough question for me. I think I know where my heart is, I know the “right” answer, but there’s a part of me that wouldn’t like to be denied the opportunity to try. I will relate the following story and you may glean from it what you will. As you know, I worked for a federal judge for many years, and the world revolved around him. He came first, his career came first. He was lucky to have a wife who understood what it meant to him to be a judge. That was no 9 to 5 job for any of us in chambers, but even moreso for him. He worked part of every evening, every weekend, and did “exra-curricular” activities. Every vacation he called us every day and worked on the phone. The man never stopped! He wrote a commencement speech for a law school class one year and in it he suggested to the students that they remember to smell the daisies. I asked him if he had it to do over would he smell the daisies more, would he change anything. He considered my question, but his answer was “no.” His family more than survived. They are one of the closest families I have ever encountered, and they are not Christian, rather Jewish. He had enormous amounts of energy. At 75, he put 25 year old kids to shame when it came to work product. He truly thrived on work and lived his life. (By the way, many judges, male and female are the same way.)
Had I not had the experience of working for the judge or the chance to observe the others, my answer to you would be a resounding “no.” But I did have that experience, and Sarah Palin is probably one of “those” people. They live life to the full. I think many of us would be amazed at what people like that accomplish and accomplish well.
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NICK and others RE #8 -
No one questioned the ability of Joe Biden as a newly elected Senator from Delaware – a small state by the way – when he took office as a Senator while at the same time raising two young boys after the tragic death of his wife and another child. There was no question of ability to balance Senate and home interests.
It seems to me the real issue is that Governor Palin does not fit into the stereotype of “woman” that liberals prize.
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The setting: Biden/Palin VP Debate.
A question about experience arises (really, go figure, why would that come up?)
Palin answers the question with her good resume of qualifications and experience which trumps BHO’s by far. Then Biden chimes in and hits her with his experience–which is good if you want to be an experienced US Senator–he has 35 years and that’s it. No budgets, not maintaining a payroll, someone else always carries out the affects of his votes.
So for the Palin comeback and response—”Tell me, Senator Biden, have you or your running-mate Senator Obama ever reduced the property taxes of any US citizen? Well, I have. Senator Biden, how can your experience of 35 years in the Senator and Senator Obama’s experience of 180 days in the senate give us any indication your ticket is a ticket of change? And finally, Senator Biden can you tell Americans how you have fought political corruption and won?
Debate over!
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Nick: No one is defending this pregnant girl.
Imagine if the pregnant girl were the daughter of some anonymous Democratic voter of no particular political use to you and tell me the conservatives wouldn’t be reacting in horror about how terrible those permissive liberals are, letting their teenaged girls have sex and not teaching them about abstinence!
Can you make that claim? With a straight face?
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There are teenaged girls with parents who vote for either party or none at all who do stupid things. Every thinking individual knows none of these parents are “letting their teenaged girls have sex,” emphasis on the “letting.” This is usually NOT the parents’ idea. So, yeah, I think Nick could.
Nick?
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“Governor Palin has been on the radar of some of us for a long time.”
A “long time” is GOP code for “less than 20 months.”
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“Can you make that claim? With a straight face?”
Yes.
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Luke.
So what?
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NJ Lawyer and Steve
Aren’t the children of the politicians pretty much off limits?
Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian and Bush’s daughters had some drinking problems but the media has pretty much given them a pass.
But to answer your question there are so many unwed mothers nowadays no one seems too worked up over it. So no I don’t think conservatives would have found it a big deal if a liberal’s daughter was pregnant.
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#18, ITT, No one questioned the ability of Joe . . .? Are you sure about this? Granted, I don’t think that they should (nor of Mrs Palin) but I doubt that no one did. In fact, Joe did. He had to be convinced to take the oath after the tragedy. Thankfully, IMHO, he did.
Facts are facts, Mrs. Palin has raised a fornicator and that will never change. She has to deal with the fact that the policy of “abstinence only” simply didn’t work in her own family. Hopefully, with the grace of god she’ll realize what a bad policy it is using her own family as part of the measurement. It doesn’t work in our nation and it’s just another reason to consider a more sane (OK, my editorial) sex eduction policy in the classroom, as much as Christians and Conservatives may hate it.
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Nick asks:
“NJ Lawyer and Steve
Aren’t the children of the politicians pretty much off limits?”
They should be, but in this case, the MSM has nothing else to use against Palin, so here we are.
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And thanks for answering, and thanks for allowing me to pre-empt you a bit.
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Scott
YOU WRITE:…
“Facts are facts, Mrs. Palin has raised a fornicator and that will never change”
And who are you Scott? – are you without sin?
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I was going to make a snarky remark about conservative Christians being unable show embarassment about Palin’s family situation, but there is enough squirming in this thread that I’ll give them a gentleman’s “C” grade.
(C stands for condescension, but the way, not to mention conservative and Christian as well. When my parents were kids, CCC stood for Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, a liberal New Deal program that caused conservatives of the time to foam at the mouth as the conservatives of today do over…well, everything.)
Maybe today CCC should stand for concupiscent [bad "C" word] corps.
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From a Reuters story:
Palin’s disclosure that her 17-year-old, unmarried daughter is pregnant, in addition to the news that she had hired a private lawyer in an ethics probe in Alaska, led some to raise questions about McCain’s judgment and how thoroughly her background was examined in selecting the relatively unknown governor last week as his No. 2.
Please note how I predicted this on May 2. Am I good, or what? (Modest and proud of my humility, also.)
http://modestypress.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/raising-a-better-candidate/
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To Random Name
Let’s try this one more time. I don’t doubt any conservative Christian or Republican wishes Palin’s daughter wasn’t pregnant and I will believe her boyfriend marries her when I see it.
But why can’t you respect a pro-life woman who didn’t abort her Downs syndrome baby and didn’t take her daughter to an abortion clinic. Where oh where is your admiration for a woman who practices what she preaches?
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SteveG at # 12:
I think you hit a nerve. Well said. Poor Vicky is still sputtering.
NJL: the MSM has nothing else to use against Palin
Oh my, the hero of your party picks someone barely out of diapers politically to be one heartbeat from the Presidency and you think the MSM isn’t interested? Just wait.
The Post this morning had some interesting stuff on Palin, well paid lobbyists, $50 million in earmarks for her tiny town and the generally corrupt political culture in Alaska. Look for a lot more where that came from.
You are going to have to go a long way to blame it all on the MSM rather than the sewer from which Ms Palin has apparently crawled.
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#29… Sin? Who’s talking about sin? “Sin” is just biblical manure. I’m merely judging the failure of Palin’s abstinence only policy which, CLEARLY, didn’t work for her own family. Let’s leave sin out of this since that’s the type of judgment that Christians/god make based on that silly book that they revere. I didn’t judge Palin’s parenting or the daughter’s character or action. Are my facts wrong Victoria? As much as you pray that they are, I don’t think even you can argue my point. The policy didn’t work for her oldest daughter.
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Guess who said this:
“On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.”
“Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.”
Yes, that’s Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. What will he say about Bristol’s ‘condition’?
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NJLawyer post 27,
actually I believe if you look at the time lines, it was Sarah Palin’s actions which were being challenged and reviewed.
It was the Palins and McCain who entered Bristol directly into the discussion, at which point, of course, the discussion pretty much dissipated, as well it should have.
My sense is that it is lasting longer in WMB than it is in many other places.
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NJLawyer post 27,
interestingly there were a number of ways to quell the discussion:
1) show the birth cetificate for Trig
- many birth certificates are bineg produced in this campaign
2) release Srah Palin’s medical records
- this will pretty much inevitably have to be done anyway
Releasing the data on Bristol was an interesting approach (debunking a rumor about your daughter’s pregnancy by announcing that she is pregnant????). But it was done at the Palin’s and McCain campaign’s choice, not the demand of the media.
Now the reality is that Bristol’s pregnancy was pretty much going to come out anyway. The only question was when and how.
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#32
Nick, I won’t answer any more questions you ask me until you are willing to answer questions I ask you.
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This is so wrong.
http://tinyurl.com/gamblingissowrong
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Random name post 39,
how is it so much more wrong than betting say the GM stock will go up or down in price?
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Lumpy: In context, if you look at the sister of Britney Spears (and her parents) side by side with Bristol Palin (and her parents), there’s absolutely no comparison. Give it up.
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Let’s look at two different candidates –
Governor Palin’s daughter is pregnant, 17 and will marry her boyfriend and carry their child.
We have a guy running for President who would take another path, living up to his constant pro-abortion stand –
I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to
teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a
mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. Obama
One young 17 year old girl handles her situation like a woman, a strong woman –
One man would handle the situation much differently, like a selfish individual obviously the infant would be the punished victim, needing to be eliminated by the knife -
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To Random
How did I not answer your question?
And yes it does concern me that McCain (a 72 year old man) picked Palin based on one short meeting.
McCain said he know about Palin’s daughter but I wonder.
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outkast post 41,
I suggest that the first step in such comparisons is outcomes.
The initial outcomes are similar.
If we are going to waste more time considering Bristol’s situation, then it wil be the intermediate and long term outcomes which will be most interesting for comparison.
I suggest we don’t have adequate data for those comparisons yet and wont for some time.
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Random Name,
inTrade, the market your link discusses, was correct in predicting every house and senate election in 2006, while the pundits and experts were often wrong.
It now has McCain down another point today at a 38.7% chance at the presidency. If people are sure about McCain there’s a lot of money to be earned if he wins. If he had named a competent VP candidate I’d buy some some shares at that price.
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victoria post 42,
your conservative presuppositions are showing!
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Mrs. Spears was good enough to have a book deal with a large Christian Publisher of Bibles. Why throw her under the bus and not Palin?
“Meanwhile, Thomas Nelson, which publishes Bibles and inspirational books, said Wednesday it has suspended publishing a parenting book by Lynn Spears, mother of Jamie Lynn.”
“We have postponed the book indefinitely,” said Lindsey Nobles, spokeswoman for Tennessee-based Christian publisher, in a Reuters report Wednesday.
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The Governor and VP positions have a lot of support staff and persaonal/household assistance. Far more than any stay-at-home mom ever had. Mr. Palin has time on his hands too.
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Arcadia, I watch the evening news every day, and the MSM is talking about protestors at the RNC convention, but they didn’t last week at the DNC convention. Pick a station, they’ve made truly nasty remarks about baby bumps.
You talk about a general corrupt politial culture in Alaska — is Ms. Palin a part of that or has she gone after that. Be fair. That’s all I ask, and so far, the MSM has not been fair. It has been salacious. There has been more talk about this pregnancy than anything else, and it’s been nasty.
Musing, I have had the news on almost all day, and every station has mentioned the pregnancy. And I don’t have cable. So, it’s not just here on WMB.
For people who are always writing here that the issues should be discussed, you’re having a fine time.
And Random, I give you an A plus for your snide condescension.
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Well, I would be even more concerned now. . . I believe that a woman could serve well as President — and one day will. . . . Then again, that presupposes that women — and men — have first fulfilled their responsibilities within the little commonwealth of the family. Is this kind of public role what most women want? Clearly not, and for that I am honestly thankful. The tasks assigned to women within the home are monumental. . . Still, there is something to give us all pause in this picture, and those who care for the future of the family should take note and think hard.
I believe that Mohler is preparing the way for Palin’s withdrawal from the ticket.
Defeating Obama is certainly more important to him than electing Palin.
It’s becoming clear that independent voters think McCain showed too much political calculation and too little judgement in this selection, which will hurt him more than a fired-up base will help. The base is going to blame liberals for this fiasco, which is good for McCain, and might even let him keep the benefits of making the appointment without keeping Palin herself, and the disadvantages she brings.
Setting aside all we’re learning about Palin, we’re learning a lot about McCain’s management style (David Brooks today is devastating, without meaning to be), and I think Republicans will use what’s left of the convention to pick another VP.
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In other words, your post #30 let you win the race to the bottom, as you call it. It’s offensive.
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NJL –
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is always a good idea – In the case of what’s happened in the past few days since Gov. Palin has been chosen, I have little respect if any, for what I’ve witnessed – attacking a nominee, her husband and their daughter has been made a wicked pass-time, of ridicule and “if I were you” –
Strange how the left can justify abortion, and yet behave like vipers against a young girl and her parents.
In many ways its best that this has happened, those of us who might have tried see how useless it is to fight with vipers, their ways are different from ours.
34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Matthew 12
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Apparently everyone on the left has perfect teenagers. Sin is inevitable. It is the response to that sin that shows true character. The left is just sore because she didn’t exercise her right to ‘choose’.
As disgusting as Bill Clinton was, I admire Hillary for sticking with him. As heartbreaking as teen mistakes can be I admire parents for sticking with them and dealing admirably with the consequences.
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NJL,
When I am brought to trial for the crime of condescension, I certainly hope that I will be tried by a jury of my peers. If you are on the jury pool, I will suggest to my lawyer that based on that criteria he include you as one of the selections.
By the way, in regard to Nick and Night Train, they seem to be in a very similar place in regard to black people. You have indicated to me that I am unfair to Nick, though I am not sure how. If he asks me questions, I presume he is checking in for my answer. If he asks me questions, and I answer them, I think it reasonable to expect him to answer mine, which he doesn’t seem willing to do.
As I see similar comments and behavior on the part of Night Train, who seems to be an apostate evangelical Christian, are you going to leap to his defense in a way you do for the (apparently) Catholic Nick? I am confused about your criteria for whom you defend.
Under what conditions (if any) would you leap to my defense at WorldMagBlog?
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Xion: “The left is just sore because she didn’t exercise her right to ‘choose’.”
As StuBob noted if not in this thread, then another on this subject, the Palins DID choose. Sarah and Todd chose to have a Down Syndrome baby. Bristol Palin is choosing to have her baby.
The left is sore because the Palins DID exercise their rights, just not in the left way.
Victoria – agreed. I’m looking forward to tonight’s convention hour. I’m sure you are, too. But I’ll bet you the news people will make some snide remark.
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My teen was pretty perfect, and didn’t get pregnant, even with the moral hazzard of parents who don’t denounce other people’s weak families.
One of my brother’s kids got pregnant in college. My brother and his wife actually changed their lives. They moved (nowhere near the White House). He went to work for the family business, and grandma became a day-care worker so little mama could go to work. My brother found a job for the baby’s father, too. Goodbye college life, hello jobs and night school. My brother made the biggest sacrifice, I think, because he’s shrewd enough to know the likelihood of spinning off a stable marriage probably aint the greatest.
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Let’s see now, it is unforgivable to call Michelle Obama to task for a statement that she made – and then repeated – WHILE CAMPAIGNING for the man who want to be PRESIDENT, but it is OK to viciously attack the new vice-presidential candidate? What is wrong with this picture?
Where are the impassioned chest-beaters of the Media? Of the Left?
Also, seems to me like Obama and his surrogates were inferring that McCain et al were out-of-touch with the “Middle-class”. Now we have a V.P. candidate that is showing herself to have many of the challenges of Middle-class but is handling them well – and the Media and the Left go into attack-mode more viciously than Freddy Kreuger – slicing and dicing her family at every opportunity!
Let’s get back to the issues – oh, wait, we don’t know where Obama stands (for long) on any issues but killing innocent babies and raising taxes. (Ooops, there goes my sarcastic streak again…)
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NJ Lawyer at #27: They should be, but in this case, the MSM has nothing else to use against Palin, so here we are.
Are you serious? The pregnancy is the least of the problems Palin has. Her dishonesty in claiming to have opposed the Bridge to Nowhere is much more relevant, just to name one example.
I know in your alternative reality, Sarah Palin is an accomplished political leader with a proven mastery of statecraft who singlehandedly kept the Russians from invading Alaska, and who would be the ideal vp pick if the mean, sleazy liberals would shut up about her daughter’s mistake.
Out here in realityland, though, the view is considerably different.
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What seems so confusing about this thread is the allegations of the left saying things that I simply have not read here. I don’t see (at least not in the way suggested) the vast majority of posts saying anything negative about a 17 YO becoming pregnant. Everything here seems to be about Mrs. Palin herself. Am I missing something?
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Nick: Aren’t the children of the politicians pretty much off limits?
Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian and Bush’s daughters had some drinking problems but the media has pretty much given them a pass.
I think children become a legitimate issue when it becomes obvious that the politicians in question can’t raise their own families by the rules or principles they seek to impose on others.
To consider these examples:
Bristol Palin is legitimate because she calls in question Sarah Palin’s commitment to abstinence-only sex education.
Dick Cheney’s daughter is legitimate because he supports an administration with an anti-gay policy agenda even while being fully aware of what gay Americans face, due to his own child’s experiences.
The Bush twins, I would say, are NOT fair game. They are or have been partiers, like a lot of young women, but there’s nothing about that that undermines their father’s political and personal positions.
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Nick, you should not read this post as I am not speaking with you until you engage in two-way communication like a grown-up person and answer my questions. In fact, I consider it a violation of Terms of Service to read the rest of this message, though probably wmb management (who seldom back me up) will not enforce it. Nevertheless, I have the moral high ground in this regard.
In terms of the Palins:
I don’t agree with most people on this web site on the topic of abortion. I have been trying to clarify my thoughts on this difficult and turbulent issue and working on how to express them clearly so everyone can appropriately chastize me.
In the meantime, I will say, as I have said before, that people who oppose abortion should, as much as possible, find positive reasons for not having abortions. I oppose punishment. That is, I don’t think doctors who perform abortions should be punished and
I don’t think women who have abortions should be punished. I don’t think abortion (with some reasonable guidelines) should be against the law.
I think it’s commendable that the Palins did not abort their Downs Syndrome child. I think it’s commendable that the Palins are supporting their daughter; that she is getting married (assuming that they are a compatible couple and not doing it for superficial reasons); and it’s commendable that she is not aborting the child; and I think in these regards they are setting a good example for other people who might find themselves in similar situations.
Nick, if you read this after I asked you not to, you have, in my opinion, a moral obligation to engage in two-way communication with me and answer my questions. If you don’t, I think NJLawyer has a moral obligation to support me in this regard, but I am not holding my breath in expectation of this happening.
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Scott, your missing Albert Mohler’s misgivings about a mother with a 5-month old baby with Down syndrome and a daughter who got pregnant at 16 becoming president of the USA. Albert Mohler isn’t a liberal. He says you should “think hard” about the life circumstances of this potential future president of the USA.
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OTPW
“but it is OK to viciously attack the new vice-presidential candidate?”
What are you talking about? NJL and Victoria are up to their old trick, but no one here is being vicious. At least they aren’t calling people muslim terrorists and baby eaters.
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Steveg
YOU WRITE:….
“I think children become a legitimate issue when it becomes obvious that the politicians in question can’t raise their own families by the rules or principles they seek to impose on others.”
Rules – Principles?
People raise their children with rules and principles, but that doesn’t mean kids don’t get pregnant before marriage.
What policies, rules and principles has Gov. Palin imposed on others that she doesn’t impose on herself?
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#62 I was more talking about Post #53…. it confuses me in the context of this thread since no one seems to have written anything of the sort. As you note, Mohler’s not on the left.
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Steveg
YOU WRITE:…
“Bristol Palin is legitimate because she calls in question Sarah Palin’s commitment to abstinence-only sex education.”
I agree with abstinence only sex education, but that doesn’t mean that every child is going to adhere to that education. Kids make mistakes, should that be a stick to beat over the head of the parents?
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#64 He didn’t say that she didn’t impose it on herself, he said, what I said before, and that’s that she was unsuccessful in raising a child who was able avoid pregnancy with a policy of abstinence only, one that she supports as effective. Except, for her it wasn’t. That’s a fact that all the prayer in the world won’t change.
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Opps, #67… my old friend V…
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#66….Uuuughh oh…. never mind.. my eyes are VERY bad today… god please my sight problems while I sleep tonight…
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Random, a few months ago, Stephen King made a remark about soldiers in Iraq, and it was misinterpreted. Go to his website and read the posts there. There were people who went there to go after him, and one of his fans came to his defense and accused those posters of coming into King’s “house” and — I’ll use a nice word — urinating on his carpet. That’s what you did in post 30. You come to a Christian “house” and every day you mock Christians, call us names with slick phrasing and now you condescend to give us a grade. Evidently, you didn’t like the grade I gave you or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we. Evidently, you don’t like to be judged any more than the rest of us. It doesn’t taste as good when its on your plate.
Nick and Night Train have opinions on topics. Your snide comments are about Christians, not the topics. There’s a difference. And Nick doesn’t attack you, he just voices his opinion, and he’s entitled to do that. So is NT.
I doubt any Christian could live up to what you think a Christian should be, but we don’t have to, we have only to be judged by Jesus Christ and his judgment is true.
Under what conditions will I leap to your defense? When you deserve one.
I would be excused from your jury for bias, and I would make sure the judge knew that. So, don’t worry. You’ll get a fair trial. But be careful – I’m not thinkin’ Jesus uses the jury system.
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True the left is reveling at Palin’s misfortune but not the actual personal circumstances but rather the irony.
In truth, the left and the media is attacking several problems with the Palin nomination — the flip flop on the bridge to nowhere, her involvement with Ted Stevens, her abuse of power mixing the personal with the political, and her lack of experience. Secondly, the impulsive nature of the decision making process also leaves people questioning McCain and his advisers. Quite clearly, it was designed to make a splash and detract from Obama’s speech and hence it was clearly about electioneering rather than putting the country first. Finally, a good case can be made for pandering — both to the religious right and to Hilary votes.
Obama was asked about the experience factor. His response noted that the right failed to take into account his executive experience in the non-profit sector including running his campaign which has a far larger budget than the Alaska state gov’t.
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Everyone with absolutely perfect children who do everything you tell them to do please stand up.
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Palin has children. Obama has children. Why is Moler only questioning Palin’s career choice?
The media is now calling the trouble with her teen Babygate. Perhaps her running for office with a newborn is a double Babygate. How low can the press go?
To Moler’s point, I think it is easier for a man to run. No one talks about what a man is wearing. Hillary was excoriated for showing emotion in NH. The scrutiny will be far tougher. I do worry about her kids. Did her career choice affect her teenage daughter? There is more to life than politics. She will need to live with her choices. However, having made her choice, she shouldn’t be held to a different standard. Of course, she will be.
They are calling the investigation over the ex brother-in-law Trooper she tried to fire Troopergate. She is being portrayed as a witch. Apparently the left is now in love with this Trooper who used a Taser on his ten-year-old stepson, shot a moose without a license, drank beer in his squad car and made a death threat against a retired school teacher. Having him fired for any of these this is being portrayed as so vindictive! Oooo!
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Victrola at #66: I agree with abstinence only sex education, but that doesn’t mean that every child is going to adhere to that education. Kids make mistakes, should that be a stick to beat over the head of the parents?
Scott answered for me in #67 and got it exactly right. The reason Bristol Palin is legitimate to talk about is that Sarah Palin insists that abstinence-only will prevent pregnancy but can’t even make it work in her own family.
It’s an irony, and also should be strong evidence for her that abstinence alone isn’t enough. But it won’t be because she is so blinded by her ideological beliefs that she can’t allow herself to consider she might be mistaken.
And that’s a bad trait for leader to have.
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I thank God that He has provided a candidate who appears to be a true conservative! I absolutely embrace this lady who lives what she teaches and takes the consequences gracefully, humbling herself rather than spinning the story or hiding reality.
I also think that the fact that the best candidate McCain could find is a woman reflects not so much on the woman as on society. Where, oh where, are the strong conservative men who are willing to take these hits??
I’m thinking that Gov. Palin may be a modern-day Deborah, and that our country being led by her is an indictment of our society. She’s answering a call, in my view.
And BRAVO for her for bringing that beautiful baby into this world, and for being part of the solution for her daughter–what a terrible, terrible thing it would be if she’d pressured her child to kill that baby!
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One more thing–supporting abstinence only sex ed is the right thing to do, whether or not her children practice what their parents teach. You don’t adjust the truth just because some fall, even if those who fall are near and dear to you.
Teach what’s right, not necessarily what “works”.
The problem is premarital sex. Not babies.
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Well duh. But obviously abstinence-only education does not always succeed in preventing premarital sex. And if this woman can’t even persuade her own daughter, how much more obvious does it have to be that teenagers are not going to always behave as you would like them to?
But please, do go ahead bullheadedly refusing to support actual education about ways to prevent pregnancy other than abstinence. You (collectively) don’t care about preventing pregnancy, you only care about trying to compel everybody to share your views of morality.
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#74 If the issues were only about “what works”, then there is no perfect solution. If kids are going to have sex anyway, then by all means have them go down to the drug store and buy condoms.
The point is about principle. Encouraging kids to wait is the right message. Encouraging them to not do drugs is the right message. It makes no sense to hand condoms out like candy to hormonally charged kids or to hand out needles to drug addicts. For some reason, the left always promotes the thing they want to prevent.
Her daughter did wrong. She knows it. Her parents know it. We all know it. No one is quibbling about what the word ‘is’ is. If a teen gets an abortion the left commends her for being responsible. If a girl chooses to make the best of a mistake, she is lectured by the self-righteous left and her parents become irresponsible and unfit for office.
Was John Edwards or Jesse Jackson or Bill Clinton fit for office for sexual indiscretion. Are you going to lecture them about condoms? This political hypocrisy is really getting old.
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Steveg,
I’m not trying to compel other parents to teach abstinence only sex ed. But I very much think that it’s wrong for schools to circumvent parents to get contraception to children, or to subvert the moral underpinnings of the home.
It should be up to parents, not politicians and teachers unions, to shape children’s views of sexuality, and to choose the time to introduce the topic.
I’d rather not teach sex ed at all in schools. How about focusing on math and good grammar?! Speaking of approaches that aren’t working…
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So much for the “McCain-ticket-isn’t-connected-to-the-problems-of-real-Americans” protomeme.
Feel free to pick another straw to grasp at. That one broke off short.
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Amen, Serious George.
Woo-hoo!
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“I thank God that He has provided a candidate who appears to be a true conservative!”
She’s no conservative. She’s got her hand in the Abramoff/Ted Stevens/VECO pot like all the other corrupt Alaska politicians. Just more of the Same.
Her name is even on the incorporation papers for indicted Ted Stevens 527 PAC, which was set up to funnel corporate money to benefit the corrupt Stevens.
Good article that touches some of the coming Palin scandals:
Campaign money hurts Palin’s outsider image
It’s the latest in a string of disclosures that has raised questions about whether John McCain’s presidential campaign had sufficiently investigated the background of Palin.
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Thanks for the update from the DailyKos/Obama campaign, Lumpy!
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Outkast-
You should have named yourself Ostrich.
You look silly with your head in the sand.
It’s a detailed article in the International Herald Tribune.
I would never post something from either of the two outlets you named.
Can you point me to a single instance of my having done so?
You can’t because it has never happened.
Care to address the facts in the article?
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Victoria, regarding #42 post, EXACTLY! No one here even tried to refute your comments. They just labeled them which is what they do when they know their beat.
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As far as sex education, nothing works reliably. Neither the religious approach, nor the secular “sex education” approach.
Some children behave themselves. Some don’t but “get lucky” in that they don’t get pregnant.
No one has ever demonstrated an approach that works consistently for large numbers of children and adults. The beast with two backs is two powerful to resist.
Either God wanted humans to be most horny when they had the least maturity and ability to control themselves and use the least sensible judgment.
Or.
Evolution formed us to fornicate like crazed weasels when we were likely to die by the age of 30, so it made sense to get pregnant by 15 or so.
The ability of people (secular liberals and religious rightists alike) to deceive themselves in this regard is quite stupendous.
By the way, what’s the deal with the program to get johns to reform themselves in regard to prostitution? Wasn’t that in San Francisco? Wasn’t somebody going on about what a great and successful program that is about a month ago? Any update on how well it is working?
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Now Serious George, really. This is the kind of real people connection that avails the McCain candidacy? Even if “connecting” to “real Americans” was something important for a candidate to do, the pregnancy of an underage, unwed daughter is a dubious way to present it.
Although certainly not beyond Christ’s redemption, this pregnancy is a terrible Christian witness. It’s a flesh-and-blood example of all those “church is no different than the world” statistics we cringe at hearing. As hypocritical and double-minded some of the unbelievers have been on this and other Worldmag threads, their criticisms highlight the importance of not taking God’s name in vain.
P.S. No woman should run for political office.
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Abolish government schools and let parents decide how to “sex educate” their children. Why that’s not self-evident, I don’t know.
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No doubt if it was Obama’s teenage daughter who was pregnant, Dobson and the rest of the CCR would be thundering from their pulpits about the moral laxity of the Democratic Party.
In any event, I’m grateful that the CCR’s has decided that teenage pregnancy and sex outside of marriage are no longer of any moral import. Who would have expected them to make such a dramatic change on those two moral issues? It gives one hope that they might change their mind on gays. I applaud the CCR’s for their new found tolerance and acceptance of reality.
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#76 Teach what’s right, not necessarily what “works”. That’s unconscionable, I can hardly believe that someone wrote that. I can only hope and pray that children of parents who think like this survive unscathed and with a mind of their own.
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Sarah Palin insists that abstinence-only will prevent pregnancy but can’t even make it work in her own family.
*******And, in just about every single public school in the country they teach contraceptive based sex education. And, how many of those girls get pregnant? You don’t want the statistics, because it blows your argument out of the water
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But obviously abstinence-only education does not always succeed in preventing premarital sex.
******Please tell me a form of sex education that is 100% effective. You shouldn’t hold out on us. You could make a ton of money if you have the answer!
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Anlir: No doubt if it was Obama’s teenage daughter who was pregnant, Dobson and the rest of the CCR would be thundering from their pulpits about the moral laxity of the Democratic Party.
Yep. The raw hypocrisy of the right is wearing awfully thin.
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To the Anti-Palins: Dobson, et al, would not be decrying the immorality of liberals if the shoe was on the other foot. You’ve got some legitimate material to work with, but that’s not part of the repertoire.
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Steveg – 74
YOU WRITE:……
“Scott answered for me in #67 and got it exactly right. The reason Bristol Palin is legitimate to talk about is that Sarah Palin insists that abstinence-only will prevent pregnancy but can’t even make it work in her own family.”
OK, lets take this a bit further here, we seem to have stumbled on to something:
We see homosexuals who have been ‘educated’ to use the proper preventatives so that they don’t get HIV/AIDS, but yet the disease rises – so what we have is educated ADULTS who can’t use the proper precautions to safeguard their health?
Lets take this back to a young girl who is 17, staying pregnant, marrying her boyfriend and then compare that with —– a disease that can be prevented if homosexuals use protection, but become HIV/AIDS infected, at a high rate of speed –
When has education, all the condoms in the world helped stop the disease of HIV/AIDS in the USA? The homosexuals continue their aberrant behavior while we watch and are expected to pick up the pieces, pay for the disease, the long lasting effects, ——————- HOLD ON —————- and then we have the nit-wits who attack a 17 year old girl and her family for not keeping her chaste?
Keep it up, we can’t wait for the next installment!
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SteveG at #93 and elsewhere. Aw, come on. I agree it’s a simple matter to demonstrate hypocrisy on the right, but don’t overextend your case.
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Of course, we can understand Mrs. Palin’s and the rest of CCR’s objection to birth control. A girl needs to be punished for having sex, and what better way to do that than to force her to live with the consequences (pregnancy)? Boys will be boys though.
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In any event, I’m grateful that the CCR’s has decided that teenage pregnancy and sex outside of marriage are no longer of any moral import.
******Oh give me a break. No one said that it wasn’t a sin. In fact, I believe I personally referred to it as a sin in a number of posts along with many others.
Again, the difference between Christians and Liberals is that Christians ADMIT the sin, REPENT of the sin, and are willing to accept the CONSEQUENCES of the sin. And, when there is repentance, then other Christians FORGIVE the sin.
Liberals pretend it is not a sin, do all they can to hide it, and do not want any consequences (the the prevalence of abortion.) Then, they throw it in your face years later (despite repentance), never having heard of forgiveness or any sort of Statute of Limitations, when it suits their purposes.
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Victoria: I honestly don’t believe anyone is attacking a 17 year old girl and her family. When they can bring themselves to stay on point, they’re arguing that the pregnancy demonstrates a deficiency to govern at home, and that that deficiency may extend to public office. It’s a legitimate concern.
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Hundreds!
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Boys will be boys though.
******Hmmm. I thought he was going to be a husband and a father. Seems like consequences to me.
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Anlir: If it was Barry’s daughter instead of Palin’s daughter who got knocked up, we would be advising Obama’s kid’s NOT to have an abortion (as her father would undoubtedly advise). Instead, Palin’s daughter (with the support of her parents) has made the righteous decision to welcome this innocent baby into the world and marry the father.
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No doubt if it was Obama’s teenage daughter who was pregnant, Dobson and the rest of the CCR would be thundering from their pulpits about the moral laxity of the Democratic Party.
******Again with what we “would do” when there is simply no evidence of it. I don’t think this would happen at all…certainly not with the vast majority.
But, Anlir has not ever let reality intrude on his hatred of Christians. He constantly tells us what we “would do” regardless of having zero evidence.
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Yeah,
When you find an indication that Palin’s daughter’s premarital pregnancy should be considered commendable you might have a point. Instead I intimated this is what often happens in an imperfect broken world, the redemptive response to which identifies leadership in a person qualified to lead, and identifies a person who has been tried by brokenness and responds with action that does not dishonor Christ.
That’s all, and should be enough.
SG
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If their decision had been to abort this child, hypocrisy would be a reasonable charge.
Until then, continue grasping at straws.
Take (more) care, and try not to get too many blisters in the process.
SG
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Oh, what a bunch of crap y’all are spouting! Dobson and the CCR’s have been railing against teenage pregnancy and sex outside of marriage for decades! And above all, Dobbie and his fellow conservative Christians are diehard Republicans. There is no doubt that he would be attacking Obama if it were his daughter who was preggers. That’s ok – the American people can see your hypocrisy.
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TRY at #103: Again with what we “would do” when there is simply no evidence of it. I don’t think this would happen at all…certainly not with the vast majority.
We know it would because it does, every time.
Sarah Palin matters to conservatives politically. They want her to be well thought of by the voter, and so the message around her daughter’s unwed pregnancy is one of love and tolerance and compassion.
Ironically, that’s what it should be. But if a liberal — someone whom you wanted voters to think poorly of — had a teenage daughter become pregnant out of wedlock, the message around that pregnancy would be one of judgment and shame, and condemnation of liberal “permissiveness.”
You know it. I know it. Let’s not pretend it’s not true.
I will grant you that not all conservative Christians would react that way. But a great number, including maybe 80 percent of those who post on WoW, would.
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FOX NEWS:
“On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.”
“Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.”
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Forgiveness and redemption beat tolerance, the hollow and popular surrogate for compassion, any day of the week. “Permissiveness” and “concupiscence” don’t enter in. If you don’t get that, you don’t know Christ.
As someone whose first son was conceived out of wedlock, I can attest that all the “tolerance” and “oh-it’s-ok’s” in the world mean nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the compassionate redemptive response of family and friends who call a wrong a wrong, expect repentance, and then foster the marriage, commitment and new life that follows.
Again, if you don’t’ know this, you don’t know who Jesus is. Wish you did.
Best regards,
SG
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The McCain campaign scrambled to take control of the public debate over vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin, canceling her public appearances and teaming her with high-powered Republican operatives….
Panic has set in.
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Serious George,
Thanks for your gracious response in this.
Anlir (post 97), a baby isn’t punishment for sex, but the joyful (and natural) result of married sex. Outside of marriage, sex is a bad thing, whether or not it leads to pregnancy; one of the reasons it’s a bad thing is the possibility of creating a life the young couple isn’t prepared to care for. But that still isn’t punishment, but the natural result of an action outside proper guidelines.
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We know it would because it does, every time.
******Examples please. And one or two won’t do, since you are painting a whole group of people with a broad (and unfair) brush.
The only group that is still allowed to discriminate…Liberals.
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Dobson and the CCR’s have been railing against teenage pregnancy and sex outside of marriage for decades!
******You really don’t get it. Not at all. They may rail against a general trend, and they may be against the sin of sex outside marriage, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be totally compassionate to the INDIVIDUAL.
No, of course we’re not going to condone the sin! How does that help anyone?
But, we aren’t going to condemn the individual sinner who repents.
That is what Christianity IS — forgiving the sinner because we too have been forgiven.
Shakes head in amazement at the complete cluelessness of the Left.
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That’s ok – the American people can see your hypocrisy.
******We ARE the American people, a good part of it anyway.
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I enjoyed this article.
Get Over It: Who cares that Bristol Palin is pregnant? Her mother’s political views, not her private life, are what should matter.
high points:
“War in Iraq, economy imploding, energy transformation finally on America’s agenda, income disparity threatening the social order, cynicism infecting every corner of American life, a tectonic shift to a multi-polar world, a collapsing educational system, and you want to make the pregnancy of a 17-year-old a political issue?”
“Data has debunked the abstinence-only approach as wishful thinking. Texas, for example, which strongly endorses abstinence-only, and demands parental consent before teenagers can get contraception, leads the nation in its rate of teen pregnancies…..Meanwhile in California, where comprehensive sex-education is mandatory in public schools, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 47 percent.”
“We have to stop this juvenile sexual innuendo. Bill Clinton has 1,000 mistresses. McCain is a serial babe stalker.”
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Anlir,
It is the same argument that we have had with you in the “gay threads.” You don’t seem to understand that Christians can LOVE the individual and yet still condemn the sin. It is one of the things that defines us.
No, we do not have to *approve* of the sin in order to care about the individual, or forgive the individual, or help the individual. With repentance comes forgiveness and open arms.
Many Christians will even help the unrepentant in hopes of bringing them to repentance.
But, we do NOT accept the sin as okay. We are not excusing it. We are supporting the repentant person in the hopes that they will not sin again, and graciously thanking God for our own forgiveness.
And, while a baby may be consequences to a particular sin, it is certainly NOT a punishment. How can an adorable little life be a punishment?
Delaying college, marrying early, playing less, working two jobs…maybe in a certain way they might be called punishments, but honestly they’re just appropriate consequences.
And, consequences are something Liberals just don’t seem to understand.
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SteveG, You’re out to lunch on this one, bra. Join Anlir. You’ve got a target rich environment in the evangelical right, but you’re way off the mark here. You’ve been challenged to show some account of a Dobsonite, with a bunch or WoW-ians in chorus, expressing the kind of disgust at a particular “liberal” individual/family in a similar situation. Please go ahead and do that.
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“Delaying college, marrying early, playing less, working two jobs…maybe in a certain way they might be called punishments, but honestly they’re just appropriate consequences.”
Or living at Number One Observatory Circle with maid service, babysitters, butlers, cooks, and WE THE PEOPLE paying the bills for her and her boyfriend?
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Serious George, if what you were “intimating” in #80 is what you say you were in #104, you could have been a little clearer; nevertheless, if, as you say, the meme was going to be that “the McCain ticket” had a problem connecting with real Americans, it’s kind of a stretch to just think that the running mate’s expression of love and of a desire to see the child brought to full term mean the problem’s solved. For the record, I don’t care whether a candidate “connects” with me, but I don’t think a parental expression of support in light of an unintended pregnancy means Democrats are going to stop talking about how many houses McCain has.
Nobody’s going to be more enamored of the ticket now who wasn’t already enamored before.
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Or living at Number One Observatory Circle with maid service, babysitters, butlers, cooks, and WE THE PEOPLE paying the bills for her and her boyfriend?
******Well now, that’s to be seen isn’t it? I would hope they’d get a job and their own place.
It doesn’t seem to bother you when Obama wants to steal half your paycheck to pay all the bills for all the other unwed mothers out there.
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“It doesn’t seem to bother you when Obama wants to steal half your paycheck to pay all the bills for all the other unwed mothers out there.”
According to this graph on the tax cuts by McCain and Obama, my income level gets a larger tax cut under Obama.
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GL – Your combined annual income must be less that $66,354. But you are only looking at personal income taxes. But Obama’s plan to remain a slave to foreign oil and his tax on “big oil” will cause you to pay a lot more for everything. Also, once that “free” health care gets rolled out, Congress will be forced to raise taxes dramatically to pay for it.
I hate both proposals. I am for a much simpler flat tax or sales tax. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to fill out one’s taxes. Our taxes are so complicated Congressmen can’t do their own taxes. One shouldn’t need to hire an accountant to figure how much you owe.
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TRS at #112: Examples please. And one or two won’t do, since you are painting a whole group of people with a broad (and unfair) brush.
Yeah at #117: SteveG, You’re out to lunch on this one, bra. Join Anlir. You’ve got a target rich environment in the evangelical right, but you’re way off the mark here. You’ve been challenged to show some account of a Dobsonite, with a bunch or WoW-ians in chorus, expressing the kind of disgust at a particular “liberal” individual/family in a similar situation. Please go ahead and do that.
TRS: I didn’t say that all members of the group are guilty of this; but I stand by my belief that a large percentage is.
Examples? Here ya go:
Look at comments 10, 20, 56 in this thread. (there are more than that, but those three are representative.)
Outside of Wow:
Here’s the Family Research Council on Bristol Palin:
Unfortunately, teenage pregnancy has become all too common in today’s society regardless of a family’s economic or social status. It is a problem that we remain committed to reducing through encouraging young people to practice abstinence.
Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father’s example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation. We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband-to-be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public.
Here’s the same Family Research Council, before it discovered the value of keeping family scandals private, on Eliot Spitzer:
Apparently quoting Jesus, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer resigned yesterday. He resigned over allegations of sexual immorality and other illegal activities, pointing to the absolute truthfulness of Jesus’ words in Luke 12:48. Jesus Himself declares, “the Scripture cannot be broken,” (John 10:35). Our culture can deny God, the Bible, moral truth and personal consequences, but we cannot escape them. The Scriptures teach us “the godly learn from watching ruin overtake the wicked,” (Proverbs 21:12, LB). What can we learn from watching yet another sad spectacle of failed public leadership? First, “a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls,” (Prov. 25:28, ESV). Without self-control, we are defenseless against temptation. John Maxwell writes regarding self-discipline, “the first person you lead is you.” If we cannot control and lead ourselves, we surely cannot lead others. Maxwell goes on, “remember, only in the moment of discipline do you have the power to achieve your dream.” The Apostle Paul admitted that he disciplined his body (literally “beat it black and blue,” making it his conquered slave) lest after preaching to others he should be disqualified, (1 Corinthians 9:27). Sexual immorality disqualifies from leadership. Second, “do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap,” (Gal. 6:7). It is not possible to live in moral compromise without consequences. There are those in leadership who have fallen into the deception that says, “God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see,” (Psalm 10:11). Maggie Gallagher, writing in defense of Silda Spitzer, reminds us that “adultery has been redefined as a ‘private matter,’ and that we no longer have any public punishments for adultery. God, however, simply pays no attention whatsoever to man’s redefinition schemes. The governor’s tragic fall is yet another example. More than ever, we need the voices of America’s pastors serving without restriction as the conscience of the nation.
I’m not going to do a full research project on it. If I paint with too broad a brush I’ll pick up a narrower one. If you deny happens, I suggest you are not considering the question honestly.
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Our eternal destiny is not contingent on whether we are sinners or not. All of us (whether heaven-bound or hell-bound) are sinners. That includes every member of the Palin family and every Republican I know, including me. It includes all Dems and Independents too.
The difference is that those on their way to heaven are sinners who stopped justifying themselves and their actions and have come to trust God to carry them through life in this fallen world and then on to our eternal home. And those who are not destined for heaven are sinners who justify themselves and their sins.
So, when it becomes public that someone (or one of their kids) is a sinner, we should not be shocked or vindictive. What matters most is whether they justify themselves and their actions or not. When a sinner justifies their sin, that’s when hope and love evaporate.
The key to eternity (and to our healing here and now too) begins to turn with our repentance, regardless of your party or policies. And repentance is the soil from which real love grows.
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SteveG: You’re a paradigm of equivocation. The WoW references you made were generalizations without reference to any individuals. And you’re comparing the Spitzer situation with Bristol Palin’s? SteveG, you’re unreasonable. You’re as kneejerk as any of those you criticize.
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The Palins’ family situation is certainly corrosive to some of the benchmarks of earlier battles in the culture war. Careers, Family, Handling sin — these were all more easily attacked when the examples were on the (godless) other side.
On one hand, I can look at this as a “welcome to the Real World” moment, when the social conservatives show up to the party dressed like everyone else.
And yet, it seems to come at a cost. Assume Gov. Palin’s competence and her continuing role as an exemplar of social conservatism — what then does that say to SAHMs? What does the presence of a woman able to order troops to the far ends of the earth start doing to traditional family roles? Does her ability (with all the help she receives) to handle a special needs child place an added (perfectionist) burden on other families? Those values traditional values advocates have sought to strengthen seem to be at risk here.
Like Mohler, I have my concerns. Standing on the outside of the traditional values, it does seem that this nomination places them at a peculiar, long-term risk. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for…
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I thought Random Name swore off this site forever. Did I miss something?
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Nope, Kwerna, he took a six-month sabbatical and came back. (He may have lurked in those six months, might possibly even have posted under another name–though I suspect not–but he didn’t post.) Anlir did swear off this site forever, even asked to have his profile removed from the regulars, and then came back (still angry).
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One can see the outright lies and mischaracterizations that Steveg and Anlir (and others like them here and in the media) construct in order to weave their brutal attacks on minor children and to smear by slander their political opponents (through their families).
What conservative Christian has EVER attacked and vilified a leftist politican’s daughter who made a mistake (and is especially trying to make it right)? – and yet that is what we get here from these disgusting posts ‘IF such an such occurred, you would behave thus-and-thus – so that justifies me doing so-and-so’.
After a while, you just realize the venom and malice that pool in these kind of people’s hearts just isn’t worth attempting to lance. They are utterly committed to lies and slander – it defines them, that is really all they represent.
Happens, I guess, when you justify, enagle and celebrate the brutal state-sanctioned murder of children. If you do that, anything, no matter how disgusting and evil, becomes okay, eventually.
After all, if one can support and celebrate partial birth abortion, as these do, of what consequence is it to make up lies and vile slander about a non-political teenage girl in order to destroy an opponent? That, I guess, is small beans to such a person.
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Drill post 129,
one technical correction.
The blogs were focused on the actions and behaviors of Sarah Palin.
It was the McCain campaign and the Palins who directly entered Bristol into the discussion.
It is perhaps worth noting that when the discussions went from a suggested subtrefuge on the part of Sarah Palin to a that of a pregnant teenager, there seems to have been a dramatic loss of interest in the subject.
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XION- “GL – Your combined annual income must be less that $66,354. But you are only looking at personal income taxes. ”
I am under $111,600 a year so will do better under the Obama tax cuts. See the chart in 121.
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DRILL- “What conservative Christian has EVER attacked and vilified a leftist politican’s daughter”
“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Her father was Janet Reno.”
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Lumpy: I don’t know of a single person who would claim that Senator McCain is a “conservative Christian.” (not even McCain)
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outkast,
but perhaps McCain is a conservative Christian?
http://pewforum.org/religion08/profile.php?CandidateID=3
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outkast,
oh wait my apologies.
It must be McCain’s conservative label you were challenging.
The data is reasonably clear that McCain is a Christian:
http://pewforum.org/religion08/profile.php?CandidateID=3
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Hey may be a Christian and he may have some politically conservative positions, Musing, but neither of them is the same as being a “conservative Christian.”
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McCain is hardly a conservative Christian ala James Dobson – he is not inherently conservative, although he holds some conservative views – unfortunately not as many as he should. He may be Christian; he claims that, which is enough for me since he also opposes on ethical grounds the most brutal forms of child murder endorsed and supported and advanced by Obama and the Democrats. He has not been entirely consistent on Life issues, however. That may be due to ignorance more than malice since he actually has some kind of conscience and scruples about killing children, unlike some, as we see over and over on this blog.
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#43
Nick, given the erratic nature of this medium, I never know if someone is reading answers or not.
There were some specific questions in the past, but the general question I am asking you is: “Are you a racist?”
If you are not, how do can I tell that you are not?
I think those are reasonable and not impolite or hostile questions. Until you are willing to communicate ono this topic in a straightforward manner, I am reluctant to answer your questions.
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SteveG,
Again (are you reading?) the difference is one of REPENTANCE and, as Joel Mark explains, not trying to excuse or justify one’s sin.
If the Palin family were going around saying, “What’s the big deal? Everyone does it. All teenagers are going to have sex, and our daughter just lost out on the luck of the draw. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sex is sex and it is a fine thing between consenting adults, and, honestly, 17 is really close to being a consenting adult.”
Anything like that would be condemned.
Someone who is unrepentant of their sin, who tries to justify it, who claims it is not a sin, who tries to hide it, and so on…yes, no question, they will not receive the support of the Christian community.
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And, honestly, SteveG. Where is the attack on the individual in what you posted? There is a discussion of a fall. A condemnation of adultery. A concern that someone who fell in such a way might not be the best leader.
Where are these evil, horrible, mean Christian comments you want me to find? I just don’t see them.
Not to mention that Spitzer is a grown man who is an elected leader, not a teenage girl, who is not running for anything.
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Outkast post 136,
so lets look at this sylogism
McCain is by your own admission a Christian.
McCain by your own admission adopts conservative positions: this is the usual deifnition of a conservative. I have yet to find a conservative who adopts liberal positions!
So McCain most certainly is a conservative AND a Christian.
Lets start simple:
McCain is a Christian.
We can add an adjective here based on the above.
McCain is a conservative Christian: definitional because McCain is a Christian (proved earlier) who adopts conservative positions (proved earlier).
It would seem you are wrong outkast by the simple rules of logic and English.
Now we can possibly consider an alternative model.
McCain is a conservative.
Add an adjective.
McCai is a Christian conservative.
Also proved using the same rules of English and logic!
I do believ ethat to disprove these statements you perhaps need to prove that McCain is not a conservatvie or McCain is not a Christian.
Your move: which of these terms do you reject when it comes to McCain?
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My dog is hot today and he’s a dog, Musing, but that doesn’t make him a hot dog I can eat for lunch. Play with words all you want — for most of us terms still have meanings.
Just because someone is a conservative on some issues and claims do be a Christian, that does not make him (or her) a conservative Christian.
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Drill post 137,
perhaps he is not a conservative Christian al la James Dobson, but is James Dobson the only form of conservative Christian?
What we are seeing here is yet agian the inprecision of language.
My syllogism is indeed correct based on outkast’s own input.
To rectify the situation I suggest you need to provide a precise defintion of the compound term “conservative Christian” and show that your definition as a minimum does not throw out obvious cases of Christians who are conservative: this will be tough!
I look forward to you rigorous deifnition!
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133-
He is a Christian. He is conservative.
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outkast post 142,
then of course you have indeed proved that your dog is indeed a hot dog!
Now if you intend to eat your dog, that is you right, but I suggest that this is not typical cuisine in the U.S. although it is in other countries and I do not know your culinary preferences.
Now we are having fun here, BUT this is exactly the same class of imprecision which occurs regularly in this blog and results in some of the stranger arguments.
And when I go and challenge people to provide defintions the response is frequently not shall we say logically based.
So right now I will stick with having proved that McCain is both a conservative Christian AND a Christian conservative (I have at least taken the trouble to prove my observaton here) and we can now discuss how this reflects on the observation that some Christian conservatvies and some conservative Christians support stem cell research.
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I can’t think of a single conservative Christian I know who does NOT support stem cell research, Musing. However, I cannot name many who would support “embryonic” stem cell research.
Do you even know the difference?
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outkast post 143,
ah then we can continue since we have achieved agreement on the first point!
(and I will be back on this point in a bit – there is a clear logical and technical flaw which you have now introduced into the argument).
So I will extend, having demonstrated that McCain is a conservatvie Christiand aND a Christian conservative, we can also state that as presented by Lynn in her issues discussion on abortion, we have a conservative Christain AND a Christian conservative who supports embryonic stem cell research.
And you say I play games with words!
But it was nice of you to get on record here.
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Musing, you need a reading comprehension course. If you look back at my post 146, I clearly stated that I cannot name “many” who would support embryonic stem cell research. I also didn’t agree that McCain is a Christian (only God knows that) or that he is a conservative (he is not, although he has conservative stands on a few issues).
I’m glad you’re feeling all smiley-faced today, but you’re just making yourself look ridiculous, as usual.
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outkast post 145,
actually then we seem to be in agreement yet again.
No I believe you stated that McCain supported conservative positions.
I provided evidence that McCai is a Christian, which I note you carefully will not refute.
And here we see the problem with the oft stated, please give a simple yes or no answer misdirection:
1) does a conservative support conservative positions?
2) does McCain support conservatvie positions?
Q.E.D. then by your argument McCai is a conservative
3) McCain is a Christian
Q.E.D. McCain is a conservative Christian AND a Christian conservative.
And of course, as you note, you dont agree with this as indeed drill deos not appear to agree with this.
But in doing so you demonstrate the failure of insisting on simple yes and no answer type approaches.
You also demonstrate then need for agreed to and mutually held definitions.
And if you are being logically consistent you will understand these issues going forward.
P.S. it is exaclty this class of argument which results in the silliness in using the Born Alive Bill to argue that Obama wants to kill children.
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The bottom line is the CCR’s are complete hypocrites on this matter. They are using every excuse in the book to justify this particular teenage pregnancy solely for political purposes. But, when you’ve lost your moral compass, as CCR’s surely have, you can justify anything.
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McCain is to conservative Christian what Obama is to Jeremiah Wright; close in some important ways, but not the same. In other words, McCain has some conservative views, some that are not. Not enough to qualify him as a conservative. Conservative-leaning, perhaps. Nominally a Christian. Probably is.
Similarly, Obama has some anti-American views, some that are not; he is just a person who has media-driven contempt for the values and faith and traditions and heritage of average Americans and is structurally incompetent to see past his very narrow and Marxist-Leninist background. Also he is someone who did not mind being spiritually mentored and heavily influenced by a hater and a bigot for twenty years. However is not (at least nominally) a bigot.
Hope this helps you sort out your usual muddle, Musing.
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Drill post 152,
so you are arguing that McCain is not in fact a true conservative.
A valid position and one which does indeed disrupt the syllogism.
But look carefully at your comment here:
” McCain has some conservative views, some that are not. Not enough to qualify him as a conservative. Conservative-leaning, perhaps.”
Notice that you did not answer with a yes/no answer, but with a qualified and nuanced statement. One that I might add is indeed arguably the most correct.
And this is the real lesson from the linguistic exercise: most complex questions do not have simple yes/no answers.
To insist on simple yes/no answers to what in some cases appear to be simple questions reflect more on the limited perspective of the questioner than they do on the answerer.
Who is next up to make another silly “yes/no” question?
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Musing: You are muddled, as usual.
I can certainly ask a ‘yes-no’ question (as I did much to your discomfort some time ago) which truly has only a yes/no answer.
So I asked you (something like): Is it true that Barack Obama went to a ‘church’ ‘pastored’ by a man named Jeremiah Wright who has, among other things, praised the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam and screamed ‘God d-mn America’ from the ‘pulpit’?
There is ONLY one correct answer to that question – or sort of question – which YOU never had the guts to give: YES.
Now, one can then start temporizing and explaining and making excuses all one wants – I was not interested, however.
But the question ‘Is McCain a conservative?’ is obviously NOT answerable in the general sense with a yes/no response – too many variables.
So let me ask you a yes-no question as a simple demonstration, Musing:
Did you leave your house or place of residence today? That would (presumably) have a solid yes-no answer. Reasonable people would agree on that. But maybe not in your universe.
Got any more muddles you need help with?
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Drill, —– Musing’g going to have a tough time with this, maybe he can do just one – maybe -
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Victoria: Well, maybe. Maybe not.
Musing: This is why I would never ask YOU the following as a ‘true/false’ question:
“Is Barack Obama a Marxist-Leninist?” It would be unfair to you. To you, he is not. To me, he clearly is.
But it would be quite fair (as I did previously) to ask you THIS yes/no question:
‘Does Obama have a (postive) background in Marxist-Leninist thought and ideology?’ There is one correct answer to that – Yes. By his own words, Obama said he sought that ideology out in his formative years.
Now one could always spin the answer – well, maybe he has changed, maybe he did not listen much or had very little success in absorbing the ideology, maybe he did not buy into it (although his Statist positions say otherwise), etc.
But are you seeing the difference now between an definite ‘true/false’ question and one that is not really correctly viewed as a true/false question?
I hope so.
Keep in mind that I freely admit that I have an agenda behind asking my true-false questions (or did when I did).
It is much the same approach, for instance, that a prosecuting attorney takes in questioning a defendant in establishing a motive or method to a crime.
Quite useful, at times.
When done right, that is.
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Dill post 154,
well I asked you a simple yes/no question and you responded with a nuanced response.
Are you asserting that you should not have responded with a nuanced and qualified answer
If so, you would appear to again be asserting that McCain is a Christian conservative.
You took the liberty of providing a nuanced and qualified answer. By rights THEN you should grant the same to others EVEN IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR QUESTTON JUSTIFIES A NUANCED QUALIFIED ANSWER.
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We see several first order classwes of failures in this blog at regualr intervals:
1) insistence on simple yes/no answers
- most questions are complex, even more answers are complex. Insistence on siplicity says more about the questioner than it does about the question, the answer, or ther answerer
2) excluded middle errors
- it must be a or b, or sometime sit must be a or not a
- this is in many cases a variation of error 1
3) sloppy use of definitions
- without clear mutually agreed to definitions, words mean anything the poster wants them to mean
We actually if you look closely have seen all three errors introduced in the discussion of conservative chrsitian.
As we have seen, it leads to a very dissatisfying discussion.
It would appear, however, that there ia a double standard going on: the original poster can make these errors but will not tolerate such behavior from others. Very consistent and even handed!
There are some second order failures in arguments whch also occur regularly in these blogs. One was purposefully made in the conservative christina discussion: it is worth noting that apparently no one caught it.
That will be a topic for another time.
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Drill post 154,
but of course your question here:
“So I asked you (something like): Is it true that Barack Obama went to a ‘church’ ‘pastored’ by a man named Jeremiah Wright who has, among other things, praised the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam and screamed ‘God d-mn America’ from the ‘pulpit’?”
Is a compound question. I suggest you deconstruct this into simpler questions which are indeed susceptible to yes/no answers.
To assist you in this I will say absolutely Yes Obama did attend the church where the Rev. Jerimiah Wright waa the minister.
I will help you one step further, we can segment off the question regarding G*D d*m Amercia and assert that there is a recording where the Rev. Jermiah Wright does say that.
I think as an exercise, however, I will wait until you:
1) deoncstruct your quesrtion
2) provide references for your points
before I continue further. It would seem that the earlier discussion did not fully take.
But I did indeed answer an explicit yes to two of your subquestions!
Your move.
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Musing: Well of course I don’t GRANT you the right to refuse to answer a simple yes/no question – you absolutely HAVE that right, independent of my ‘granting’ it. That is entirely your business.
However, when you refuse to answer a simple yes/no question, it calls into serious question for any reasonable person the entire basis of your thoughts/ideas on any particular subject. Now, I can NEVER say that it is not your right to explain your answer, or, as you say, ‘nuance’ it.
But, based on a position of unmistakable absolute moral clarity, I can certainly refuse to consider further ‘nuancing’; i.e. as in trying to ‘explain’ the ‘ethics’ of killing a child via a partial birth abortion. Very few subjects lend themselves to this absolute moral clarity -this one certain does, along with genocide, torture (of innocents), child abuse, and I suspect some others I get quickly depressed thinking about.
However, conversely, as I pointed out above, I can ask you a question that is NOT amenable to a simple yes/no answer, as you did. For instance, the question ‘why do you like the color blue?’ is obviously not amenable to a yes/no answer. Perhaps I like it sometimes, perhaps not sometimes – hence as you say one must ‘nuance’. But the question ‘Is there a color we call blue?’ has indeed a simple mandatory binary response (I am not interested in hair-splitting on wavelengths, here). This seems unduly elementary, but perhaps necessary.
I see no reason to break the question regarding obama and his ‘church’ preferences; the exercise is entirely meaningless.
One can ask does ‘A = B AND does B = C’ just as easily as one can ask does ‘A=B’ AND does ‘B = C’.
This conversation would be fun, if I did not have other things to do, Musing, and if I actually saw any point in it.
You know where I stand. I know where you stand.
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Musing = Nuanced.
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Anlir,
Again and again you’ve repeated the assertions that CCR’s (whatever they are) have lost their moral compass. Now, without knowing what your abbreviation means, it’s a little hard to address it with confidence, but in context I’m going to assume you mean Christians, or Republicans, or both.
Many Republicans are wishy-washy people who hold their political fingers in the wind, and lack a moral compass. Many are not. You’d have to name an individual person before one could say whether this is a fair accusation. As a group accusation, it’s simply too general, and thus false.
The same is true of many so-called Christians–some have a moral compass and some don’t. Too general.
But true, Bible-believing Christians are about the only people in the world who even have a moral compass, so if you (who do not have one) are judging them by some perceived “loss,” you’re deceiving yourself. Why? A compass is pre-set. North is always north; it can never be south or east. And it means that moral issues don’t change with the times. In other words, it demands moral absolutes–most commonly, biblical absolutes. So, the concept of a moral “compass” cannot even be reasonably discussed by someone whose moral boundaries are set by what feels good or what is in vogue today. Every time you say this, I want to say, “Huh? A person who argues that homosexuality is OK simply because he says it is dares to lecture others (who believe in moral absolutes) about a moral ‘compass’? Does he have any idea how absurd this sounds?”
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And Anlir, when we say there’s a difference between justifying sin and repenting of sin, and that the one who repents is forgiven, there’s nothing at all “political” about it. That’s actually theological; it’s the very foundation of the Christian faith. The Christian faith, incidentally, which you find so hateful, but which you are in fact now condemning for what is at its very heart: grace.
The unrepentant person wants justice, gets justice. But the repentant one receives grace. Completely unfair, but completely free. That’s Jesus for you, and that’s what His church is supposed to offer too. It’s ugly when you’re demanding justice for someone else and that person gets grace instead. But it’s oh so beautiful when you come repentant, expecting justice, and find mercy and grace. May you find it too.
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Drill post 156,
I see that you did not deconstruct your compound queston.
I then answer to your question:
“So I asked you (something like): Is it true that Barack Obama went to a ‘church’ ‘pastored’ by a man named Jeremiah Wright who has, among other things, praised the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam and screamed ‘God d-mn America’ from the ‘pulpit’?”
No.
Unequivocal.
And does seem to meet your test.
So indeed I can answer a simple yes/no question.
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Drill post 156,
however, in answering this, I suggest you have learned absolutely nothing about my position on your point.
You have asked a simple yes/no queston.
But the question is a compound question of many parts, connected by ands. failure of any part negates the question.
It also includes some judgemental contexts which arguably are not provable.
And therefore a simple yes or no provides no insight into our disagreement.
Indeed most tellingly you are constructing a question in a form which would appear to be specifically designed not to encourage discussion but to stiffle it.
I suggest that based on your approach you ask questions not to pursue debate but to push an ideological position.
If you were interested in a discussion to lead to understanding you would pursue logic not bombast.
If you were interested in a disucssion you would ask question which would leverage out the deeper intents of the other side in the debate.
In short, if you were interested in discussion you would not insist on simple yes/no answers for questions of classes for which you yourself avoided a simple yest/no answer.
And if you were interested in a reasonable discussion to elicit understanding you would not be so focused on what you apparently perceive as “gotcha” questions.
But then a review of your posts does indeed suggest you are neither interested in nor possibly even capable of sustaining an in depth discussion on these topics.
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Drill post 159,
in this comment you show that you comprehend the issue:
“Musing: This is why I would never ask YOU the following as a ‘true/false’ question:
“Is Barack Obama a Marxist-Leninist?” It would be unfair to you. To you, he is not. To me, he clearly is. ”
However, this is variant three of my proposed first order failures: we do not have clear mutualy agreed to defintions of Marxist=-Leninist.
I am glad you added Leninist it improves the clarity, but still is insufficient tobase a discussion.
I suggest, however, that you have made this error in your question on Jerimiah Wright.
Of course as long as you insist on a simple yes/no answer, we will never find out.
You clealry understand the issue.
You do not appear to be willing to act on your understanding.
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CherylD: Bible-believing Christians are about the only people in the world who even have a moral compass
Hoo boy. There’s grist for a whole new thread.
You specialize in saying outrageously misinformed things and then blinking innocently with a “who, me?” look on your face.
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oukast post 160,
which would appear to imply that outkast is not nuanced?
Are you sure you want to stick with this position?
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No, Musing, it doesn’t imply anything except whatever your imagination wants.
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SteveG post 166/Cheryl D,
wouldn’t it be simpler to simply ask Cheryl to prove that:
“Bible-believing Christians are about the only people in the world who even have a moral compass?”
I would love to see the proof of this which is not circular in its construction (there is perhaps a way, but that in itself appears to interoduce some additional hazards).
So CherylD what is your proof that Bible-believing Christians are about the only people in the world who even have a moral compass?
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Musing #163: Thanks. You answered clearly NO to my question regarding whether Obama’s attended a ‘church’ ‘pastored’ by Jeremiah Wright who has praised the leader of the Nation of Islam and called on God to d-mn America.
That is good, Musing. Even though it is the wrong answer (the clinically correct answer is ‘YES’ through inspection of widely available public records), but at least you are committing to something – even if you chose the WRONG answer, the fact that you can get past semantic equivocation of a true/false (yes/no) question is perhaps promising.
If I had the time, Musing, I would absolutely love to (jointly with you) take the following sentence ‘The cat just threw up’ (which would seem to the layman to describe in no uncertain terms a specific and widely understood action on the part of the cat) and ‘deconstruct’ it and parse it and mangle it and try to muddy its meaning until the poor subject cat wished it had died, and not just merely thrown up.
How about this? Let’s ‘deconstruct’ this test sentence with a vengeance. Let’s start with the word ‘The’. What EXACTLY does ‘THE’ mean, anyway? It sounds startlingly specific, i.e. judgemental. ‘The’, in fact, seems to imply a common ground, a common framework of reference, among the readers for whatever follows the ‘the’ – a specificity which, in fact, may not exist. Perhaps I might suggest ‘A’ would be more appropriate? It is a bit more inclusive and less binding.
Okay.
So now I am suggesting ‘A cat just threw up’. If you buy into this, how about us moving to the ‘cat’ word? – you can take a crack at it first, Musing.
Man, I can see ALOT of nuancing necessary on THAT word, ‘cat’. Why deconsructing THAT word, massaging, nuancing, and bandaging it back together may take all week.
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outkast post 168,
ah but to ensure that we are communicating I make an effort to ask if possible?
So then lets clarify, does this mean you tend to be nuanced or you do not tend to be nuanced when it comes to complex questions?
I would be delighted if you were to join my approach to complex questions, but I am letting you help me understand your position here.
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Musing,
I believe I made this clear in my original posts: that a person must believe in absolutes, must have an unchanging moral standard, to have a moral compass. Many religions lack such a standard, and irreligious people do not have one. Thus I said Christians are among the few people who have it. If you want to add other groups that do, and give evidence that they do, feel free.
Meanwhile, we should be able to agree on this point: Christians claim to believe the Bible, which sets itself up as having an unchanging moral standard, therefore consistent Christians have a moral compass. They may not always live by that standard, just as an explorer can carry a compass and still walk the wrong direction (because he fails to look at the compass or chooses not to follow it), but they do have one.
Steve G, you’re welcome to try too, rather than simply accusing me of being “outrageously misinformed.”
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Drill post 170,
careful here I answered no to the question you asked. And I assert this is the correct answer, valid statement because I suggest you have entered a judgement term into your question.
You could ask a simple variation of your question and I would answer yes.
But with your rigid insistence on simple yes/no questions with no discussion, I sugest no is the correct answer to your question as posed.
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CherylD post 172,
so you have apparenlty asserted as a fact that:
“I believe I made this clear in my original posts: that a person must believe in absolutes, must have an unchanging moral standard, to have a moral compass.”
I am askimg you to therefore prove this.
If you suggest that instead this is your belief, we have a different question.
But you appear to be asserting it as a fact. If it is a ffact, you should be able to provide evidence for it.
I am awaiting the evidence.
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Drill post 170,
but when you say:
“How about this? Let’s ‘deconstruct’ this test sentence with a vengeance. Let’s start with the word ‘The’. What EXACTLY does ‘THE’ mean, anyway?”
you are, I suggest, yet again demonstrating your apparent black and white perspective of the world.
I work from the following assumtions when I start a discussion:
1) we are all speaking English and more specficially American English
- simple and common words are likley to mean the same to most of us
2) for uncommon words it is prossibile that specfiic definitions may be needed
3) for highly technical terms specific definitions are almost always needed
4) for terms with differing meanings based on what is sometimes referred to here as world view, it is almost always necessary to establish definitions
5) one should watch the conversation and if it seems to be going in circles, one common cause is lack of a mutually shared defintion between the parties
I note that challenges 4 and 5 occur regularly in these discussions, and when I see this happening I am very likely to ask for a definition.
If the person can not or will not define the word, it is plausibly a reasonable conclusion that the person literally does not know what they are talking about.
I frequently attempt to exercise the courtesy of asking for a persons definiton of the word so that we can reduce the possiblity that I have misunderstood them.
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Musing,
I doubt I’ll have any more success than Drill has (I nearly always skip your posts), but I stated simply that a compass is pre-set: North always points north. Thus, to say someone has a moral compass is to imply that the person’s standards don’t vary when the wind blows. The person holds absolute, unchanging, moral convictions.
If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. I’m not going to bother to explain it any further.
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Oh Drill,
That is exactly how Musing’s posts make me feel! You describe it so well, and in a funny way too.
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Cheryl d post 176,
I can accept this statement:
“but I stated simply that a compass is pre-set: North always points north. Thus, to say someone has a moral compass is to imply that the person’s standards don’t vary when the wind blows.”
but your statement that:
““Bible-believing Christians are about the only people in the world who even have a moral compass?”
”
would not seem to follow from your premise.
So if Bible-believing Christians are the only people with an absolute moral compass, you can presumably can show this.
I suggest your model needs to encompass Islam as well when you make your analysis, as an example.
And before you argue the quality of Islams moral compass please note you were discussing the absolute compass not your agreement with it.
When an indiviidual asserts tha only “such and such” a group has an aboslute moral anything, I suggest that a review of the world shows that such a statement seem implausible.
If you insist it is true, then you should be able to prove it.
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Cheryl: The Bible does not have an “unchanging moral standard.” Many people who have held many different moral views have justified them with the Bible, precisely because its moral standard varies depending on where you look.
In addition, much of the Bible’s morality is rightly rejected by moderns, even modern Christians, because they perceive it as the relic of a primitive culture no longer applicable.
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Musing, I said Christians are “about the only people,” not that there is absolutely no one else who has a moral compass. I was specifically allowing for a few others. Now, I believe that other religions contradict themselves on moral issues and don’t have a consistent moral compass, but that’s a different story. I did allow for exceptions.
Steve G., anyone who thinks that the Bible is “the relic of a primitive culture no longer applicable” has probably never read it, because it is startlingly applicable today. There also is a difference between justifying wrong moral standards with the Bible and the Bible itself changing. I myself am not the compass, and my own moral standards may be off; that’s true of everyone but Jesus. But I have a moral compass because I have the truth of Scripture. See the difference?
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Cheryl D post 180,
yes you said:
“Musing, I said Christians are “about the only people,” not that there is absolutely no one else who has a moral compass. ”
but you still have notprovided any evidence to supprot this assertion.
I specifically noted that within the construct of a constnt moral compass (as opposed to one you agreed with) it seemed Islam for example also possibly has a constant moral commpass.
So if you are to make your asertion what is the evidence for your assertion?
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Cheryl D post 180,
so lets look at some of the apparent difficulties with your statement:
1) when you say Christian, what form of Christian are you discussing
- since the Pew Survey shows a wide variety of Christian:
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
we need to know how generally you use this term
2) there is a wide variety of perspectives within Christianity on how to understand the Bible:
http://www.usccb.org/seia/southernbaptist.shtml
- if we have wide variety of interpretation of the text, it seems difficult to argue that this would provide a constant “moral compass”
I have demonstrated what appear to be two root flaws in your argument which possibly refute it completely.
You keep repeating your assertion without evidence.
My sense then is that you have no evidence and further, based on the data I have provided, your argument is in fact incorrect.
I suggest that a classic responses would be to admit your error OR demonstrate where my understanding is in error, providing evidence to support your position.
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Cheryl D post 180,
noting that once we establish the constancy argument of your psitied Christian moral comapss, then we can explore why it should be considered correct.
Just be cause it is constant does not mean it is right.
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CherylD at #180:
Steve G., anyone who thinks that the Bible is “the relic of a primitive culture no longer applicable” has probably never read it, because it is startlingly applicable today.
Oh yeah?
Know anybody who practices Levirate marriage today?
Stoned any disrespectful teenagers lately?
Do you require menstruating women to go through ritual purification to become clean again?
Do you refuse entry into the church to men who’ve had their testicles damaged?
Sacrificed any animals this year?
All of that, and a lot more, was part of the Bible’s “unchanging moral code” for thousands of years … until it changed. And before you give me the standard “age of grace, age of law” answer, bear in mind that the Law WAS the Law, as YHVH decreed it. You may say he later repealed it in favor of grace through Christ, but nevertheless, those were the “unchanging” moral standards He gave to his people for many centuries. Jesus himself said the Law was in effect and that he had come to change “not one jot or tittle.”
The immoral didn’t suddenly become moral and the moral immoral with Jesus’s death. In Christian theology, all that happened was that God agreed not to count sin against those who accepted the grace offered in Christ.
And as I said, even many modern Christians would not argue that the Bible has an unchanging moral standard. As we’ve discussed before, slavery was quite acceptable to the ancient Israelites, less widespread but still practiced in the age of Jesus, and really only rejected among Christians in the 19th century AD.
Likewise, the Bible decrees something like 44 specific sexual rules, of which most Christians today observe only seven or eight. (Ironically, the Bible does NOT forbid premarital sex or require that marriage be one man, one woman, but many modern Christians add those in.)
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Steve G., as you probably know, the whole Bible points to Jesus, and Israel’s laws under a theocracy weren’t meant to apply to us today. But read Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the letters of Paul…and you’ll see that humanity hasn’t changed all that much in a few thousand years, and that the Bible is written to us today as much as it was written to our ancestors.
Musing, I’ve seen you “debate” on here before, and I’m not interested. I’ve been clear enough. Take what I’ve said or leave it.
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Cheryl, a theocracy means God at the head of government. It means laws decreed by God. If those laws are not the unchanging moral code you’re talking about, then what is?
The laws that are spelled out in Exodus and Leviticus and elsewhere in the Pentateuch are the only clearly stated code of laws anywhere in the Bible. In appealing to any other part, you have to tease out a principle here, a statement there, much of which is open to interpretation.
The fact that Ecclesiastes, Paul, etc, demonstrate a good grasp of human nature has nothing to do with an unchanging absolute moral code. Ecclesiastes doesn’t set out laws. Proverbs contains a lot of wisdom, none of it couched as absolute moral right and wrong (and either of those would also have been superseded by Jesus, no?)
And Paul writes to individual churches to resolve their arguments and answer their questions. Does the Bible’s unchanging moral code come from Paul?
So just what is the code to which you refer?
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Steve G., Israel was under laws decreed by God for that time and place. Many of them were ceremonial; a number of them dealt with health issues, or issues relevant to a tribal culture, just as laws today may deal with issues specific to Tennessee culture. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law, and it is no longer needed. But I do think you know all this.
Am I right that you make no claims to be under the Bible’s authority? So your interest here is purely theoretical, and barely even that? Well, I have no interest in drawing out this line of discussion (my original post was to Anlir, and I came back here to see if he had responded), nor do I have the time to do so. I firmly believe that the Bible holds together, that it reveals God, and that it can be understood by those who believe it. But whole books have been written on the subject, and I simply don’t have the time to get into this.
Let’s just leave it here: Jesus summarizes the law as “love God, and love others” and the whole rest of Scripture tells us what that means. Once a person starts justifying mistreatment of another or rebellion against God, the details of which law he has broken can be debated forever, but he has clearly broken the law. For instance, the Bible clearly speaks out against fornication–but that’s clearer when you go into it with the understanding of what the Bible says overall about how we’re to treat other people and the importance of family relationships. There simply is no place in the Bible anywhere for the idea of singles going from one sexual relationship to another, or even having ongoing sex with just one person that didn’t lead to marriage. But then Paul brings it home and makes it explicit, perhaps because he was the one who was writing to a wider culture than the Jewish world where that simply wasn’t done. But the whole Bible is a unit, and if you discard the Bible’s authority, there’s no point whatsoever in going into details of this verse says this and that verse says that.
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Cheryul D post 187,
when you say:
“Let’s just leave it here: Jesus summarizes the law as “love God, and love others” and the whole rest of Scripture tells us what that means.”
I agree with you completely, with one addition:
“love your enemy”.
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Musing, enemies are included in “others.”
And nobody showed how better than Jesus.
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Cheryl D post 189,
I agree!
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