Vern Poythress, who has taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia for 30 years, writes a semi-regular column for WORLD. In the current issue, he points out that when we place our hope in the latest technological gadgetry, we can easily lose perspective:

“Sometimes science only increases the problem. If, instead of seeing the wisdom of God in it, you listen to the propaganda of scientism, it will solemnly assure you that you inhabit a faceless, lonely, materialistic universe that is heading only toward ultimate death. And the gadgets of technology become Band-Aids to cover spiritual wounds and empty hearts. One more electronic game or one more DVD movie or one more pop song holds back the slide into boredom and depression. We search for one entertainment after another to keep back the dread of facing the hollow inside

“God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7). If you sow a ‘me’-centered life, you will reap a harvest of emptiness. If you hope in the human wisdom of science, it will fail. Knowledge it may offer, by the truckload. But when such knowledge is detached from the God who gave it, it cannot give you wisdom to know yourself or to know God. The technology in which you hoped will mock you and testify to your ingratitude to God.”

You can read his entire column here.

Although Cal Thomas is pictured on the left, and Bob Beckel is on the right, their political ideologies are just the opposite. In this day and age of polarization, have you ever wondered what brought these two highly opinionated men together to co-author Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That Is Destroying America and to co-write USA Today columns that attempt to rise above the usual partisan bickering? In a fascinating interview with WORLD’s Marvin Olasky, Beckel shares how he and Thomas came to be fast friends despite their political differences:

“I was in the process of getting divorced. … I had a lot of difficulties. I had retreated to a farm in rural Maryland and refused to come back to Washington to do any television appearances. I got a call one day from Fox saying, would you come and do an appearance with Cal Thomas? And for some inexplicable reason, I said yes. Five different times I tried to call and cancel. And I couldn’t cancel.

“I reluctantly drove in and there was Cal. I knew him a bit, but not really well. He looks at me and says, ‘Is there something wrong?’ Right away. Instead of saying the normal Washington thing—’Good. Fine. Great’—I said, ‘Actually it’s not.’ And he said, ‘Let’s talk about it after we’ve done the show.’ He spent many hours with me after that and talked about faith but never pushed faith on me. He sent me a lot of books. I was one of those people who needed to have proof. I needed to see skin and bones. The idea of whales and arks and burning bushes and opening seas—all that was just in my mind Charlton Heston.

“One of the first books that Cal sent me was Evidence That Demands a Verdict. I began to read that. Cal continued to send me books. … Finally, Cal said, ‘Why don’t you come to church with me?’ Now, I hadn’t been to church in … well, I hadn’t been to church. So Cal takes me to Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, which is full of more right-wing Republicans than any church in all of Washington. [But] the message that day was a message that worked. It was about faith and belief and that there is a certain leap that you need to take but in the end what else is there? When you compare the rest of life, what else is there really? Slowly but surely it came to me that there was something there.”

In light of recent discussions on this blog about showing civility toward one another, I encourage you to read this interview in its entirety to see how these two men from opposite sides of the fence approach issues that divide America (and WORLDMagBloggers).

Leah Daughtry is on a mission, and part of that mission is preaching barefoot.

[She] slipped off her stiletto-heel shoes at the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, stepped from a pastor’s chair to the pulpit and shouted, “I am on the rise!” She wore a long black tunic with gold buttons that ran from her high collar almost to the carpet. Her graying hair was shorn tight to her dark brown scalp. She always preaches in bare feet in order to “de-self,” she had told me, and to let God’s spirit and words rush through her unimpeded. “I am on the rise!” she erupted again.

The other part of that mission is being chief of staff to Howard Dean and chief executive of the Democratic convention next month.  So the Times wants to know, “Can Leah Daughtry bring faith to the Democratic party?”  I wonder, too.  The answer may be in statements like these, from Daughtry’s own mouth:

The right of self-determination is the concern. If I do all the right things, I will live a full and abundant life - this should be true. But it’s not. Something’s wrong with the equation. Americans may not call this liberation theology, but they have the sense that things aren’t fair.

I’ll agree with Daughtry that things aren’t fair and that something’s wrong with the equation.  What’s wrong is sin.  Not oppression of one class or race over another.  It’s oppression of ourselves by our very own selves.  What Daughtry is talking about - well, that’s faith, but it ain’t Biblical.  That’s faith in man, not God.  Faith that “if I do all the right things, I will live a full and abundant life” is to make the self divine.  Perhaps this is what most people think Christianity is, I don’t know.  But life is unfair.  It will always be unfair.

The lessons of Biblical faith would suggest that 1) nobody can do all the right things, and 2) having a full and abundant life comes from acknowledging #1, along with accepting on faith that God is who he says he is and that he has done and will do what he’s said he’s done and will do.  Oh, and the fact that “full” and “abundant” can only mean a life of full and abundant love and service.  Race might still be a problem in America, and in the world, and in human history, but it’s only a corollary to the Bigger Problem of sin and rebellion.  Can Leah Daughtry bring faith to the Democratic party?  Faith in something, but not God.  But perhaps that will be enough to give Obama a victory.

If you’re looking for something to watch during your office lunchbreak today, try this video debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine.  A perusal of the comments underneath the video suggest it was a fair debate and may be worth watching.  Among others, D’Souza also debated Christopher Hitchens last year at King’s College.

Here’s an excerpt from Right Wing, Wrong Bird by Dr. Joel Hunter, where he wonders “if being a Christian in politics and being Christlike in politics is the same [sic].”

There are probably many Christian approaches to politics. From the political involvement of most Christians, I would assume that their strategy is identical to non-Christian groups. We Christians tend to focus on an issue or candidate, evaluate that person with our value system, accumulate a power base in reaction, and do what we can for or against. That is how politics works, and that seems to be how Christian politics works.

Good, solid assessment. 

A Christian approach to politics may show those in opposition just how wrong their opposition is. The Christlike approach to politics respectfully acknowledges the points at which they are right.

A Christian approach could tell everyone how to vote; the Christlike approach directs the attention of the voters to underlying values.

A Christian approach could give us certainty; the Christlike approach gives us a biblical perspective.

What do you think?

Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins may have won last night’s Home Run Derby, a prelude to tonight’s All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in New York, but the star of the evening was first-time All-Star Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers. Hamilton clubbed a record 28 homers in the first round but fell short to Morneau in the finals. “It does seem kind of unfair that he didn’t get to win the whole thing,” said Morneau. “Anyone who was here won’t forget that performance.”

There’s quite a backstory to Hamilton and his powerful bat, as an article John Dawson penned for WORLD last year attests. Drafted by Tampa Bay in 1999, Hamilton was considered a top prospect, but an injury sustained in an automobile accident sidelined him and left him open to other pursuits, including drug use. In 2004 he was kicked out of baseball and shortly thereafter his wife left him and most of his $3.96 million signing bonus was down the toilet. He moved in with his grandmother in 2005 and began to turn his life around. Dawson wrote:

Hamilton credits God for flipping off the addiction switch in his body. In the months after, Hamilton began seeking to repair his relationship with his wife, other family members, and God. Buoyed by the sort of faith developed in a long and horrific trial, Hamilton has set his sights on baseball again. “If I rely on my relationship with God, anything is possible,” he told reporters at spring training with the Reds [Hamilton was traded to the Rangers in the off-season].

And there he was last night on the national stage with the power of God behind him and his bat.

On Friday, John McCain sat down with The New York Times for an interview. Here are some highlights:

On his conservatism: “I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold.”

On same-sex couples adopting children: “I think that we’ve [he and his wife as adoptive parents] proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption.”

On teaching evolution: “It’s up to the school boards. That’s why we have local control over education.”

On same-sex marriage: “I respect the right of the states to make those decisions.”

On whether he considers himself an evangelical Christian: “I consider myself a Christian. I attend church. My faith has sustained me in very difficult times.”

On using the Internet: “They [his wife and his aides] go on [the web] for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

What sites do they show him? “[Press secretary] Brooke [Buchanan] and [senior advisor] Mark [Salter] show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.” At his wife’s prodding, he then added his daughter Meghan’s blog.

On using e-mail: “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail.”

Somebody get that man an iPhone and bring him into the 21st century, and then point him to WORLDMagBlog!

Here are excerpts from a transcript of the interview.

We recently blogged on the act of communion and how its abuse by an ignorant religion journalist might have warranted having her press pass taken away.  Here’s another communion controversy, but this one’s not about ignorance at all

In protest against student fees for religious services at the University of Central Florida, a student senator, Webster Cook, recently walked out of a campus Mass with the Eucharist.

Now, I might see how a rational man could have problems with funding the worship of a deity he might choose to ignore, even if I disagreed with him about the wisdom of ignoring that deity.  But this is ridiculous and profane.  Phi Beta Cons quotes the Catholic League: For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage-regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance-is beyond hate speech.”  Now, in solidarity with the communion-desecrating Cook, a professor Paul Zachary Myers from the University of Minnesota has gone online to champion the cause:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? … if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some … I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare.

For the sake of our younger readers, I’ll ignore his next few sentences.

Correction: According to Phi Beta Cons, the source for this post, “Myers’s diatribe can be found at his faculty page on the university’s website.”  This is not the case, however, and so references to this supposition have been removed from the post.  HT: WMBloggers.

Udo Middelmann writes in The Market-Driven Church about the fragmentation of modern Western life, and makes many Christians complicit:

“Christian schools, sports teams, companies, and publishing houses create their own market for their community. They function almost like a separate country with citizenship in the church. They are like a package of yeast that has no contact with the flour and will never make the whole loaf rise.”

This is a familiar critique of the Christianesque sub-culture, but Middelmann taps into two themes that might be troubling even to Christians who rankle at the foregoing accusation. First, he articulates a problem that perturbs communitarians and crunchy conservatives alike, which is the disposability with which many of us have come to view community. Frequent job changes and accompanying moves, changes in schools, changes in churches — all undermine the development of committed community, or what some think of as covenant community. “Christianity with its universal truth,” Middelmann writes, “is not the same as a church with its tribal truth.”

We’ve certainly seen this trend, and Christians by no means lead the way, though perhaps too many of us fail to distinguish ourselves. Aside from less commitment to community, there are the multiple televisions in each home, cell phones for each member of the family, fewer and fewer meals eaten together, stringent stratification by age (my wife and I chuckle when critics of home-schooling make the socialization argument, as if it’s normal for a child to spend most of his waking hours surrounded by people exactly his age), a dramatic rise in Internet usage — all forces lending themselves to the fragmentation of community.

What I had not considered before is a second theme I took from Middelmann, which is that many churches contribute to this fragmentation not just by marketing themselves to the point that they favor acceptance over truth, but in the way they splinter families with a variety of targeted programs. Many churches offer programs based on age or life status (married, single, divorced, handicapped, adopted), and they all but remove children from the worship service. “Where church used to bring us together from different situations under the teaching and blessing of one God,” writes Middelmann, “church now meets the perceived needs of fragmented people.”

At first I was taken aback. What’s wrong, after all, with tailoring programs to people to meet them where they are? What if some of us prefer to read in a small group, instead of these ubiquitous how-to-make-your-marriage-better books, something by Kierkegaard? Or what about those who have been abused and find strength in sharing their stories with others? And why should children have to sit through a sermon on works versus grace? Isn’t the church, after all, the people of God?

Middelmann has a compelling answer, however, which is that as a culture we have become obsessed with our individual stories as it is:

“We may be focused on our own painful story; yet the Bible places it in the context of history (his story), so that we understand what is the problem of mankind, not just my personal and immediate sensation. Healing comes from God’s work for us, not from feeling better about ourselves.”

Church, in other words, may not be as much about us as we think. I for one need to hear that quite often.

I walk past a Buddhist chapel every morning. It used to be a church. (Reminds me of the many Unitarian structures in New England with the small print on their front lawn signs: “Formerly a Congregationalist church.” Heartbreaking stories surely lay behind those real estate transactions.)

By the time I get to the Won Buddhist Temple on Parkdale Avenue I have already spoken volumes to the Lord, and gotten volumes back. But the folks in this repossessed building don’t pray; they meditate. I briefly did meditation in college — was given a mantra to repeat to myself over and over, to usher me into blissful union with the Oblivion. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever insights I gained in that void were just me talking to myself.

 It beats me why middle-class, Caucasian, former nominal Christians in my town would go to this place — why they would prefer an impersonal reality over a Personal one. It is the perverseness of our rebellion against God, I suppose, that we would exchange something warm and full for something cold and lesser.

And make no mistake that it is lesser. The impersonal is not higher and more transcendent than the Personal; it is a big step down. An impersonal force behind all creation (if it existed) would be like the Creator we know — but with something subtracted from Him. It would be “It,” not “Him.” We humans would find ourselves in the curious position of being superior to the force that spit us out! More highly evolved. Here we are, equipped with awesome capacities — to love, to grieve, to desire, to aspire, to trust, to have relationship, to know courage. And our “creator” is meanwhile mute and uni-dimensional.

Moreover, concepts we are hard-wired with, such as “guilt,” “fellowship,” “rebellion,” and “thankfulness” would have no meaning or intelligible origin in an impersonal universe. What a bizarre rebel is man to concoct such a faith as Buddhism.