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billclark
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Interests: economic development, music, Jesus, game theory, church growth, statistics, liberty, philosophy of science, etc.
Expertise: some of the above
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
4/26/2005
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You Are a Club Sandwich
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You are have a big personality. It's hard for anyone to ignore you!
You dream big. You think big. And you eat big.
Some people consider you high maintenance, but you just know what you want... and when you want it.
Your best friend: The Tuna Fish Sandwich
Your mortal enemy: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
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You Are Hockey
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Tough, athletic, and not afraid of a fight.
You don't mind putting your body on the line!
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You Are Guinness
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You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world.
Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them.
When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well.
But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.
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You Are a Great Student
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You aren't afraid to crack the books when you need to, and you make your education a true priority.
You could become a PhD in anything, if you set your mind to it. There's no limit to what you can learn!
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You Are a "Don't Tread On Me" Libertarian
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You distrust the government, are fiercely independent, and don't belong in either party.
Religion and politics should never mix, in your opinion... and you feel opressed by both.
You don't want the government to cramp your self made style. Or anyone else's for that matter.
You're proud to say that you're pro-choice on absolutely everything!
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You Are 68% Control Freak
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You are a pretty major control freak, though you may not know it.
While your confidence is inspiring, your bossy ways tend to scare people off.
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You Belong in 1959
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You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!
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| In Renovation of the Heart Dallas Willard writes:
"The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart or spirit. It did not and does not proceed by means of the formation of social institutions and laws, the outer forms of our existence, intending that these would then impose a good order of life upon who come under their power." (p.15)
When I first read this I thought, "wow, since I've devoted most of my life trying to understand social institutions and laws, I guess I've wasted my life. I need to leave political science immediately."
But then I thought about it .... if Jesus's revolution is about a revolution of the heart, if its not about external control to induce good behavior, then it has implications for social institutions.
Social institutions should impose as few limitations as possible on the choices individuals make. If the heart is to be changed it is to be changed in an environment where people are free to make their own mistakes. Free to be challenged by the mistakes others make. Free to have an opportunity to learn and grow in such an environment. And free to be able to turn over their freedom to Christ and become a slave to righteousness.
This is not the world we live in, which suggests there are changes to be made in our social institutions. And studying the conditions underwhich changes in social institutions occur may not be a comple waste of time.
Please tell me what you think.... I don't want to waste another moment. | | |
| A couple of mornings ago, I was led to read 1 Corinthians 1, and it felt like the first time.
The second half of this chapter seems very Calvinist to me:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. …..Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
In otherwords, its as if God deliberately made it hard to believe so that “not just anybody” would believe – only those “whom God has called”. But as I read on, I get a glimpse into this that I never saw before….
“Brother, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; no many were influential; not many were of noble birth." Paul goes on to say that "God chose the foolish to shame the wise…. so that no one may boast.”
I think what Paul is saying here is that “Christ crucified” is a gospel that makes no sense in earthly terms. It is unreasonable – in the sense that reason can't get you to it. Consequently, it doesn’t require special training or superior intellect to comprehend because if it did – it would be like everything else in this fallen world. If it was like a higher form of mathematics, it would be captured, chopped up and sold like everything else – to the highest bidder – those able to spend the years getting the training needed to understand it. It would be doled out to – and controlled by - the rich and powerful … and that’s the world that God wanted to stand on its head. So God set up a story you’d have to be kind of crazy to accept, and this kind of craziness is uncorrelated with power because this kind of craziness is RANDOMly distributed. The weak and the strong, the insider and the outsider, the master and the slave, the Jew and the Gentile all have the same chance of catching it.
One consequence of this is that the church – when its not captured by Pharisees and scribes – is like no other institution on earth. Because it is representative. It includes the excluded. I wonder if that is why, compared to other institutions, it looks like it is run by and for the poor and the uneducated.
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| A friend asked me "what does someone who's always voted and has had more than average participation in the process go when they don't like any of the options?"
My short answer is "welcome to my world" - I've been a registered voter since 1980 and I've been - at best - ambivalent about candidates ever since then (if I knew then what I know now, I would have been MUCH more enthusiastic about Carter).
Our system is DESIGNED to offer few choices and and even those choices are encouraged by the logic of the system to ape each other. [Furthermore, the two parties we've wound up with give you a weird choice "I'd like the government involved in my wallet, but not my bedroom" or "I'd like the government involved in my bedroom, but not my wallet."] So you could hardly be blamed for feeling alienated.
Some options...
1. Remember, being registered to vote and NOT voting is a political act as well. In many places its possible to actually enter the booth and pull the lever without casting a vote - making your choice for "none of the above" quite explicit. This was a favorite tactic of my socialist friends who would be able to vote for a viable socialist candidate in every other industrialized democracy (with the possible exception of Canada and Japan). And remember, the church and not the state is the hope of the world. So maybe the best thing to do is to energize social action (solving social problems) directly through the church.
2. vote "strategically" (sometimes called "sophisticated voting") - that is, vote for the candidate that you think would be the least objectionable from among the candidates that might actually win in your district. Sometimes there are even web sites set up to allow you to trade your strategic vote with someone in a district where your candidate has a chance (how such "trades" are enforced is an open question). I think some Nader voters were doing this in the last presidential election.)
3. vote "sincerely" - support (vote for, campaign, agitate for, etc.) candidates that reflect your preferences clearly even though they have no chance of winning (even if you have to write them in!). This can be seen as an "investment" in that it may convince others to do the same and - before you know it - you might actually have viable candidates that reflect your preferences. Remember, there was a time when it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a good cup of coffee in this country and the choice of beer was between budweiser and heineken!
4. vote to "throw the bums out" - I happen to believe that the best democracy has going for it is the ability to punish incumbents when they make really bad choices. Randomly selecting from the populace and then firing the bad ones may be the best we can hope for. And stunningly high votes against an incumbent will be read as just that, and first time office holders may get the signal that they were chosen only because their predecessors were terrible.
5. vote "against type" - if you think parties are taking your age/gender/class/demographic for granted then (noisely (sp?)) vote for the party that doesn't historically favor your group. If large numbers did the same, it might make the party that supposedly serves your interest become a little more responsive.
6. concentrate your efforts at the level of government where they will have the biggest effect! Presidential races get all the press, but they are almost always between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumber and the president is so constrained its not clear it matters much for your life and your chances of influencing the outcome are astronomically small. But the race for you local dog catcher or school board is likely to have a MUCH bigger effect on your life (even if through nothing other than your property values). These tend to be - effectively - non partisan. Which means you can focus on the quality of the candidate.
7. That's all for now. Hope you find something here.... | | |
| I must confess, I could not bring myself to watch "The State of the Union" last night.
And then I was confronted with the folloowing this morning:
Proverbs 24: 11-12
Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say "But we knew nothing about this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?
I guess I can run, but I can't hide. | | |
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