Links to Your World, Election Day, Tuesday November 4

Election Day Reflections:

Gary Thomas writes an excellent piece in Boundless on why we must stay committed to building a culture of life:

Environmentalism? Now that's cool. All of Hollywood, every left-leaning educator, even the New York Times will celebrate Christians who feel called to "save" the environment. Socially speaking, that's a pretty easy cross to carry.

AIDS and Africa? While it may have carried a stigma 20 years ago, fighting AIDS is now practically a badge of honor. From Elton John to Bono to Kay Warren, there are a lot of popular people doing some wonderful things to fight a terrible disease. (And may God increase their number.)

But abortion . . . ? No thanks, God, I think I feel called to something else.

Something cool.

But here's the thing about being a Christian: We don't get to choose what we should be concerned about. The Bible not only tells us what to believe, it tells us what we should care about, and it stresses that our motivation shouldn't have anything to do with the news media, Hollywood or even popular church opinion.

“I think pro-choice people in this culture have absolutely no idea of the depth and intensity of the moral outrage of the people who are pro-life. They think that conservatives use it only as a wedge issue.” That’s Richard Land, in response to why Senator Obama failed to reach more evangelicals than Kerry or Gore in the last two elections, despite Obama’s outreach. According to a Politico news piece, Obama is backed by 28 percent of white voters who attend church at least once a week — a group that makes up a roughly a third of all voters. That’s less than Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore garnered (29 percent of these voters) in the previous two presidential elections.


"Eighty-five percent of evangelicals under 39 plan to vote for McCain compared to the 13 percent who plan to vote for Barack Obama, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll." And the central issue is abortion: "While young evangelicals - and the public - have become more liberal on other social issues like gay marriage," Pollster Anna Greenberg said, "we do not see the same movement towards a liberal position on abortion." (CT Politics Blog)


“Evangelical women view Palin as role model, stereotype breaker.” That the title of a worthy article at the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. For the record, I’m much more comfortable with Larry Kroon’s position on the role of women than Mimi Haddad, at least as the article presents the positions of both. Kroon is the pastor of Wasilla Bible Church where Governor Palin attends, and Haddad is the president of Christians for Biblical Equality.


“Broadly speaking, the challenge for the Republican Party is not to jettison social conservatives but to find a way to deepen the social conservative, pro-family message beyond just the classic culture-war debates. What would it mean to have a pro-family tax policy? What would it mean to have a pro-family health-care policy? . . . The decline of the two-parent family in American life is one of the biggest challenges for the U.S. going forward, and it's at the root of a lot of issues such as growing economic inequality and social immobility” (Ross Douthat, in an interview at ChristianityToday.com. Douthat is senior editor for The Atlantic magazine and coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream)


In “The Next New Deal,” John Heilemann of NY Magazine reports on why Senator Obama is in a better position than Bill Clinton ever was to bring about a Reagan-sized sea change in the American political landscape.


“Citizenship is an obligation of the faith, therefore the Christian will not abstain from the politics of the nation-state. But his primary mode of politics must always be witness. . . . Ah, God, help us let go of the heights and the depths, the thrones and dominions, the powers and principalities; to be not conservatives, nor yet liberals, but simply Christians.” Election Day would be a good day to reflect on J. Budziszewski’s critique of conservatism and liberalism. Budziszewski (pronounced Boojee-shef-skee) is professor in the departments of government and philosophy at the University of Texas. Both articles first appeared in First Things in the mid-90s: “The Problem with Conservatism” and “The Problem with Liberalism.”


Other articles and comments of note:

“Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap: younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men” (NY Times)


Margaret Talbot has an intriguing article on teen pregnancy among those who label themselves evangelical. I may return to write a blog post on what she got right--and what she missed--in reporting on the world of evangelical teens.


Texting Exceeds Phoning: “For the second quarter of 2008, American mobile subscribers sent and received on average 357 text messages per month, compared with making and receiving 204 phone calls a month, according to a Nielsen Mobile survey. In the first quarter of 2006, Americans sent and received 65 text messages per month. The surge in text messaging is being driven by teens 13 to 17 years old, who on average send and receive about 1,742 text messages a month. Even kids under the age of 12 are also heavy text users, averaging about 428 messages per month” (Leadership Network)


“Researchers at the Rand Corporation . . . found that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20” (Time magazine)


“Despite the gut-wrenching financial crisis; the billions of dollars Americans lost in retirement savings over the last month; and dismal consumer confidence, Wall Street analysts don't expect competitive cable operators to lose much business as a result of the economic downturn. ‘Video and broadband are no more discretionary for most families than running water or electricity,’ said Berstein Research analyst Craig Moffett” (“Americans Can’t Live Without Their Cable TV” from Wired)


"I feel like I was really kind of saved--when my son died--by faith and by the grace of God, and that's very much on my consciousness.” Brit Hume, in an LA Times report on Brit Hume’s impending retirement from Fox. Hume says he plans to get more involved in his wife's Bible study group. (The quote has been edited: the Times had a rather sloppy version: “I feel like I was really kind of saved when my son died by faith and by the grace of God.” Huh?)


“I'm convinced that we have mostly given up on male sexuality. We are led to believe the best thing we as men can do is rein it in, ride it out and apologize again and again. In the end we alienate men — and women — from the connection we were created to make in mystery. Would it be controversial to say men are supposed to be the way we are? That, despite the sin we struggle with, there is something good and God-like lying dormant in our sexual wiring?” (From Mike Ensley’s piece, “When Pigs Fly” in Boundless)


“The multi-generation household is making a comeback as Mom, Dad, kids, and grandparents live under one roof.” (from a Christian Science Monitor article)


Find of Ancient City Could Alter Notions of Biblical David. This is an important NY Times piece about a recent archaeological discovery that could have scholars re-thinking their bias against the biblical presentation of ancient Israelite history.


In “Move Over, My Pretty, Ugly is Here,” Sarah Kershaw of the NY Times says that the concept of beauty has been studied for centuries but the concept of ugliness is a new topic of investigation.


“Offended by bawdy ads? Take a stand.” A mom writes in the CS Monitor: “Fighting for my child's right to innocence, I have been surprised at how effective one phone call can be.”


The Courier Mail has a simple test to determine if you’re right-brained or left-brained in your thinking. The article said that “most of us” would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise. Really? Try as I might, I can’t see the girl spinning any way but clockwise, and the article tells me that means I’m right-brained. What about you?


Finally, since I'm in a series of studies on marriage enrichment at Hillcrest, I thought this video would provide some wise advice for married men (HT: The Thinklings):