Tuesday, November 18, 2008

For the people???

I've only got a moment to spend here, but I wanted to ask a question. What ever happened to a government "for the people"? I hope I don't get arrested for asking that question, I don't think we've gotten to a tyrannical level yet, but what's happened? 
Initially Americans enjoyed a government focused on them, giving them what they wanted, which was liberty. They didn't want handouts or huge government expenses. On the other hand we have seen dictators rise up (Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Caesar, etc...) and take a country forcibly in a direction its people didn't want. I think we're in between these two scenarios. On the one hand we still vote, we still have a voice in who's in charge. No one is in control of us. But on the other hand our government no longer seems to give a whit of thought to us. They want to shove programs and throw soon-to-be-inflated money at our faces so we'll shut up and let them do what they want. 
The main reason I'm flustered is the bailouts and large expenditures of money in recent weeks and months. Who on earth is authorizing this massive outpouring of spending? Rumor has it something like 5 trillion dollars in spending has been dished out to various companies that are "too big to fail". That is a ridiculous sum of money to be loaning out, and from what stock pile? It seems like every day, or more like every night, when we're nicely snuggled up at home, staying away from radios and the news, another massive sum of money is spent. Even if this were necessary, which I find hard to believe seeing how no satisfactory explanation has been put forward for the spending, we deserve that explanation and a full accounting of where our money has gone and how we're going to get it back. 

We need a new breed of leader in Washington, a founding father breed, that will lead this country again for the people, not for themselves.

-Jaron

Friday, November 14, 2008

A Striking Parallel

Well, to put it plainly, I’ve noticed something quite interesting over the past few weeks as the politics of the election has continued to play out up to and after the elections. Everyone seems to “notice things” during an election year, I’ll freely admit, but the revelation that hit me during this last week I found to be immensely interesting. It wasn’t about a specific candidate or issue, it was when I stepped back and analyzed the entire situation. It brought to mind the old saying that “history is doomed to repeat itself”.
Last week I was studying the Great Depression and the following years that led up to the fateful days of World War II. The week before my reading selection had been the Roaring Twenties and I was astonished to discover that such a "loose" attitude prevailing at that time in our history. As I read I found that the decade of the twenties proved to be a very profligate and wasteful time. Everyone spent money and the standard of living was on the rise. On top of the increase in spending on things like entertainment and comforts, many people tried their hand at the stock market. A lot of inexperienced people borrowed money or took from savings to invest in different stocks. By the latter end of the century a Bull Market, where everything in the market is going up, had formed. This seemed all well and good but as we all know, in 1929 the stock market crashed, leaving the foolish investors bankrupt.
What I failed to realize before reading more deeply into the stock market crash was that the market crashed over a matter of days. It wasn’t a sudden day where everyone was bankrupt. I read about “Black Thursday” on October 24, 1929, when the crash began, but then I read about “Black Tuesday” of the following week, which was the worst sell off in the history of the market up to that point. Those were the worst days in a series of days where the market hovered then plunged, then hovered then plunged. Here, then, is the first parallel I saw, the volatile market over the last few months has held many similarities and even been in many ways a lethargic repeat of the stock market crash in 1929. Hovering then plunging and all in all harming those involved. Many smaller investors have been financially hurt or bankrupted.
Ok, so that’s a decent comparison I guess. Nothing too fantastic by itself. But as I read about the reaction of the American people my mind started to explode as I wove more connections. I could see the threads of the tapestry connecting. Just as one can find the same thread running straight through, from end to end of a rug, I started seeing the same thread on both ends of the spectrum. The stock market crash came in the beginning of the Hoover administration. There were more than three years after (the remainder of Hoover's term) for Americans to grow restless and upset with the Republican President before they proceeded to elect the Democrat FDR in 1932. Yes, they American people grew upset and tired with a Republican president who tried to adhere to conservative policies. Sound familiar? Granted, W. Bush has not been the most conservative president we’ve ever had, but apart from the bailouts he’s been more silent then his democratic opponents.
I personally agree with this approach, adopted by the Hoover and Bush administrations. We will help where we must but the government must stay out of the free market as much as possible. Both Hoover and Bush broke down eventually and passed legislation and funding to help but their initial stands and their mindsets, bent towards having a free market that can be left to take care of itself must be noted. Americans had been happy to be left alone during the roaring twenties. Money was everywhere and millionaires were born overnight. Nobody wanted a big government machine coming in and interfering in their lives. But as soon as the Depression wrapped its chilled hands around America the people began clamoring for help. The Government that they liked kept away when they had plenty they wanted to save them now that they had none. This opened the way for socialism. A big government that is willing to take a bit of one’s freedom in order to ease suffering. It is not what the American experiment was meant to be. The government’s job was to protect, not to rule. Freedom belonged to the people and that included the freedom to go unfettered and unhelped through pain as well as success.
Be that as it may, the people wanted help and they overwhelmingly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the White House in 1932. The electoral vote was 472 to 59. Sound familiar? Democrat Barack Obama won the election with 365 votes to John McCain’s 162. Not quite as bad, but Americans in the 1930’s, just like now, felt the need for “change”. They wanted a leader that would actively help them, even if it meant giving up some of their liberties. So, I feel like this has been a bit confusing. To recap my points, the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent economic downturn was during a Republican’s presidency. The solution was to leave the situation alone as much as possible and let mother nature run her course. After suffering from the pain for long enough the people demanded a leader that would comfort them and help them out quickly. That leader was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who came in promising the “New Deal”. He proposed massive government projects and spending that had never been heard of before. Against that history we have at the present a weakened stock market and economy during a Republican’s presidency and a nation that wishes for someone to help them. They believe they have found their savior in Barack Obama who has entered the scene with rich, benevolent promises, a "Third New Deal", for the poor and plenty of ideas for massive programs. Spending will be mandatory for his ideas to succeed.
Interestingly, if we take this analogy further we find an fascinating situation. FDR led the nation through the 1930s. He became the first president that, while enjoying immense popularity, decided to run for office more than the amount of time hitherto adhered to. He continued to increase the power of the government and to keep an isolationist America back on the track to a healthy economy. Some now say that his programs ultimately bogged down the rebuilding process even though they helped relieve the immediate stress. Whatever the effects, America’s sudden withdrawal from the world scene in the 1920s and 30s left a weak, war torn Europe alone to rebuild as fast as she could. This allowed Germany, whose angry people were stressed to the utmost by the demanding terms of the Versailles Treaty, signed at the end of WWI, to elect Hitler and for the Italians to bring Mussolini to the forefront, with only a weak Great Britain and France, and revolutionary Russia to stand in their way.
Again, Set against that history, the idea that Russia’s Vladimir Putin already had the guts to invade a country infront of our very noses is something that bears more weight that just its surface. How much more boldness will we see if we withdraw from the world by leaving Iraq or Afghanistan and if we try to bring our jobs, trade and presence as a whole in other countries back home. I know we don’t have the responsibility of the whole world on our shoulders, but we must face the possibility that a world without America watching could bring about some of the most devastating dictators and wars we ever witnessed. With Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and the many other countries that are waiting and watching, what would happen if the mighty US presence suddenly was no more? What would happen if the respected and feared United States military suddenly was a ghost of the past, doing no more than patrol and guard around the United States herself. It is a debatable decision, withdrawing from the world. Don't the Monroe Doctrine and the general ideals in the Constitution herself say that we should stick to our own business? But once we’ve violated that in two world wars and countless other situations can we just leave? Can we just abandon our allies and our partially done missions throughout the world? I think I would have to say no we couldn’t at this point. We must see them through to the end.

-Jaron

Thursday, November 13, 2008

How did we get here?

Mark here, this is an article written by my beautiful wife Janice Leverenz.
It is very challenging and very poignant, I believe. Let us know what you think. If you like what you read, she has her own blog at http://www.jane-theramblingsof.blogspot.com/. Go take a look!

"I’m taking a short break from writing on ethical consumerism to post this, at my husbands urging. After I mentioned this in another post, I started writing, and just finished. I hope you are inspired, or at least challenged. Please, let me know what you think.

How have we gotten here? It seems as though we’ve taken so many steps to the side, we must go backward, to find where we veered off. Yes, to retrace our steps and move backward is the best option for us now. To come to the place where we first lost our way, and continue in the appropriate direction from there.
Walking through church history of the decades 2000-2010, 1990-1999, 1980-1989, How have we reached where we are? Yes! Good things happened. Yes! God moved. No, it wasn’t a waste, but why does our generation look so shabby compared to Faith’s Champions of yester year?
Where are the spiritual disciplines? Where has forgiveness gone? Where is temperance?
I’m speaking in reference to second and third generation Christians. Those whose parents or grandparents were saved from lives of obvious sin, and needed severe lifestyle changes. I’m speaking of the people that have “always been saved” the ones who said the “sinners prayer” at age 4. The ones whose earliest memories are playing in the church nursery, and can fluently speak Christianese on demand, or even worse, don’t even know when their speaking Christianese. Why do we look the way we do? The real question is, where is your mark? How can one tell that you are sanctified?
(sanc·ti·fy [sángktə f]
(past and past participle sanc·ti·fied, present participle sanc·ti·fy·ing, 3rd person present singular sanc·ti·fies)
1. make something holy: to give something holy status
2. free somebody from sin: to perform a ritual or other act intended to free somebody from sin
3. bless something through religious vow: to give a religious blessing to something such as a marriage, usually through an oath or vow sanctified the marriage
4. officially approve something: to give social, moral, or official approval to something
rules sanctified by tradition
5. make something route to holiness: to make something a means of achieving holiness or a source of grace )
Simpler put, where is holiness?
God is into symbolism, just look at the scriptures and you’ll soon see, God likes symbols. He likes there to be illustrations for things, He likes parables, He likes signs and marks. What better sign or symbol of the presence of Jesus in our lives, than a life transformed? If the life of a “believer” remains untransformed, if the life of a “believer” continues to look the same as the life of an “unbeliever” then one has to ask, “is Jesus actually present in the life of the ‘believer’ at all?”.
My parents, and the parents of many of my friends, became Christians during the “Jesus people” movement in the ‘70’s. The “Jesus people” were a part of another movement, the “Holiness movement.” As far as I can tell, it pretty much went like this, “We read what the Bible has to say about how we live, and then, to the best of our ability, we live that way.” (otherwise known as obedience.) That’s how a movement should be. Simple.
I’m not saying that obeying is a simple thing to do, I am saying that the concept of holiness is simple. But in order to obey God, you have to know what He is asking, commanding and requiring of you. In order to know this, you have to know what He says in the Bible.
I want to live in such a way that someone, anyone, can tell that Jesus is why I live the way I do. I want to live different from the common man. Not in a way that makes those who were burned by the church cringe, or in a way that people think “great, someone else to judge me.” But in a truly Christ like way - in love and compassion, in truth and confidence, in forgiveness and understanding. In a way that God has asked me to. In a way of obedience. I want to live a holy life.
Can anyone else sense something coming? It’s like a big wave, or a wind, a storm, a rain cloud, something is coming, something new. It’s almost here. Something is stopping it. Has there been a great movement since the ’70’s? Like I said before, yeah, plenty of good has happened since then, but I mean a real movement. Has there been an environment changing movement in the past few decades? I don’t think so.
Why?
My theory is this: As the children of those who were a part of the “holiness movement” grew older, we began to rebel against the ways our parents did things. We saw this “holiness” as traditionalism, we saw it as prudish, and judgmental. In an attempt to create our own movement we entered the areas of “grace and freedom.” As a whole, we began drinking to the point of drunkenness, we stopped listening to moral and edifying music and began filling our homes with profanity, we started focusing more on “self” and stopped caring, we stopped heeding the law and started smoking marijuana, we had sexual relations with people who were not our spouses, we let profanity flow from our lips and let bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness reside in our souls. We let every manner of sin become a part of our daily lives. All in the name of “grace and freedom.” This is what we embraced, this is what we even took so far as to call a movement of God. This is the church. And this is what’s kept the “new” from coming.
We must go backward. To the placed we veered off. Yes, to retrace our steps and move backward is the best option for us now. To come to the place where we first lost our way, and continue in the appropriate direction from there. We must choose to live a life of holiness. We must raise our children in not just good behavior but in the way of holiness, and obedience to God. We must live a life that’s imitating Christ. We must earnestly search the scriptures and let our lives reflect it.
Then, I think, we’ll be in a place where God is free to let the new things come. So live in a way that the new can come. Do it for our children. Do it for the church. Do it for the rest of the world that needs to see Jesus the way He is, and not the way we’ve been portraying Him. Do it for your soul. Do it for the One who asked you to do it in the first place, the One who loved you so much that in order to be with you forever, chose to die in your place.
This is where I was going to put a scripture to back my point, when I realized, my point is backing scripture.
All: of-it
A man walks into a party, he’s very late. “sorry I’m late,” he says “I was hit and run over by a semi-truck on the way here, it messed me up pretty bad.” “No you weren’t” said the host. “How do you know? You can’t judge me like that” replied the guest “You weren’t there, you wouldn’t know!” “Well“ returned the host, “No one can actually have an encounter with something that big , and not be changed. If you were truly run over by a semi-truck, we’d know, because you would look like you were.” (my own morphed version - original story told by Paul Washer)"

Thursday, November 6, 2008

President Obama

I must say, I expected to wake up yesterday morning in a “funk”, if you know what I mean. I expected to be somewhat angered over the outcome of this election. After all, the winner was an all-but-professed Marxist, even to the point of quoting some of Karl Marx’s words nearly verbatim (Joe the Plumber extracted that out of him, remember the “spread the wealth” comment?) and also his voting record clearly indicated that he was in favor of abortion (excuse me, I mean a “woman’s right to chose”). He wanted to increase the taxes on small businesses which would alienate those Americans who had worked hard all of their lives to get where they were (the same spirit that has built this country in to what it is) and take that money, in order to give it to those who had not done anything to deserve it. I’m all for giving money to the poor, in fact I do, but that is much different than being forced to give my money to the poor. Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, has confessed that they would like to decrease our military by up to 25%. Obama is on record as saying that he wants to bankrupt the coal industry (an industry that comprises nearly 40% of our electricity in the United States). Also, he wants to form a citizen’s army (not sure what that means, but I can only think of Hitler’s SA). All in all, I was due for an angry day.
Something interesting happened this morning though. I woke up after a good night’s sleep around 8:30am (that’s sleeping in for me). Janice (my wife) was still asleep next to me, which may not seem unusual, but we have a 1yr-old son who LOVES to wake mommy and daddy up around 6:30. He was still sleeping. As soon as I rolled over to snuggle up a little closer to my wife (don’t worry, I was just going to snuggle) she woke up and said “good morning”. Just then my son’s tiny, little voice came floating in to our room. He was in his crib, just talking to himself: telling stories about his Mama and Dada and making up a whole bunch of new words. This made Janice and I smile. We all got up and went downstairs together. My wife (who is 9 months pregnant) made some breakfast for Gideon and I, and then went to sit down at the dining room table. No mention of the election was spoken of in our conversation. Then, my wife said, “you know I think we need to pray for Obama. There’s been so many negative things spoken about him, and especially now that he is elected, we really need to support him and pray he makes the right decisions.” Wow. I love my wife so much; she is so compassionate. She is also, so completely right. I have been so negative and demeaning in my words towards him. I did not vote for him, but we Americans elected him. Therefore I need to do all that is necessary to help our new president as he makes decisions on a daily basis. Yes, I disagree on many issues (most, in fact) but that does not change the fact that he loves his country and will do what he sees as the correct thing for this nation.
As I drove to work, I noticed a curious thing. I felt proud of this country. I thought about our very first elections, which were monumentally significant in that it was the first time in the history of this world that a leader of a country willingly stepped down in favor of another. Never before had a country had such a change in leadership without the shedding of blood. Yet George Washington, our first Commander and Chief, with shouts of praise to him calling for him to become king of this country, ignored their pleas and willingly shed his power so that another man could ascend to his position. Let the world marvel at such a thing. His humble act has set the course for all future presidents (except for one, but we won’t get in to that now) that is seen even up to the present with George W. Bush congratulating Barak Obama on taking over his position.
We need to support Barak Obama as our new president, pray for him and do what we can to help him in his new position. If we disagree with something he wants to enact, it is our duty to let him know. He is the voice of the American people to the rest of the world now and, as such, we need to let him know what we believe in. Do not slander him, do not ridicule him; Criticize all you want and let your voice be heard, but please, please, PLEASE do not bad mouth him. I trust he will do his best to do what’s right.
Romans 13:1-2 comforts and warns me, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” This is a grave warning. The only time it is OK to rebel is if that authority is forcing us to do things that go against the things of God. Our declaration of Independence says just that very thing. “…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The Declaration states that God himself has bestowed us with “certain, unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” At the moment, we still have incredible liberties. We have the liberty to serve and love our God, to convene with those of like-mind and speak freely of our beliefs. What incredible freedom we have! Our freedom is taken for granted here. Remember what an incredible nation we live in right now. God has blessed us indeed and I pray that the Lord will lead Barak Obama in the right direction as we also seek after God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Followers