Book Review - A New Kind of Conservative by Dr Joel C Hunter

My first thought when I picked up Dr. Hunter's book, A New Kind of Conservative, was, Here we go again; another ultra-right wing, evangelical preacher on his soap box, ranting and railing against the sins of our society and the failures of our secular government. But I soon realized that he is nothing of the sort. Instead, in this thoughtful and extremely well written book, he challenges the status quo among conservative Christians by asking such questions as: can a Christian/biblical world view effectively mesh with postmodern society and secular government? and; should Christians be involved in political action and if so, how?

The role of Christian conservatives, or the Religious Right, in the political process surfaces regularly in the public consciousness, especially when such hot button issues as abortion and gay rights are debated. How effective are they in promoting their cause within government and society? According to Dr. Hunter, not as effective as they could be. To make his case, he provides a list of five myths and three truths all imbedded in their efforts. Christian conservatives who continue to promulgate the former become less effective over time, while those that ignore the latter miss valuable opportunities to influence the political process in a more productive way.

Dr. Hunter is eminently qualified to address Christian conservative issues. He is the pastor of a church that administers to approximately 12,000 people who worship together in real time at multiple distribution sites throughout Central Florida and at hundreds of smaller sites throughout the world via the internet; he is an internationally known spokesman for compassion issues outlined in scripture; and he serves on the board of six organizations, including the National Association of Evangelicals. And while he speaks to, rather than for, Christian conservatives his ideas merit close attention; for what he is proposing is a shift away from the extreme right of the political spectrum, to a place less confrontational and more conducive to productive dialogue with other players in the political arena.

So, where is this place Doctor Hunter suggests Christian conservatives go and how do they get there? It's all spelled out in the chapters describing the Pilate Process, so named because the goal of this process is to learn from the mistakes Pontius Pilate made when judging Jesus. What could today's Christian conservative possibly learn from the Pontius Pilate of biblical times? As it turns out, quite a lot. After describing the process in precise and very understandable detail, Doctor Hunter summarizes by listing six easy to remember principles that will make us good at politics when we follow them. It all made good sense to me, and my gut feeling is that he is on to something profound.

The bible says "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's (Matthew 22:21). For Christian conservatives who are struggling to find their political voice in these trying times while heeding that admonition, A New Kind of Conservative is mandatory reading,

And now, for an admonition of my own. If you do decide to read "A New Kind of Christian," be sure to fully engage your brain before beginning and read it with slow deliberation letting the full weight of its logic sink in. If you do, you will be rewarded many times over.

Ron Standerfer is a freelance writer and photographer who is a frequent contributor to Ezine Articles as well as numerous other online news sites. His latest novel, The Eagle's Last Flight chronicles the life of an Air Force fighter pilot during the Cold War and Vietnam years. Details of his book can be found at http://www.theeagleslastflight.com

Mrs. Clinton the Progressive

They have gotten themselves into a terrible mess. The Democratic Party has turned their fate over to uncertainty because they have allied themselves with less than moderate people. Many people complain about how the Republican Party listens to religious voters a lot these days. Whether it is true or not, there is another side to this issue you might not notice as much. If the Republicans Party is supposedly listening to religious voters more and more in this day and age, then there can be no doubt the Democratic Party is listening to the far left wing of this country.

Case in point: Senator Joe Lieberman. The senator from Connecticut, one of the few Democratic senators I respect, is fighting in the primaries against Ned Lamont, a white guy. Mr. Lamont touts himself as a Democrat “…who will stand up for Connecticut and stand up for our progressive democratic values.” Now in most political circles, progressive is still a title that one does not want to shoulder. However, this politician believes he will win with such a title. Whether he will win or not is not the point, however. If Senator Lieberman fails in the Democratic primaries, he has stated he will run under the banner of an independent. This is all fine and groovy; however, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a moderate with rightward leanings (if you can believe her talk), has stated she will not support such a candidacy by Senator Lieberman.

Consider what this means for just a moment. If Mrs. Clinton does not support Senator Lieberman and instead pledges her support for Mr. Lamont, a man who is an anti-war progressive, it shows us that all of Mrs. Clinton’s tough talk on the war is as dependable as Windows ME. In fact, such support for a progressive should send off warning flags to the country that Mrs. Clinton is in fact as liberal as “foaming at the mouth” Randi Rhodes and The Daily Kos. Of course, if you listened to her, you would think she is simply a moderate politician who happens to have been associated with very liberal policies in the past.

Without a doubt, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is in league with the far left. That is why the Democratic Party is in a mess. Mrs. Clinton’s positions demonstrate one of two possible situations she and the Democratic Party find themselves in today. She is either part of the far left or she is terrified of this new powerful political body within the Democratic Party. I suspect she is a far left politician naturally, but it shows you that even she cannot escape their grasp. The far left is far more powerful in fact that the religious right when it comes right down to it. When was the last time you saw Republicans as a whole actually doing what religious conservatives wanted them to do?

Whether or not Lieberman wins his reelection (personally, I doubt he will), the point here is that you must watch who your politician supports. Looking at these type of facts will point you toward the real intent of someone like Hillary Clinton. Time will tell whether Mrs. Clinton’s deception holds for the 2008 elections. Whether it does or not, however, the Democratic Party will have to deal with this ever growing problem of being controlled by radio show hosts who have audiences that can barely support them in the ratings.

Anther fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

Burned

Hi folks. I know today I was supposed to post my weekly article, but I burned my hand a little bit (nothing serious, just can't use it because it HURTS BAD). So I can't finish my article that I had begun earlier today. I'll post in a few days when I can touch my keyboard. Sorry about this.

Another fine injury report from Conservative Textbook

PS - For those of you wondering why it is I can't write a blog article but I can write this, that's because I had someone else write this injury report.

2006 Part I

Seems like just yesterday I was getting emails about the 2005 elections. Yet here we are again in a far more important election year. It’s time to start up the campaign machine, so to speak.

The question of the year is simple – who will be in power in 2007? On a national level (I can’t speak for any local elections except those in Colorado), things look grim. Indeed, they look very grim for the Republican AND Democratic Parties. The media, for what it’s worth, says the country is in an anti-incumbent mode this year. I suspect that is relatively correct. The media, for what it’s worth, claims that will devastate the Republicans who are in control of Congress. I suspect that could be possible. While I am not blindly optimistic about the elections this November, I am not running around in terror like some conservatives are this year. An anti-incumbent attitude will hurt the Democrats too.

Neither party has done a good job this session. The Republican majority has fumbled, crashed, and burned their most opportune session in decades. The Republicans had a chance and the numbers to get some real work done on the national level. They lost that chance nearly the minute they got it. I blame Senators McCain, Specter, Graham, Chafee, and various other Republicans for a great deal of the blunder that has occurred this past session. On the other side of the aisle, however, the Democrats have done a nearly equally poor job. Their far left fringe base that controls most of the party’s elected officials is just as angry with their senators as the conservatives are their own senators. Neither party seems to be able to stand up for what their constituents desire. Neither party seems to be able to legislate what they were voted to legislate.

Why, you may ask yourself, has this happened? Why is it that our elected officials on both sides seem to be unable to stand up for what their supporters want? I believe it is because they are listening to the wrong sources. On the Republican side, our elected officials who are not doing what we want them to do are listening to the older media such as newspapers, CBS, ABC, and other sources that are reserved for liberals and old people. Of course, to please The New York Times AND conservatives is impossible. It is easier to please The New York Times, however, because results are seen immediately in the editorials and on the front page. However, in the long run, Republicans will only lose ground if they try to please The New York Times. On the Democratic side, a similar problem exists. Democrats are listening to far left wing pundits such as Air America, the Daily Kos, and Al Gore. Such sources are out of the mainstream of American culture, and thus the Democrats find themselves serving a base that is not quite compatible with American culture (to be absolutely accurate, that base hates Americans, American culture, and even themselves when you get right down to it). They can’t please foaming at the mouth Randi Rhodes and America at the same time.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I believe the problem is at this time with our elected officials on both sides. Will 2006 fix this problem? No. This disconnect with our politicians will only change after we slowly weed out politicians that don’t legislate what we put them in office to do. It will take time and effort, but that is the only solution.

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

Stop The ACLU Blogburst

Responding to reports that phone companies are turning over private details about Americansí telephone calls to the National Security Agency, the American Civil Liberties Union today launched a nationwide initiative to end illegal government spying.

ACLU affiliates in 20 states today filed complaints with Public Utility Commissions or sent letters to state Attorneys General and other officials demanding investigations into whether local telecommunications companies allowed the NSA to spy on their customers.

"We cannot sit by while the government and the phone companies collude in this massive, illegal and fundamentally unAmerican invasion of our privacy," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "And unfortunately, we cannot wait for Congress to act. The ACLU is mobilizing its members and supporters nationwide to demand investigations into this shocking breach of trust. And we are asking the FCC to use its authority to uncover the facts about how far the president's illegal spying has gone. The American people want answers."

True to form, Romero has twisted the facts of this case around to scare the unsuspecting liberal minded, apathetic imbecile who supports him and his anti-American organization. To this point, each and every legal scholar who has looked at the program has agreed that no laws have been broken.

Congressional leaders, including Dick "the dick with the turban" Durban have come out in favor of changing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to cover this type of operation. Each one has touted the benefits and necessities of this program for the national security of the United States and its people.

Democrats are approaching this from the oversight angle. That if the President was given authority to conduct this operation in just the same manner that it already has been, it would provide some oversight with teeth under which the President is less likely to abuse the power.

Republicans are approaching this from the stand point that the President needs this program and having it written into FISA would provide him with the tools to conduct it.

I agree with both actually. No matter who is in power, it is always possible for power to be abused. But as both parties have recognized the need for the program and both have expressed the need for it to continue, what is the ACLU's beef?

I'll tell you what their beef is. They are the perpetual fly in the ointment. If they aren't causing trouble over each and every thing the federal government does, they feel as though they aren't doing anything at all. After all, if they agreed with the stance the government takes, their significance would be non-existent.

This is a fund raising campaign. If they make a big enough stink about this, the apathetic morons will give them more money. If by chance they prevail in any one of these many lawsuits that they are planning, then they can circumvent the legislative process and again, they make money off the government.

The ACLU is listed as a non-profit organization. They claim to be non-partisan. But it seems awfully odd that the only members of Congress that are members of the ACLU are Democrats and that the ACLU publicly opposes any proposal sponsored by Republicans. And it seems awfully odd that each time they win a case, they take a larger cut of the settlement than their clients.

The ACLU feeds of the weak minded. They rely on the apathetic uniformed morons who fill out the little form and send it in with their $25 each year to get their little card in the mail so that they can go around saying that they are "card carrying members of the ACLU". If these people had half the intelligence that they claim to have, they would look into the dealings of the ACLU and come to the same conclusions that we have. That their actual goal is destruction of the United States as we know it.

President Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied a USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

Bush has said the administration's anti-terror surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.

The ACLU was planning to file actions with state utility commissions in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. Other states were expected to be added later. Source

So the ACLU will sue these companies for helping our government to detect terrorists? All the while, the ACLU has a massive database of its own members, their financial information, and much more private details than the NSA could ever hope for.

Sign the Petition To Stop Taxpayer Funding of the ACLU.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay or Gribbit. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board

Odd

Odd, isn’t it, that people can complain about their position in the world, and yet at the same time, demand to maintain the status quo that is keeping them in their pitiful position in the world. In France, protests are of course occurring. However, instead of Muslims protesting the bigotry of the progressive French, it is students and union bosses who are protesting the likely passage of the First Job Contract.

The First Job Contract passes revolutionary measures in France, namely that of allowing employers to fire workers under 26 without cause during their first two years of employment. French President Jacques Chirac has been caught in a firestorm between the two opposing sides of this bill. There are those who want the bill applied and enforced, and there are liberals who want the bill destroyed. Chirac has decided, according to reports, to proceed with signing the bill; however, he will amend it nearly immediately.

By now you should be asking yourself a question – why is this bill even is existence in the economic paradise of France where welfare, guaranteed jobs, long vacations, and less work for the same pay are the rule of the land? While the liberals in this country bemoan our 4.8% unemployment rate, the French are enjoying an unemployment rate of 9.6%. However, please recall that one of the primary protestors of this new law is the student population. The French student population currently enjoys an unemployment rate of 22.2%.

What is wrong with France? Why is this country of unions, socialism, liberalism, and bigotry against Muslims and Christians having these unemployment problems? The answer to that is very simple – unions, socialism, and liberalism. The First Job Contract allows employers to fire unproductive workers under the age of 26 during their first two years on the payroll. Currently, if an employer hires someone under 26, that person basically can’t be fired (red tape the size of Texas gets in the way). Therefore, what is an employer going to do if he or she can’t trust a new worker? That employer is going to hire someone over 26 who he can eventually fire (remember though, it’s very hard to fire anyone in France). If employers aren’t going to fire young people, the youth population is going to be severely unemployed (22.2% to be exact). Even though it is easier to fire someone over 26, it is still very hard to fire someone in France. The unemployment rate over 26 will also be high because of these rules (9.6% high to be exact).

I would like to draw you back to the beginning of this article. It is the students who are protesting this new law. It is also the students who are in dire need of jobs. If this law were to pass in its true form (which it won’t, according to Chirac), my prediction is that unemployment for those under 26 would drastically decrease. Why worry about hiring someone if they can be fired easily? It would cause those under 26 to be a very attractive demographic to employers, and it would cause the brats under 26 to develop a work ethic not unlike that of the American youth (that shows how far gone the French really are in the first place).

Odd, isn’t it, that the people protesting this new law are the exact people the law would benefit the most.

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

We're All Dead!

Since I am on spring break, I have decided it is the appropriate time to discuss something dire. Ladies and gentlemen, we are doomed. In fact, we are so doomed that I don’t think it really matters anymore.

Allow me to explain myself. Actually, allow someone else to explain it to you. Senator John Kerry (who served in Vietnam), explained on the radio that, “I can say to an absolute certainty that if things stay exactly as they are today absent some unpredictable change in what's going on, within the next 30 years the Arctic ice sheet is gone… Already you have the Greenland ice sheet beginning to melt ... If that melts, you have a level of sea level increase that wipes out Boston Harbor, New York Harbor - I mean, it's just stunning what we're looking at.”

Good glory! Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Now of course, that would be simply a disaster. However, I’m not worried about it. You see, we don’t even have to worry about the ice caps. Our planet will be long dead by that point. Al Gore, by way of his friend, explained to us some time ago that he “… believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.” This frying pan would be the result of global warming.

Good glory! That is even worse. Forget about melting ice caps, we’re all going to be dead 20 years before that happens. I’ve got a question about all this, especially Al Gore’s revelation – what’s the point? Do you really think it will be possible for us, even with the Kyoto Treaty, to mend this damage before we all die? Seems to me that even in the dreams of liberals, we’re already dead! Maybe that’s why John Kerry’s family (a separate entity from John Kerry, as we all know) owns several SUVs, five obscenely large mansions, a jet liner, and a yacht, all of which are polluters. John Kerry knows it is futile to try to stop our inevitable death.

In the mean time, before I die of heat stroke from Al Gore’s frying pan or drown from John Kerry’s floods, I’m going to go up and enjoy several days of snowboarding in the above average snow pack of several world class Colorado ski resorts (I snowboard, I don’t ski – skiers are crazy and unsafe on the slopes, so I refuse to be a part of them).

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.