This is the time where human sexuality, abortion, gay marriage, etc., rule the voting consciences of many Christians. It comes down to a simple principle:

The religious right believes you should legislate morality.

For many voters, this principle goes unquestioned. But is this compatible with the Christian faith? I personally don’t think so.

One simple question states my case pretty clearly. If over night, we were able to pass every single law the religious right would have enacted, would that make our country Christian?

Here are a few more questions to get your minds going: Would it change one single heart? Would it make one single person a follower of Jesus by the enactment of these laws of morality?

Or how about this different set of questions: Would it make those who do not follow Jesus hate his followers even more? Would it close the minds of those already hardened to the message of Christ? Could it possibly increase sin all the more?

Since Christians cannot simply enact all the laws they want over night, these questions could be written off as unnecessary fantasy. But if those questions apply to my fictitious scenario, they could also apply at varying levels to the actual situation.

When one “legal victory” is gained by the religious right, does it draw people closer to Christ or repel them for being forced to follow a morality they do not understand? Does it instill Christian grace in this country, or does it bolster a sense of legalism which both those in and outside of the church strongly sense in today’s evangelicalism?

The attention on legislating morality also hinders Christians from positive political activity which would be in line with their faith. Helping shape the government of the most powerful nation in the world in to a grace-giving, compassionate, force for good would be a real possibility if the religious right were not so obsessed with keeping gays from being married.

Assisting those in need and helping women most at risk for unwanted pregnancies would practically reduce the numbers of abortions. But instead, a war is waged which may never be won. It’s all or nothing for the religious right. How does this match up with what we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus? It doesn’t.

And what about ending corruption in our government? Why aren’t prominent Christians asking the difficult questions about why our civil liberties are vanishing before our very eyes and no one seems to be doing anything about it? Why aren’t our religious leaders questioning how oil companies have made record profits while the country is lead by an oil baron president? That fact isn’t enough to convict George W. Bush of any wrongdoing, but why aren’t they even asking the questions?

How is it I can cross the border and pay $2.83 a gallon for gas, but the cheapest station in my area has gas for $4.49? How does a company once run by the Vice President make billions off of a war most of the country no longer wants us to be in (and if we weren’t told it was unpatriotic wouldn’t have wanted us in in the first place)?

By now, you’ve already resonated with my questions and comments, or you probably aren’t reading any more. Let me just say, for the record, I am not a Democrat. I am no longer a Republican. I will most likely vote Democrat for the first time in my life for President (I voted Green Party last time because I could not respect either candidate from the major political parties), because Obama’s political concerns line up more closely (not anywhere close to perfectly) with my religious beliefs than John McCain’s. A part of my religious beliefs are that you should vote for the person who will do the most good for our country and our world. I am not interested in McCain’s stance on gay marriage, abortion, or any other moral issue a politician could seek to legislate. I am interested in both candidate’s ability to help those in need, respond compassionately to a world filled with strife, and to pursue the best path for the most powerful nation in the world.

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San Diego Downtown Gaslamp District Hotels

Hotels in the gaslamp district can be a bit pricey, but the area makes up for it. When you can find a good deal, you want to jump at it. We had dinner plans at Candela’s, which was (according to my girlfriend) voted the #1 romantic restaurant in San Diego. The ambiance was pretty good, and the food was amazing! So to go back to our hotel and relax, maybe watch a movie, would have been ideal.

When visiting friends in San Francisco, I used Hotwire to land the Parc 55 hotel. It was amazing and truly worthy of the four star rating. So I turned to Hotwire once again for our San Diego excursion and found a four star hotel for $100 for the night! I pounced on the deal.

Truthfully, the hotel was not bad enough to ruin the weekend, but I would hesitate to give it a three star rating, much less a four. And evidently others have felt that way, since it dropped half a star since the time I booked it to getting a “rate your hotel” email after the trip. Figures.

At first glance, the room was okay. It certainly did not impress, but it was adequate. Upon our romantic dinner (and taking a bike taxi ride back to the hotel), we were pretty exhausted from a long day and just wanted to relax.

First, the room was frigid. No big deal for most hotel rooms, just turn up the heat. Except the heater did not work. It just blew cold air. It said it was on, but every setting we tried blew cold air. So we let it run for awhile, thinking it must need to heat up. Nada. Just cold air making the room even colder. The only thing which warmed the room up a little was shutting it off. At 11:30 at night we did not want to have a technician in the room and decided to deal with the cold.

So I got ready for bed. As I brushed my teeth, I realized the water was making an extremely loud clunking as the water went down the drain. I’m not exagerating to say it if were a human voice, you would think someone was yelling at you. Clug. Clug. Clug. Clug.

Just when I thought it quit, the clugging went through a whole nuther set of pipes underneath the bath tub. Clug. Clug. Clug. Clug. And it kept going and going and going much longer than I felt I had the water running.

The next morning, the shower provided a whole new kind of fun.

The first visual cue something was off… well, I snapped a picture from my Treo:

No big deal, after all it doesn’t really affect the function of taking a shower, especially if you are not handicapped. Just a little visual annoyance for our supposedly luxury hotel experience.

Of course, then there’s the shower head. Yeah, a “four star hotel” has the type of shower head you hold in your hand? I suppose that can be a convenience for some people, but I personally think it’s tacky. But, at least you can mount it high and use it like a regular shower, right?

Maybe you need a closer look:

Yeah, that’s a broken holder. So my downtown San Diego luxury hotel experience included me holding the shower head the entire time I bathed.

To be fair, the exercise room and the pool were slightly above average. Of course, we used them right before we checked out, and even though we called for an extended checkout (which they would not give us the night before… told us we had to call back in the morning), we were locked out of our room. So I got to stand in the lobby of our luxury hotel in my bathing suit waiting for personnel which was nowere to be found to get a replacement key.

The good news is, my girlfriend is so amazing all of this stuff bothered me more after the fact (though I was perturbed enough, obviously, to snap off a few pics). We had a wonderful weekend in spite of the Doubletree Hotel in downtown San Diego.

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But the new generation of evangelicals is sick of being labeled as backward rednecks because of their association with fossils like Dobson. There are many evangelicals like Cizik too who are not all about homophobia, nationalism, war-without-end and American exceptionalism or the Republican Party. Like Cizik they believe that the America has a responsibility to do something about global warming, poverty, AIDS, human trafficking and other issues. They see through Dobson and the other so-called pro-life leaders, who have actually done nothing to reduce abortion. In fact Dobson has increased abortions because of his “abstinence only” crusade.

From “Dr. Dobson Has Just Handed Obama Victory” by Frank Schaeffer.

I don’t know much about Frank Schaeffer, honestly, but I do know he’s had quite a reversal of opinion about a great many things, particularly religious things. I wonder if Dobson actually is at a point where his endorsement or criticism affects voters with the opposite reaction he intends.

I just don’t think the type of evangelicals Schaeffer writes about listen to Dobson in the first place. Sure, he gets some news time when he makes a statement, but I’m just not sure those who disagree with Dobson are all that affected by his opinions. I guess if he came out endorsing Obama, then maybe they’d take a second look at whether Obama is worthy of their vote… Uh oh, I might have just given the GOP a strategy!

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Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, has some great tongue-in-cheek sarcasm about the Gospels.

You could get a lot of wrong ideas reading the Gospels too much. You could start thinking that Jesus is in favor of some kind of social gospel where people give away lots of things, live in community, get in trouble for their radical compassion and stand outside of the religious establishment much of the time.

In fact, really….the Gospels have some good stories, but wouldn’t we be better off to study things like Romans 3 more often, so we really know what the Gospel is about?

Spending a lot of time in the Gospels could make you a person who is confused about discipleship as compared to grace. We should go to church, hear about grace, and leave much happier. If we read the Gospels too much, we’ll get the idea we’re supposed to do a lot of things that we really don’t have to do to be saved.

Let’s be careful with the Gospels. Don’t go overboard with them. They could mess up your whole religion.

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Couldn’t we just call them Los Angeles of Anaheim?

Or better yet, why not.. the Anaheim Angels. Gee, why didn’t they think of that one?

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More details to come… No date set, yet, but it could be as early as the end of summer.

Edited: Sorry, this was an April Fool’s joke. I posted a comment saying “read the date” when my friend Mike fell for the ruse, but I realized if you don’t read the comments, you’d still think it’s legit. This was posted on April 1, originally.

Sorry to be a pain

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I love it!

Update: Embedding has been turned on and off on this short, and it seems now it is back on. If you can’t get the video to play, click the link in the comments.

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Yes, I won. I went to court on principle. I came to a complete stop before turning right on red, and I was not going to pay the ticket unless I was found guilty at trial.

And the cop showed up. Nobody wins when the cop shows up, right?

Here’s what happened in court:

The officer recounted what happened, but he left out that he was in a conversation with two other police officers while he was monitoring the intersection. That opened up the opportunity during the questioning phase for me to ask if he remembered what he was doing right before he observed my car turning right. He did not remember. I asked him if he remembered our conversation when he pulled me over. He did not. I then stated perhaps that conversation would refresh his memory, and I asked if he remembered asking me why I would go through a red light like that (turning right without stopping) when there were a group of police officers on the corner. The officer was honest and admitted he did remember and that there were three officers on the corner. I asked him if they were having a conversation, and he said, “Probably.”

Then it was my turn. I stated what I honestly believe. The officer looked up after I had come to a complete stop at the limit line and assumed I never stopped. The officer had written a nice little diagram of the intersection on the whiteboard in the courtroom, and I used his diagram to show that because another street branched off at that intersection, the limit line sits back even further than it normally would at a standard intersection. Basically two major streets and a third side street all come together at that intersection.

The limit line being placed so far from the intersection lended to the perception that I had never stopped. When in fact, I stopped at the limit line and accelerated to where I would turn slowed a tad to make sure it was okay to proceed, then accelerated quickly through the turn.

I stated that I believed the officer was honest, and he ticketed me based on what he saw, but he was in a conversation and not watching the whole time. The judge… agreed! He pronounced me not guilty, and I walked out of court a happy man.

To the officer’s credit, he could have lied and said even though he left out he was in a conversation, he was still watching the whole time. Instead, when he had a chance to respond, he just said, “The people rest.”

And I saved $400 by seeking justice. I wanted my day in court. I got it, and I won!!!

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It appears that Van Nuys Superior Court Commissioner Martin Wegman thinks I deserve the chance to be innocent…

I posted earlier about the possibility that I could not afford to be “not guilty.” It was going to cost me $381 to have my day in court. Evidently, the L.A. Superior Court thinks it is okay to coerce you into pleading guilty by offering you six months to pay a reduced fine (almost always reduced when you go before a commissioner), but if you want to plead not guilty you have to pay the full amount of the fine within seven days and then you get it back if you win your case.

Innocent until proven guilty? Hmmm…

But when I went back to court, seriously considering pleading guilty because I felt I could not afford to tie up almost four hundred dollars until my trial (and then who knows how long it takes them to send me a check…), I asked to be allowed to come to the trial based on my own recognizance (they call the fine amount “bail” to justify taking the full amount before you even get to trial).

Commissioner Wegman said because I showed up to court the first time and the second time I was given a new date without problem, he didn’t feel I was a risk to not show up and granted my request for O.R.

I just did a web search for Martin Wegman, and he seems like a decent guy. Here’s Martin Wegman’s personality profile.

I went near the end, so I heard him deal with quite a few people. He kept the mood of the court light but still professional, and he was very fair. The only requests he denied were from people who had continually failed to appear for court dates or who had done some other stupid things which negated his normally generous demeanor.

I’m sure it’s a tough job being a superior court commissioner, and I’m glad Martin Wegman is on the job in Van Nuys. Still have issues with the system, but at least I know there’s a possibility of justice even if you don’t have the money.

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My girlfriend asked me a couple of days ago if I would choose to be a famous director/actor if it meant we had to break up. I said no, and not just because that was the right answer to give your girlfriend.

Success does not guarantee happiness. Sometimes, the cost is too high. I don’t know anything, obviously, about the personal life of Heath Ledger. I feel for his daughter and ex-girlfriend in this time, but I certainly do not know if it was an intentional overdose, or an overdose at all for that matter, that lead to Heath Ledger’s death today. Whatever the circumstance, his talent and fortune did not seem to lead to contentment and happiness.

I don’t think it is actually an either/or question, though she had in mind what happens if she has to leave Los Angeles. Do I go with her or not. Too early in our relationship to answer that question any way, but I do know that the chance at success or fame with directing, writing, and acting will not weigh as heavily as the value of my relationships.

If that situation ever arises, I’d look at what relationships I would sacrifice by leaving Los Angeles. When I left Indiana, I believed I should lay down roots in Los Angeles. I did not want to be another transient passer-thru in L.A. That does not mean I would never consider leaving, but I do know that I would have to be convinced it is the right move to make. I do not take leaving my network of close, personal relationships lightly.

And, of course, it would matter if my girlfriend still has “girlfriend” status at that time, or if there’s another designation…

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A kind word, a smile from a stranger, the gentle breeze on a hot summer day.

What was once wonderful often sinks beneath the muddy waters of routine.

The faithfulness of a friend is too often forgotten even before the next trial begins.

But arising from the ruins of mistakes made manifest come wisdom, joy, and strength.

The past shines light on the present bringing hope for tomorrow.

Appreciation for each day grows stronger than yesterday’s sorrow.

Today means more than the next.

Tomorrow becomes today soon enough.

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I was ticketed for not stopping at a red light while turning right. The particular intersection has the line before the stop light pretty deep from the intersection, so I stopped at the line like you are supposed to. Then I looked, and I saw that I had time to go. I accelerated (quickly, but not too fast, no screeching tires or anything).

The next thing I know about a quarter mile down, I’m being pulled over by a motorcycle cop. He was cocky, like a lot of cops are (here in Los Angeles, any way). He asked me why I did it even though there were a group of cops talking in the Denny’s parking lot. I told him, I didn’t, and he must’ve looked up while I was accelerating through the turn. He actually admitted to me that going through the light caught his eye, so he wasn’t looking at me the whole time. But he was convinced I had never stopped, so he wrote me the ticket.

Today, I went to court to plead not guilty. I find out that in order to plead not guilty, I have to pay the full amount of the fine which gets refunded to me if I’m found not guilty. But here’s what pisses me off: You get six months to pay a reduced fine if you plead guilty, but in order to have your day in court you have to post an amount about THREE TIMES what he would actually fine you if you plead guilty. It’s coercion to plead guilty.

Out of principle, I’m going to have my day in court. I’ll pay their little extortion money, and even if I lose it, I’m not going to say I’m guilty for something I did not do.

Update: I am seriously considering paying their extortion. Having four hundred dollars tied up when I could pay it off for $150 seems really tempting. I have issues, though, with having to lie in court. I guess I could plead “no contest” and then it wouldn’t be lying. In good conscience, I can’t say I’m guilty. I’m not.

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Right now as I watch the game, Croyle is 8 for 24, and not a single reception for D. Bowe.

Going into this game, he only needed 18 yards to make 1,000. Everyone assumed he would get that and more. Now it’s almost the 4th Quarter and he doesn’t have a single reception. I’ve only seen Croyle throw to him once. With Tony Gonzales, it’s not like Bowe is being double-teamed.

If Croyle is the QB for Kansas City next year, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to watch. His record as a starter, after all is 0 and how many ever starts he has. KC is headed to their 9th straight loss since starting the season 4-3 under Huard.

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“Literalism is a false means of interpretation (hermenuetic) and is a vain attempt to democratize the Holy writings. If they can be read on a literal level, then everyone has equal access to them and everybody has equal authority to interpret them. Thus certain forms of Protestantism, caught up in the various modern theories of the Reformation, sought to do to the Scriptures what many sought to do with their governments. Kill the princes! Kill the priests! Everyone can be his own king, his own priest. Smash the images and any claim to authority. Of course these extreme forms always failed quickly, to be replaced by some version of moderation.

“Thus the Scriptures are not purely democratic - some interpreters are more equal than others.”

This touches on an issue for me, which is that all of our understanding is based on experience. All of our understanding about anythying is based on our experience. God speaks to us through the Scriptures, but it is not in a vacuum.

Justin Baeder makes this observation and shows how difficult it is to balance our own wants and desires with understanding the Bible in his post, Armchair Theology vs. Compromised Theology.

For example, Jesus criticized the man in his parable who tore down his barns to build bigger ones. If I move from an apartment to a house, or buy a nicer car, you could say I did the same thing. One you’ve done something, you tend to rationalize it, particularly if you benefit from it and enjoy it.

Justin surmises,

I say this to point out that we can’t depend entirely on ourselves to judge our own actions, and we can’t just judge others and expect our judgment to be fair. We need to make these determinations in community.

I’ve felt for quite awhile that our understanding of Scripture must be lived out with others striving to follow Christ. Jason brings up a good point in the comments of his post,

Many in the emerging church have argued for the local faith-community as the center of theological reflection and life. But my experiences over the past several years have left me feeling disconnected from anything larger or historical. I feel my attempts have contributed to splintering further Christ’s Body. In many ways, it’s simply been hyper-individualism in a small group form.

Alan, while I am wrestling with some of the Orthodox Church’s claims, your comment raises the question for me about the practical nature of living and experiencing the Bible’s content. If the Scriptures are the Church’s Scriptures, then experiencing and living the Scriptures must be the Church’s reality as a community, not as individuals. The more I think about it, while there is definitely a personal (not necessarily an individual) aspect of living Scripture, it must be in the greater context of the Church’s reality with Scripture. And this has to be more than just a local church’s or denomination’s reading, studying and interpretation of Scripture. And yet, the idea of the Church universal is too vague. The Church universal is too fractured to provide any real context for life in the Scritpures.

On the one hand, I see the need for a greater body of believers for being the community of understanding. Small groups are still easily swayed by shared interests which can jade them in their understanding of the Scriptures.

But that isn’t to say that large groups do not share the same flaw. For me, it is the willingness to learn from the interpretations of those who are not like us that help us better understand the Scriptures. So embracing a large, historical church for the sake of Biblical understanding could discount other communities. Unless the Church honestly should have always existed as the institutional structures we see in Eastern Orthodoxy, we should not expect to find a more perfect understanding by only looking at one segment of the Church.

There are aspects to the Scriptures, especially as it applies to living day to day in the Kingdom of God, which I think are best learned in small groups, while deeper theological questions are best understood within the context of the varying interpretations of the Church universal.

Technorati Tags:
church structure, ecclesiology, emerging church, bible study

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Definitely worth a look for those of you who use projection for your times of community worship.

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“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” - Ephesians 2:8

There’s a disconnect in the common Evangelical doctrine of salvation between faith and works. Perhaps disconnect is not the right word, but there’s a one-sided view of “works.” While we are saved by grace through faith and not by “good works,” there’s certainly a belief, whether stated or not, that bad works can definitely cost you your salvation. Or perhaps, that if you do bad works, that’s a sign that you really don’t have any faith at all.

So perhaps a better way to describe the doctrine of salvation in the Evangelical church is that you are “saved by faith and what you don’t do.”

A confession of belief becomes quickly called into question if you do certain things which are deemed unacceptable by most Evangelicals. Drinking to the point of drunkenness - even on an irregular basis, sex outside of heterosexual marriage, supporting a candidate who wants to keep abortion legal (even if said candidate does more for women in troubled pregnancies and practically reduces the number of abortions by their compassion rather than legislation), or divorcing a spouse without biblical grounds (or in many circles even with biblical grounds).

You can’t have it both ways. Either you are saved by faith and your actions have nothing to do with it, or our actions are central to our faith, both good and bad. Yeah, that’s where things get sticky, don’t you think?

I take issue with those who put all the weight on actions as well, because they seem to put all the weight on the good works and neglect the bad. If someone is actively involved in service to the poor and oppressed, who cares what sins they may be enslaved to? I know that’s an oversimplification. I really do.

The tension really comes into play when defining salvation. It has been so ingrained in us that salvation is eternal life (meaning when we physically die we go to heaven and live eternally), we only give passing consideration to another element in our salvation: empowerment to live and move in the divine image.

The empowerment we receive by the Holy Spirit does not mean total and complete victory. Sin is not a sign we have not accepted Jesus’ invitation to enter the Kingdom of God. At the same time, the fact that we will sin is no excuse for that sin. We are to put to death our sinful desires, progressively, as we are transformed into the image of Christ from one empowering moment to the next.

Our faith is an active faith. Works have everything to do with salvation, but not necessarily prior to salvation. Certainly, our actions and choices prior to following Jesus factor in our development as persons, but we are not earning or rejecting salvation in those actions. In the same way, our works are not earning or rejecting salvation after following Christ.

But…

There’s always a “but” when trying to work out theology.

Continually rejecting the empowerment to overcome our sins and strive to become like Christ could certainly deaden our faith. Our development can be stunted or even reversed by a continual insistence on living in the filth of sin.

In the same way, continually striving to overcome and be developed into the image of Christ will strengthen us and draw us closer to God.

So, I guess I’m saying you aren’t saved by what you do. You aren’t damned for what you do. But salvation for us in the here and now is all about what we do.

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