Political commentary from last year

World magazine had an article at the end of the year by Marvin Olasky, who apparently is a judge for the Media Research Center awards given to the worst mainstream journalism of 2011. Wow, these were pretty amazing statements by people who claim to be giving us the straight news.

How was President Obama portrayed? It's really not much of a question. We all know the answer. For example, ABC's Christiane Amanpour called him "full of sunny optimism, very Reaganesque." Lara Spencer on the same network asked, "Is President Obama a baby whisperer? Watch as the First Lady tries to quiet down the fussy little friend. She then hands the bawling baby to the big man, and, presto, the tot is simply transfixed."

How was the Tea Party portrayed? Again, not much of a question, considering the political beliefs of so many in the mainstream media. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman equated Tea Party people with Hezbollah. Another New York Times columnist (see a pattern here?) wrote this: "Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people." MSNBC's Chris Matthews, whom I despise for his past pretense of fairness, said that the "GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government."

Here's one more statement by Matthews to give you an idea of his demented beliefs. Last month he commented on Republican voters: "They hate.… Their brains, racked as they are by hatred, they lack the 'like' mode."

Another New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, gives Matthews a run for his money. She said GOP budget-cutters were "cannibals… vampires… zombies… the metallic beasts in Alien."

Of course, these are the same people that call plaintively for a return to kindness and gentility in politics. Remember, they blamed the shooting of an Arizona Congresswoman on mean-spirited Republican political comments. Don't you love the hypocrisy of that?

Finding the right career

There's a new book out to help people take practical steps to find the right career for them. It's called 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller. It was recently reviewed in World magazine by Marvin Olasky. Between the two men, there were useful insights into career searches, in case any of you would like some advice or know someone who would..

They suggest one place to start is by listing your dreams and passions. What would you do if money was not important? What recurrent themes keep coming up in your thinking? What did you enjoy as a child but later people told you was unrealistic or impractical as a career?

They warn of a potential problem -- putting material considerations first when choosing a career. Miller says aiming for position, status, and power can be elusive, leading to rapid burnout. In addition, a person may end up with a job that has little security.

Olasky claims two things are the key to a proper career search. First is understanding the biblical approach to work. It is not seen as a necessary evil or simply a way to pay the bills. Everything we do should serve and glorify God, including the work we do. We want something that is a vocation, a calling. The Bible gives dignity to all work. We should not think of a separation between our work and full-time Christian service since all work is Christian service.

He says the next important key is how to find your calling. He suggests two questions: What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? He believes God hands out talents in a focused way. He claims most people come to find that they enjoy what they're good at because God gives us the desire to gain pleasure from being productive and having others respect our work.

Both suggest it's important to specialize. We need to become excellent at one thing, and, therefore, we should not think failure at some other things is terrible. As a teacher, I have seen students who struggle with writing, but they are amazing artists. Miller says we should spend 80% of our time working in an area we consider our strength.

The last piece of advice is important. Both describe the value of challenges in our careers. There was an interesting story here about David Livingstone, the famous missionary who went to Africa. A missionary society asked him if he had found a good road so that other missionaries could easily join him. His response was powerful: "If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all." I remember leaving high school teaching. There were several other teachers who said they wished they were leaving too, but they liked the security of their jobs. When we talk to our children or others seeking careers, let's keep Livingston's reply in mind. People need a challenge in life. Even if we already have a career, I'm sure there are challenges we can take on as well. Maybe we can think about that in the new year ahead.

Total Truth

I am currently rereading a powerful and provocative book by Nancy Pearcey called Total Truth (2004). It's a book that deserves at least two readings because it discusses the split between the sacred and the secular in today's society—a major problem. Does God belong in the public square in areas of politics, business, law, and education? Or is religion strictly a private matter? Secular thinkers have ruled Christian principles out of bounds in the public arena. According to Pearcey, we need to unify our fragmented lives and understand there is such a thing as total truth that applies all across society, not just in religious matters.. This is a worldview book, dealing with the importance of how we see and understand the world. In the next few blogs, I would like to mention some of the highlights of this book.

She says the first step to form a Christian worldview is to overcome a sharp divide in our society between the public and private. We are told there is a public sphere which is scientific and value-free. It is made up of facts and scientific knowledge. It is rational and verifiable. It is objective and universally valid. Then we are told that there is a private sphere made up of personal preferences, values, individual choices that are full of subjective feelings. It’s nonrational and noncognitive. This divide is the single most potent weapon to delegitimize the biblical perspective in the public square today. Most secularists consign religion to the value sphere, treating it as if it has no relevance to the public realm.

Pearcey believes Christians have to find a way to overcome this dichotomy. She turns to a classic book called The Christian Mind by Harry Blamires, in which the author claimed there is no longer a Christian mind. He meant there was no shared, biblically based set of assumptions on subjects like law, education, economics, politics, science, or the arts. Christians follow the Bible and pray, but outside of church they succumb to secularism. We need to understand that Christianity gives truth about the whole of reality. She warns of a particular danger here -- if Christians do not consciously develop a biblical approach to all aspects of their lives, they will unconsciously absorb some other philosophical approaches.

Pearcey offers three examples of how Christians need to influence their culture based on a worldview that sees the value of Christianity in all aspects of life. Her first case involves the way Christians are taking over philosophy departments and universities across the country. Why is this happening? Largely because of the work of one Christian philosopher – Alvin Plantinga. He writes well and has shown that Christians are capable of using their work to influence society, in this case academia. Another example is the work of David Larson, who turned around the medical community on the subject of religion and health. His studies found that religious beliefs actually correlate with better mental health, in contrast to Freud, who had said belief in God was a neurosis. The final example is Marvin Olasky, a former Marxist who analyzed American welfare policy. He discovered that churches didn't just hand out money to the poor. Instead, they helped people change their lives, focusing on job training and education. Churches required that the poor do some useful work, giving them a chance to rebuild their dignity by making a worthwhile contribution to society. On the other hand, government aid to the poor actually makes things worse by rewarding antisocial and dysfunctional patterns. It was Olasky who came up with the term "compassionate conservatism." This concept resonated with George W. Bush, who attempted to make changes in dealing with the poor based on this concept. So these three examples illustrate the way people's Christian beliefs can go beyond the private realm to make positive changes in the public sphere.