iPandora

The internet is a great enemy of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), and there have been many things this year about which there is great FUD.

FUD is the friend of people who would abuse their power, because there is nothing quite like a good catastrophe to rationalize sweeping change. People who live in FUD are enablers and empower the abuses of those who lead by them.

One of the great fears this year is Swine Flu. It was the end of civilization, the plague that would wreak havoc on our society and it’s systems.

There was breathless analysis of how our society would plug the gaping holes left by the multitudes of sick and dead from this beastly flu.

And now we’re quite sure it’s not really all that bad.

When the fall/winter wave of H1N1 swine flu is over, it will have been no more severe than an average flu season, predict Harvard researcher Marc Lipsitch, DPhil, and colleagues from the U.K. Medical Research Council and the CDC. (from WebMD)

Why were we afraid?

Sure, H1N1, the “swine flu”, tends to affect people traditionally considered low risk for such illnesses. But it’s fatality rate wasn’t anything worrisome once it came down to it.

We were afraid because we didn’t have all the information, and the information we did have told us we ought to be afraid. The media and faux-news outlets so many of us go to for information had bought into the hysteria and spread it as only they can.

WebMD goes on:

Even so, the new numbers are cause for relief if not for celebration. Before the 2009 H1N1 swine flu came along, planners were preparing for a pandemic with a case/fatality ratio of 0.1% — that is, for one death in every 1,000 symptomatic infections.

The Lipsitch team now calculates that the H1N1 swine flu has a case/fatality ratio no higher than 0.048% — and maybe seven to nine times lower, depending on the methods used for calculation.

They are careful to note, though, that should any number of various circumstances occur, the fatality rate will shoot skyward and civilization will be, once again, toast.

The Lipsitch team has reason to want as much FUD surrounding this subject as possible. If the situation is dire and they can convince those who control the purse strings their research is integral to the salvation of humanity, they get more money.

Once the numbers could no longer be inflated, they had to retain their credibility and so gave this nice update. But see how throughout the story they always match the good news with a “but” to keep us ever aware of the necessity for remaining ready for panic.

I’m glad that, even if the swine flu begins to fulfill all the awful claims made of it, I still don’t have to fear.

Because while the internet is a great enemy of FUD, God’s faithfulness is the greatest enemy of FUD. Trust in God does not defeat FUD by simply informing us of the truth of the matter. If that were the case then in times of truly realized terror, Christians would have just as much reason to be terrified as anyone else.

Trust in God defeats FUD because we who trust in Him know there is only so much that can be taken away from us. This world and all it contains can only harm our bodies, these mortal coils. And if the worst were to occur and we were to lose our lives, we would be alive, truly, in heaven with God.

If you believe this, there is truly nothing that can shake us or cause us to fear.

This Sunday’s sermon was another eye-opener for me.

Pastor Todd has been taking us through a series on changes in life, God’s purpose for them, and the tools He’s made available to us in dealing with those changes.

The primary example for changes God walked people through has been the story of the Israelite’s release from Egyptian bondage and subsequent travels and travails to the land of God’s promise.

This Sunday we dealt with the subject of God’s provision for us, using the example of God’s providing manna in the wilderness.

In the timeline of the Promise Land journey, this event occurred just two months after God’s parting of the Red Sea, and only about 2 weeks after God had led His people to an oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees. In other words, God’s provision in greater and lesser (though still great) ways was fresh on the minds of His people.

Or was it.

Exodus 16 opens with the people grumbling.

And not just the regular travel pains, this is specific whining and wanting for the comforts of Egypt. God had shown them the Egyptians low regard for their lives. He’d shown them His own supremacy over and above the greatest kings of this earth. He’d shown them his tender and remarkable hand in the smallest of details by leading them to a symbolically perfect place of provision.

And they were already complaining.

Ingratitude is a morally despicable attitude and an ingrate is an ugly person. Yet here was the entire congregation of Israel grumbling at their want in this wilderness and wishing for the meat pots of Egypt.

If any of us were in God’s position, we’d consider ourselves quite justified in being incensed at the complaints of this recalcitrant and backward people. We’d rail at the ingrates and give the whole nation a dressing down they wouldn’t soon forget.

But God doesn’t.

And that’s where it is most true that this lion is no tame lion.

Huh?

How’d we get to Narnia already?

Instead of taking a human approach, and even an approach He took other times in berating the buffoons, God chose instead to prove once again His mighty hand waxing strong on behalf of his wayward and ungrateful and yet fully loved and fully cherished children.

The expect response to the complaints from below would be a diatribe about the history of the universe such as Job received, mixed with the venom of the most vicious Psalm.

The actual response:

“Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you…

At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.”

The closest God came, in His words with the Israelite ingrates was that He was setting this as a test and a reminder:

“the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.”

John Calvin himself had a great issues with the narrative:

It is probable that Moses passes over much in silence, because it is not consistent that the insolence of the people was left without even a single word of chastisement. For, although God in His extraordinary kindness gave food to these depraved and wicked men, who were unworthy of the sunlight and the common air, still He was without doubt unwilling to foster their sin by His silence, and, whilst He pardoned their ingratitude, sharply reproved their forwardness. But Moses, passing over this, proceeds to a history especially worthy of narration, how God fed this wretched people with bread from heaven.

Calvin cannot believe God did not speak out in wrath against the grumblings and murmurings.

And yet, we know that God’s ways are not our ways, nor are our thoughts God’s thoughts. Not even the ways and thoughts of theologians of impeccable repute and highest authority of man come close to the ways and thoughts of God.

So we know the how and the what, but what about the why?

What divine lesson did God have through this surprising and incomprehensible story?

That He is not at our beck and call.

God does not come running when we call because of our call.

God is always there and chooses to act upon our call because He it is His nature to provide for His children.

As a mother cannot refuse the cry of her child, and yet, it is not the child’s cry that commands her but her own design that compels her nurturing response.

As the mother does it for her own peace, God does it for His own glory.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and praise Him forever.

The chief goal of God is to bring greater glory to Himself forever through everything from the vast sweep of the universe to the plaintive cry of His willing children to the grumbling whine of his most wayward lamb.

God does not act based on our need, our willingness, our spiritual health, our closeness to Him, our distance from Him, our height, our weight, our gender, our color, or anything else that binds to us as an attitude, quality, measurement, or idea.

God acts based on His own sovereign will and unchangeable character.

Which is a great relief.

Were God to be like the insurance company you failed to pay premiums to and deny you coverage in time of need because your account with Him wasn’t up to date, he’d be no God worthy of trust and respect and honor and lives sacrificed to Him.

Instead, God works in us at His good pleasure to carry out His divine will and bring about His greater glory.

Does this leave God open to abuse?

From our meager human perspective, yes it does. And the Bible tells stories rife with unfaithful people failing to give God his just desserts until that moment when He brings about the deep darkness necessary to chase those unwilling souls back into His path and He is there, willing and ready and waiting, because He wasn’t waiting for the needy to call, He was waiting for the precise moment when His greatest glory would be achieved.

It can be said that it is easier to accurately define and completely understand the concept of infinite that to even begin to comprehend God. Something I have wondered about for quite some time is how did God decide what the 10 Commandments were to consist of? Did He arbitrarily decide that these 10 rules were the ones He’d support? Are they so practical because He said so? If so, even despite their correctness and practicality in practice, their necessesity in all productive human interaction, they’re still arbitrary, and it would seem that God is cheaper than He really is. But God is not arbitrary. Just as He gives purpose to everything and everyone, He Himself embodies purpose. For us it is His will that guides our purpose, for Him, there is no higher being to guide His purpose. He is self-contained, unneeding. Instead it is His nature that defines His purpose. God is truthful, therefore we ought not lie. God does not covet (though, arguably He has nothing to covet, all things belong to Him, and anything existing apart from Him is against His nature), therefore we ought not covet. The 10 Commandments are Gods best portrait of Himself in the form of His basic will for us. God’s attributes are to be our goals.

Nothing true can contradict the nature of God. This is the most powerful argument we have against falsehood in the church and among believers. If it is against the nature of God, it is not true. And the admonition that we dwell on whatever things are true takes on a whole new meaning.

God is jealous. He can bear no equals, whether percieved or actual. God does not accept any sin in any form, no matter the reason. Men can only see the outside, the physical manifestations, the actions. But God knows the hearts of all mankind, He judges intentions. This is both a relief and a burden. There are actions that are misunderstood and maligned, causing pain and suffering to the actors, but which stem faithfully from correct intentions. There are actions hailed as heroic, but which stem from motives unpure, capricious at best and malicious at worst. God is the Just Judge and He will determine the reward or punishment.

Voltaire said: “It took 12 men to start Christianity, and one will destroy it.” He was referring to himself. God replies: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. (1 Peter 1:24-25 NASB)” And Voltaire died, and Christianity continues.

Why is the battle so fiercely arrayed against the Christian standing firm in their convictions, faith, and belief? Because we have the Word, Christ in us, and “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:12-13)”

This is a repost from June 4th, 2008. A friend of mine and I were discussing this tonight and I was trying to recall where I’d read this reconciliation of the two viewpoints. Funny I should find myself the author.

This is only the lightest of treatments of what has muddled many a mind and rankled many an argument over the vast span of history between Christ’s walking on earth and out present day.

Let me begin by putting all my cards on the table:

Predestination (or election) and choice and free-will in salvation are not mutually exclusive and in fact are both true throughout both the moment of salvation and the life-long process of sanctification.

First up in the list of evidence is that passage many evangelicals love to hate, Romans 8. This excerpt from verses 28 through 30 contains the most difficult bits:

(28) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (29) For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (30) And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

The meaning of this verse is not open to much discussion or debate, it is rather clear on it’s face: we are not responsible for our salvation or sanctification. We are merely fortunate to have been chosen.

Next up, Romans 9: 6-22:

(6) …it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, (7) and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” (8) This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (9) For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” (10) And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, (11) though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— (12) she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” (13) As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

(14) What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! (15) For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (16) So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (17) For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (18) So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

(19) You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (20) But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (21) Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (22) What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

This is very similar to God’s ultimate response to Job at the end of his complaining. God tells him his mind is too small to understand all the purposes behind His working in the world. Trust is not trust when we see the whole picture or comprehend the entire situation.

But then what of choice? It seems that Paul has not left any room for choice and free-will in either salvation or sanctification.

So then we get to the “friendly” passages. The ones that are quoted every Sunday and most every other day from thousands of pulpits and soap-boxes around the world promoting the ease of access to God’s redemptive plan, John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

As we can see, there is little debating this scripture either. “Whoever” is an inclusive word with the only limiter being one of undebatable choice: “believes”. The choice is obviously ours to make when it comes to salvation.

So then there is a paradox, there are two apparently mutually exclusive claims made regarding salvation and it’s cause and effect.

Using these verses and their context, it is not difficult to see how they fit together like two sides of the same coin.

John 3 begins with the account of Nicodemus’ talk with Jesus. Jesus was telling an unsaved and searching man how he ought to find salvation.

Romans 8 and 9 are revealing a greater understanding of salvation, sanctification, and the Christian walk to those already saved.

When God speaks to those who need Him and who He desires to come to Him, that is all of us, He speaks of our need and choice. And when He speaks to those of us who are working out lives defined by His process of sanctification, He speaks of His own supremacy and unmatchable ability to reach out to us, draw us, save us and sanctify us and of our own inability to accomplish any of the same.

God’s omniscience and His perspective seeing our entire lives, He sees our beginning and our ending at the same ‘time’ and therefore knows how we will choose before the choice is even presented. This is confirmed and expounded upon by Paul’s statement that “He works all things together for good to those called”. However, in much the same way an observing scientist’s knowledge that a mouse will eventually reach the cheese in the maze does not negate the free-will in the choices that mouse made reaching the cheese, God’s knowledge and awareness of our entire life-path at all times and His active work in our life-path do not negate the fact that we are responsible for the choices he has given us.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Update 8/31/09:

Neil at 4Simpsons links to an article attempting to reconcile Predestination and Free Will at the blog Winging It. David argues that God’s predestination and election awakes the heart to experience the free will capable of accepting salvation.

It’s been all over the place and most everybody has the same thoughts: the world has lost wonderful talent as it has lost Michael Jackson.

Conservatives, Liberals, Christians, Heathens alike are, for the most part, mourning the loss of this skilled musician.

Mike Gallagher was the first I heard to ask the question: Why are we remembering only the talent and the skillful music made by this man?

Let me get the boiler plate out of the way: The death of anybody is sad. If a Christian dies, there is the grief of loss here on earth, but the balancing joy knowing they are truly home at last and that our grief ought to be for ourselves still toiling here away from our true home. When an unrepentant sinner dies, the grief is much worse. There is no welcome for this person. There is simply the immediate inability to deny God any longer as the force of His self and all His holy attributes is no longer held off by the rationalizing mind and the containing body.

There is no reasonable evidence Michael Jackson accepted the saving Grace of Jesus Christ prior to his death.

There is always hope: he may have, on his deathbed, cried out to an ever-waiting and ever-listening andever-ready Jesus. If this is the case, we’ll know when we get to heaven.

But for now, it is reasonable, from human judgement, to assume Michael Jackson died with the full guilt of his own sins resting weightily upon his own, weak, shoulders.

Sin is sin, and there is no variance to it’s result. The Hitler’s of this world will suffer the same intermnible punishment meted out by the same just God for the same rejection of the same Holiness as the girl and boy blown up because they were too close to the exploding suicide bomber on their way to market in Fallujah.

But human’s judge variance in sin, because we must rationalize our own faults as not being “that bad.” And because we must restrain and punish those whose actions convey and cause inordinate danger to those around them.

Michael Jackson was a sinner.

There is little doubt he was a pedophile: His grown up sexual appetite coupled with his child-like and stunted emotional state and the stories of the several young boys with whom he slept and subsequently paid off leave little room for exhonoration.

As a society of justice we punish those who hurt and damage others by their actions. Those who prey sexually on the young damage those children’s ability to grow normally and lead productive lives, and so we punish them severely.

And when pedophiles die, we don’t celebrate them as an entire society.

I don’t advocate burning Michael Jackson’s music or videos. There is no purpose served by destroying it.

But his life isn’t worth celebrating. He made some ok music. He had some cool moves on the dance floor.

But he sexually assaulted young boys to satisfy himself as he was unable, in his stunted mind, to appreciate their future.

And so now, barring a hopeful miracle, he is facing God.

God isn’t playing reel-to-reel Thriller.

God is asking him for an account of his life.

It is with grief for the true loss of a life precious to the Lord God that I say, I fear it is going poorly for Michael Jackson.

On a recent Michael Medved show a caller, identifying himself as a moderately liberal high school political science teacher, stated that the conservative force he fears most in America is from the Christian conservatives who allow their theology to inform their politics.

To him, so long as your politics do not inform your theology and your theology is kept far away from your politics, you’re ok. They may agree, but only incidentally.

There’s a problem with that: humans cannot, by nature, exist in a dichotomous state.

In fact, to demand such a personal internal segregation of ones internal beliefs and external actions is to request something dangerous and displays a profound ignorance of human nature and need.

First, everyone has a theology. Commonly called our “beliefs”. It is our understanding, findings, or opinions regarding the nature (or lack thereof) of God. An athiest has a theology as surely as a Christian, they are just convinced there is not a god.

One’s beliefs regarding God informs one’s ideas on life, purpose, meaning, history, and the future. This is indisputable and is not a value judgment, merely a statement of fact.

One’s understanding of life, it’s purposes and meanings, history and the future, definitely informs one’s political persuasions. I vote with a goal and purpose. I don’t roll dice (often) and I don’t sell my vote. Though both those actions would allow us to infer your understanding of life and likely, your theology.

I am a whole human, with will and purpose. I try not to say one thing and act another. Yet even should I engage in such hypocrisy, accidentally or purposefully, there is a consistancy to the failure. My hypocritical life would have a goal and purpose: likely a hope for self-aggrandizement or gain for some deeply and closely held belief.

Watching Chariots of Fire last night with my wife, we came upon the scene where Eric Liddell has found out the heats for his race is on Sunday and is now meeting with the crown prince and the Olympic committee. Young Lord Lindsey has offered his own, longer, race to Eric as a solution and as the meeting is dispersing the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Birkenhead discuss what has just occurred:

Duke of Sutherland: A sticky moment, George.
Lord Birkenhead: Thank God for Lindsay. I thought the lad had us beaten.
Duke of Sutherland: He did have us beaten, and thank God he did.
Lord Birkenhead: I don’t quite follow you.
Duke of Sutherland: The “lad”, as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.
Lord Birkenhead: For his country’s sake, yes.
Duke of Sutherland: No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride.

The Duke of Sutherland has the correct diagnosis of the issue: we can no more separate one part of a man’s soul from his other parts than we can parts of his body and expect them both to continue living.

I am a Christian. I am convinced of God’s existence and His divine will. I try to live my life in the salvation offered by the death of Jesus, God’s only begotten son and according to His laws.

I hold these beliefs in faith, not a hope in wishful thinking. Faith is not a firmly held belief in unprovable or illogical ideas, it is the belief in things proven and yet unseen.

My faith informs my life. I try to live my life according to the law of God. And not just those parts lived in private. I fail miserably more often than I succeed, but what is life without a contest, without a goal?

If I were to deny the influence of my theology on any part of my life, I would be trying to live as though I were two seperate people within the same physical body: It just doesn’t work.

And so, to you political science teacher, I hope that you will always live your entire life according to the dictates of your conscience and that your theology informs your choices. I pray that your theology will grow and you will find and find faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and countless millions since them. And yet, even if you do not, I still pray that you will be a complete person with one goal and purpose.

When I die, I don’t want the words “he was a good man” said at my funeral. Not that nor any derivation thereof.

In some of the deeper quandaries I’ve been dealing with lately, a seems to recur: “I don’t want to regret this decision”.

I thought this was a reasonable and good goal in the decision, and indeed it is in this particular decision. But is it even a possible option?

Can I make a decision with consequences as deep as this and even hope I won’t have regrets?

The decision will require a significant change in not just my life, but that of my family. A different future for my children.

Even if I make the right decision, won’t there be times when I look back and regret even just a little?

When I wrote Warm Weather I may not have explicitly said so, but I do miss many parts of my old home and old way of life. It can be reasonably said that I have some slight regrets over leaving my old life. But strong enough that I wish to return? No. Not at all.

So what of life? Is it wise to live life trying to have no regrets as we look back at it?

First there is the opinion: That is such an unreasonable and unattainable goal it’s worthless to even try for it.

To which a response is: Why does God put before us the goal of being Christ-like, an even more unreasonable and unattainable prize?

And the response to that: To prove to us our own inability to get anywhere near His goal and therefore our need to follow him.

Due to the faultiness in our nature, our propensity to sin, we will face failure and accompanying regret, and we will make decisions and wish to make them over again and regret.

It is pointless, in the sense of Ecclesiasties, to attempt to live our lives without regret.

But does that make it wrong to try?

If failing is to be an assured result of trying, we should consider what it is we are trying. Is failure worth the effort?

I think the better goal is to try to live life to the glory of God.

When our focus is on bringing glory to God, we are freed from the navel-gazing, the deep and continuous “real-time” introspection and second-guessing which would rob us of the freedom to act on God’s prompting and in His moment.

When we are trying to prevent any regrets we either get tied down with the weight of ultimate decision for so many otherwise small considerations and spend each moment second-guessing our current actions.

There are two specific benefits to living, not to mitigate regret, but to maximize God’s glory.

God’s glory is a long term goal, longer than our life, or our childrens lives.

It has been said we ought to plant trees for our childrens’ children. We ought to live our lives so that there is a legacy, but not for our own glory or honor. We’ll be dead and not benefitting from any laud our legacy brings. We ought to plant those trees of legacy for God’s glory in our successive generations.

God’s glory is a goal outside ourselves.

In health class we took a test which purported to determine our “locus of control”. Where we thought control of our life originated.

I have an almost completely internal locus of control. I believe I am responsible for my life, essentially. I am to blame for troubles in my life and responsible for making those decisions which will lead to success.

For me, the goal of God’s glory is essential to keeping me focused on the really important things in life, everything besides me.

For someone with an external locus of control, someone who is more likely to believe they are a victim or at least a pawn in life, having God as the goal keeps them focused on something which gives them worth and value, and strength and determination.

For those more balanced in their control perspective, they’ve got it all figured out and so they’re cool.

Just kidding. They get to benefit from both the benefits of this perspective.

Will my decisions bring God the greater glory? Will I still be able to bring God glory after I make this decision?

God will bring glory to Himself regardless of our choices, the important thing is whether I choose to bring Him glory, or whether He must bring glory to Himself inspite of us.

From today’s Whirled Views from the WorldMagBlog:

Today’s quote is from an African-American pastor on abortion, the leading cause of death among black Americans since 1973: “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother.”

How true, and how sad. Entire generations wiped away because of any of so many lies and decietful and destructive philosophies.

The rocks are drenched in blood and the cries of a multitude massacred rise before our God.

Who will hear?

Who will praise the Lord when His smallest children, the offspring of the jewels of His creation, are being murdered?

• Wondering how we accept ‘reporters’ who do not bother to learn anything about their assigned subject beyond opinions of the talking head … #
• writing “Truth Has No Chance”: http://tinyurl.com/5cdjsq #
• : nerds are like crack but better. #
• : God is apparently Pro-choice: http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/brown/081202 #

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Monty captured the media’s paltry attempts at balance just right:

And Non Sequitur captured the spirit of the media coverage of Obama’s transition team:

Meanwhile, in the world that still travails under the weight of sin, current United States President George Bush’s policies dealing with AIDS are being praised as some of the most successful while remaining deferential to local support structures in affected locations. By working with churches and existing on-site humanitarian organizations the Bush Administration’s policies have sidestepped the bureaucratic bungling which destroyed the efficiency of other relief attempted while allowing the AIDS vaccines and treatments to reach the affected people much more quickly and cheaply.

So what does Obama plan to do? Change them of course. After all, we can’t expect those evolved animals to refrain from sex, can we?

After all, even some Americans are unable to even solve the moral equation containing Walmart deals and a horrific death.

Scanning the headlines on Google News this morning I was struck with how anxious the media are to cover the minutiae of every act of Obama as though he is their President already and worthy of the highest words of praise.

Instead of the sufficient and clear “Obama Selects Security Team”, the Washington Post writes this headline full of pathos and shining leadership “Obama Names Team To Face A Complex Security Picture“.

Bush was the bozo clown, the dimwit, the accidental accident.

Obama names his teams to face complex security pictures, he is brilliant and compelling.

Meanwhile, God is apparently Pro-Choice.