Yesterday I finished The Overton Window by Glenn Beck, the only Beck book I have read. This is what I posted at my Goodreads account about it. “I picked this one up in an airport on a whim. I had been hearing people froth about it, and wanted to see if it was as bad …
Schlock and Awe
Perhaps you have seen the thesis advanced by the t-shirt that maintains that “Obama is in over his head”? It is a point of view that becomes more compelling by the day. One of the reasons why conspiracy theories are so prevalent on the hard right is that it is assumed that those doing whatever …
Advisor to the Tamarack and White Pine
Jim Wallis recently offered the opening salvo of an invitation to discuss exactly how “Christian” the Tea Party movement is. I would like to briefly engage with his five points here, but not in the hope that we will wind up with an actual discussion. He, after all, is an advisor to the president, while …
The Kettle Drummer in the Back
The flotilla fiasco, as it is now being called, provides us with a textbook case of how nations get themselves into wars. The run-up to wars is frequently not a matter of clearly defined and contrary objectives from two hostile powers, but rather a muddled, tangled mess. Nations usually don’t march quick-step to war, but …
Peace Activist Discovering the Attractions of War
Beck and Mohler
Justin Taylor recently mentioned Peter Lillback’s appearance on Glenn Beck, and also in that same post linked to Al Mohler’s discussion of Beck’s dissing of “social justice” a few weeks back. I read Mohler’s article with interest and appreciation, and I agreed with everything he said about what the Bible says about justice. But I …
Like Relativistic Girls
Now here’s a story that tells you everything you need to know about the moral bankruptcy of the secular West, and the impossibility of a secular multiculturalism. A true multiculturalism is something to be desired, but it is only possible in Christ. The concept of something like the United Nations is a good one — …
Spooky Almost
The other night Rand Paul was chosen to be the Republican candidate for the Senate in Kentucky, and how long did it take for charges of racism to surface? What? Thirty seconds? This was all on the basis of Paul’s opposition to certain portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And since the lighting here …
The Coming Obamafail
So Woody Allen, a good representative of much that is wrong with us, has said that he considers dictatorial powers for Obama to be a desideratum. Wouldn’t it be swell, he argued, if the president could just do all those swell things without incurring all this tacky opposition? But it is starting to look as …
The Greedy Gusses at OilCo
When dealing with large numbers, we shouldn’t want to assume that every math error is indicative of deep spiritual problems. That is a good way to escalate policy debates into fundamental religious conflicts. At the same time, when the same error is committed over and over again, when the mistake is pointed out by responsible …