Author: Wick

I know a lot of this is politically motivated….but when the Vice President of “Focus on the Family” says something like this: “Without question, Dr. Dobson is speaking for millions of evangelicals because his understanding of the Bible is thoroughly evangelical.”

…it throws up a red flag.

You can’t dismiss the fact that Dr.Dobson has done some great things for families, and resources provided by he and Focus on the Family will continue to be helpful/useful towards the Kingdom. But as someone who attends, and is a full time employee of a church from the evangelical tradition, I’m weary of him asserting himself as speaking for me.

Why?

Well….and this would take a while to explain. From what I can tell, this article does a decent job of it. Basically, Dobson is a Christian Zionist – believing that the support and protection of Israel (Jerusalem specifically, and the rebuilding of the temple) is a Christian duty of America, and closely related to when God and the rapture can and will occur.

Over the years, Dobson and other leaders like him, have influenced political leaders in our country to make decisions overseas based on those beliefs.

Even with all that craziness aside, I just don’t like the idea of one guy telling the world that he speaks for me and all other evangelicals….unless He’s Jesus Himself. Even someone that I look up to highly, and respect/regard highly what they say……I don’t think I would want them telling people who know nothing about Christianity that they embody 100% the faith that I’m attempting to live out. (did that make sense?)

Apparently there’s a whole group of people upset about it, and making a political statement in support of Obama (who was recently “slammed” by Dobson). Not sure I’m ready to sign anything like this…but I certainly would say:

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been REALLY annoyed over the past several elections. The amount of money/time/coverage spent on deciding who the best candidate for each party, and now finally, even MORE is being spent on deciding/advertising which is the best candidate overall.

I don’t have a solution. But I know that something is broken. When more money/time/resources are spent on campaigning and finding a new candidate (a new hope) that promises to make everything better……than is spent on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the oppressed (without political motives).

Here, you can see that in the state of IL alone, in 2006 almost $166 MILLION dollars were raised for political/campaign financing. In 2008 so far, over $34 million has been raised.

Obama has recently gotten a lot of press for “opting out” of the public financing system, saying it’s broken, etc. I really don’t know enough about it all to know what he’s talking about.

But looking at the financial contributions in general for the presidential elections….it doesn’t look like either Obama or McCain are hurting, or will be hurting in the next few months. So what does a presidential campaign spend all that money on, when the newscasters are giving them TONS of free publicity already? Check this list out, posted just a few days ago, on just the past MONTH of Obama’s campaign. Almost $900,000 in credit card fees? Really? I’m guessing that doesn’t refer to payments made, but actual late and usage fees. Seems a bit irresponsible. And to be fair….here’s McCain’s list from the past month. (you’ll notice he likes flowers a lot more)

I’ve heard several well-meaning people who agree that all of this is REALLY ridiculous, and that neither candidate is going to fix everything, say that they just aren’t going to vote this year. I’m not sure that will accomplish anything.

I plan on voting…still not 100% sure for whom….but I think it’s a part of being an active citizen (the kind we’re called to be) within whatever system is currently in place where we are.

But in a world where needs are….well, everywhere. Something different than what’s happening needs to happen. And it’s not happening yet.

Okay, so I hate posting more than once in a day. I don’t want to become one of those blogs that just finds something interesting on the internet, and throws up a link or an image, and says…”hey, ain’t this neat?”. I think blogs like that assume you can’t find interesting things on your own, and take little time/thought to post. I blog to develop who I am, and my ability to communicate it through written (or typed) word…etc.

Seriously. Reebok, I can understand…you wanna make a profit off anyone you can. But National Hockey League? To cheapen Lord Stanley’s cup like this, and pimp it out to anyone willing to pay a buck? To a true hockey fan, this could be compared to the Catholic Church selling shoes with the image of the Virgin Mary on them. (hint hint, Reebok pay attention….people would TOTALLY buy those kicks)

A bottle opener, a t-shirt, even a hat….maybe. I’m as big a hockey fan as anyone. And I can’t think of a moment where I’ve ever said, “wow, my team just won the Stanley Cup, boy do I wish I had a pair of shoes with which to commemorate this occasion!!!”