What's meant by 'rendering to Caesar'?

I’ve been struck by two thoughts lately, one thought expands on my April 1 post concerning the political leanings of Jesus, the second asks to what extent faith and politics can or cannot accompany each other. It may not be fashionable to say, but it is certainly true; you can legislate morality. In fact I'd actually contend that every law adopted from seat-belt laws to smoking bans to insurance mandates is morality codified, heck the most morally telling law we pass is the budget – “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). When I say that we can legislate morality, and then I give the examples above, I am not talking about philosophical morality but rather, I mean that we can "impose by law our moral code on others and make them behave as we expect." It is far more difficult, maybe impossible, to use the force of law to compel the conscience of someone else to believe as we do. Society creates and encourages behavior it deems moral precisely through the force of law, but we cannot – and do not expect our laws to change the heart of another person. We can stop a man from murder, but we cannot stop a man from thinking murderous thoughts.

From birth through death we are constantly searching for who we are, and our individual identity - how we see ourselves - is closely tied to who we are in community and how we live our lives in relation to others. Our relationships with each other and with the greater community around us shape who we are and how we see ourselves. How we choose to be involved in the lives around us often defines us not only in the eyes of others, for a man is known to those around him by his actions, but also defines us to ourselves, for who but God knows our hearts and minds as well as we do. In other words, how I see myself is determined by what I do.

So what about political involvement? As an individual in relationship to Christ as well as to one’s fellow man, politics would seem a natural extension of living in a community. For Christians, there is some good in being politically involved, but that is not the good, or even the key ground to fight over in this world. What is Good is to live lives that draw others to Christ - and draw ourselves ever closer at the same time. Some good comes from politics and social action, and from pursuing and advocating for policies that strengthen the moral fabric of society - the founding ethics of biblical Christianity and Judaism.

To live Christianly, to have my actions truly reflect my heart, must lead to some difference in our world, some "rendering unto Caesar.” It's important to create laws that protect the innocent and punish the guilty, it is important to vote, and to use our God-given freedom to create a country that seeks liberty and justice, a country that loves and encourages what is right and true. But more than working to affect the country, Christians must realize that it is when Christians seek to act like Christ that they most inspire their community. It is the heart that influences one to follow laws, though laws will always be necessary.

I guess my point is that people don't find that out by simply following laws.

A feminized America is easy prey for the Chos and the Islamofascists

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net) When a single mom sends her 12 year old son off to Middle School, often times she will instruct him “don’t hit!” which basically ties his hands in defending himself. The boy becomes a target for the school bullies, and his life becomes miserable owing to the intimidation. The mom’s response usually is to wring her hands and complain ineffectually to school officials or to move the boy to another school, where the pattern is repeated.

A father, on the other hand, will encourage his son to defend himself. He will get him boxing or karate lessons, which gives the boy confidence and some options. Then, at the next confrontation, the bully gets knocked on his butt, ending the problem. Bullies concentrate on those who don’t defend themselves. But mom will still object, saying such a response is “stooping to the bully’s level!”

Our traditions were founded by tough frontier families who carved lives out of the primeval forests of North America. The musket over the mantle, powder horns and tomahawks were a necessity of life. The call to muster to defend homes and families against raiding parties was all too frequent for the men of those times. The women understood, appreciated and supported them. This doesn’t seem to be true today.

Modern America hasn’t seen major bloodshed on its soil since the Civil War. Even the attack of 9-11 seems to have sunk from memory, becoming nothing more than a forgotten TV event of sorts. To the modern woman, the idea of the frontiersman husband that defends his family is laughable. Masculine strength and courage are no longer necessary. And if there is a man in a woman’s life at all, it could only be a partnership with a “sensitive new-age guy” that will give her space. And if strength and courage are no longer necessary, neither are firearms.

Gun control is the national equivalent of “don’t hit”. It assumes everyone abides in a feminine rational relational point of view. The problem is, not everyone does, and that seems to be hard for the feminine viewpoint to accept. Theo Van Gogh’s last words to his Radical Islamist murderer were “Can’t we talk about this?” Evidently not. And it’s painfully clear how Radical Islam treats their women! The VA Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui didn’t want to discuss things either. Had any teacher presented herself to reason with him, she would have received a 9mm beauty spot between her running lights.

As the threat of radical Islam grows, and as the VA Tech media attention encourages “copy cat massacres” elsewhere, it may be time to realize America still may need masculine qualities of courage and strength, as well as the modern equivalent of the musket over the fireplace, to survive.

Gooney birds of the intellectual elite

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net) The self-styled intellectual elite are like tropical birds. They sit on their perches in the newsrooms, universities, and magazine editorial offices. They squawk and groom their plumage, believing they are the cutting edge center of the world. But are they?

What I see is an intellectual aviary, confined by almost invisible nets of political correctness. The birds fancy themselves free as they screech and flutter from branch to branch. But they subconsciously know the nets forbid many branches, nets to which they have grown so accustomed, they no longer even see them.

These birds caw, flap their wings and land in unison and excrete on the branches of what they call American empire, the President, and Christianity.

Or they chirp continually about the new Global Warming faith.

Though they say they champion “Freedom”, they refuse to look at the freedom of the Venezuelan people as it is destroyed before their very eyes. Nor can they bring themselves to admit that Castro’s Cuba is the ruthless dictatorship that it is.

The malfeasance and hypocrisy of minority Civil Rights leaders are completely ignored.

Nor will they face up to Radical Islam, since it has fraudulently positioned itself as a persecuted non-Christian minority.

The American people are patient: and wise. But as these brightly colored birds continually bite their keepers, they only hasten the day they are turned out. Outside their Manhattan, University and Left Coast zoos, could they even feed themselves?

Must a conservative believe in God?

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” - Theodore Roosevelt

What is at the core of a conservative philosophy? There is some debate as to whether you must believe in God (or in revealed Truth) to be a conservative. A few months ago Heather Mac Donald began a discussion in the online pages of National Review where she contends that religious beliefs and religious arguments actually harm the conservative cause.

I’ve stepped away from this blog for a while, but while I have been absent I have been able to do a lot of thinking about what it means to be conservative, and whether I am conservative, and what, if anything, being a conservative has in common with being a Republican.

I have discovered something- the first thing really; I am a Christian. And my belief provides, among other things, a foundation on which my political perspective is built. I think Mac Donald is right to say that you don’t have to believe in a God to be a conservative. Perhaps one could say that belief in God and conservative principles are not inextricably linked; certainly the many evangelical and mainline Christians that have adopted liberal positions on issues such as poverty, education and, more recently, global warming (www.sojo.net) provide ample evidence of that.

Mac Donald contends that knowledge of history and an assessment of human nature provide an ample framework for conservative philosophy. However, I would assert that, at the minimum, one has to believe in, or give difference to, a transcendent moral code in order to be conservative. And I find that Christian faith goes far beyond the minimum framework necessary for my political philosophy.

It is my belief in that framework, in addition to my observation of history and human nature, that has prompted my conclusion that we must conserve the heritage of the Judeo-Christian nation we live in. The moral framework provided by Christian beliefs provides a foundation for Western society and for conservative political thought, but it is not exclusively conservative, it is the foundation for society, the rule of law and for our nation’s founding documents.

I am Christian, but because I am Christian does not necessarily mean that I am politically conservative. In fact, to tie the two too closely together is to do disservice to both.

As I ponder this topic I find myself looking much further back at what I believed, and how that affected who I was and what I did, and I came to the conclusion that in order to know which way to go, I needed to know where I had been.

So I am embarking on a series of blogs that I hope will explore the central core of what I believe, what a conservative is, whether that philosophy is necessarily tied to the Republican party, and what course is best plotted as we consider the future of the conservative philosophy. To be continued...

Unfazed by the gloom-mongers

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) A big home improvement project monopolized my time for weeks. As I tiled, painted, sawed and plumbed, emails and phone messages piled up. Newspapers and magazines went unread. Today I’m catching up and regretting it.

Thanks to the Denver Post I’ve learned that teens have been charged in the brutal slaying of one teen’s mother, conflict has erupted over the use of water, Democrats in the state’s General Assembly are pushing for gay adoption and voter rights for convicts on parole, and Iraqi terrorists have killed more civilians.

Not to be outdone, the Rocky Mountain News, features on-line pictures of tornado-wrought destruction, an article about another school shooting, and a tale about a counterfeiter who bought Girl Scout cookies with bogus bills (not a bad use in my estimation).

Captain America is dead according to CNN and a bunch of disgruntled Vermonters want to impeach the president says Time Magazine. Now that’s newsworthy.

In U.S. News and World Report I can read articles about the high cost of college, hard feelings in Chechnya, a new faux-documentary disproving Christianity, and an article lauding Hillary Clinton (usually it’s Barack Obama). Last week’s edition, as of yet unread, features “America’s Worst Presidents.” Maybe I’ll skip straight to the articles about nuclear war.

On Newsweek online I can be preached at by John Edwards chastising America who thinks Jesus would be disappointed with the US for not helping the world’s poor. When exploiting religion, don’t let the facts get in the way, John. Americans give away more money per person than any other country.

I’m four editions behind in the Economist. Which one should I start with, the edition with the stealth bomber “Next Stop Iran” or the one about global warming “The Greening of America”? The unread World Magazine is about modern slavery. That looks more promising.

It’s a good thing I started off today with National Geographic, my favorite magazine. I’m only two behind there. According to short article (sadly not available online) called “By the Numbers” Americans are substantially better off today than in 1915 and 1967, the two comparison years.

We live longer. The life expectancy in 1915 was 54.5 years. It was 70.5 in 1967. Today it is 77.8. We earn more. In 1915, Americans earned on average $687 ($13,284 adjusted for inflation) compared to today – $34,926. On top of that, we have more earning power. An American in 1915 paid an equivalent of $5.01 in today’s dollars for a gallon of gasoline and the equivalent of $7.22 for a gallon of milk.

Reading this was like discovering a tiny rose in a sea of thorns.

Are Americans so addicted to bad news that news outlets can’t afford to headline good news? It’s depressing. Moreover, bad news fuels duplicitous political dialogue as politicians capitalize on fears.

Al Gore preaches catastrophic global warming from his mansion, an energy black hole, to listeners apparently eager to hear it. Edwards evokes religion to pan American selfishness. Even though the economy is booming, politicians paint a dire picture to support more income redistribution, pork projects, tax and spend proposals, and regulatory command and control policies.

I’m done. The magazines are going back in the rack. I’m going to make a latte from my $3.25 gallon of milk.