Politeuo Axios

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8 - Was Jesus a Conservative or Liberal?

To wrap up this section, I’d like to ask the all-important question, “Was Jesus a Conservative or Liberal?” Conservative Evangelicals, implicitly and even sometimes explicitly, have long answered this question with the former. However, increasingly Liberal Christians have begun to passionately claim the latter. The truth is, of course, much more complicated. Sociologists and psychologists in recent decades have coined a term called the “End of History Illusion.” In essence, psychologists noticed that human beings are very good at recognizing the amount of change that has taken place in the past but very bad at recognizing that this process of change will continue into the future. People can look back and easily recognize how much their perspectives, opinions, and psyches have grown and shifted over the past, but they tend to view who they are now as the final product, the denouement of their life’s development. This happens at the societal level as well, especially in post-Enlightenmen...

7 - Shibboleths (a brief excursus on issues, illusions, and incoherence)

As a pastor, one of the things I have found most frustrating about leading a church is that people don’t just hear what you say. They hear what you say and all the things they assume go along with the thing you say. For example, if you point out that the Bible only talks about homosexuality five times (whereas it talks about money and generosity hundreds of times) and that the issue of sexuality is incredibly complex, people assume you’re saying that you don’t believe in any form of traditional sexual ethics… and perhaps that you support abortion, the legalization of marijuana, and modern monetary theory. Why? Logically speaking, how do those things go together? What is the inherent connection between all of these issues and a particular set of positions on them? The answer is simple: there isn’t one!!! The idea that Liberals and Conservatives are diametrically opposed and that they are united around particular clusters of issues, is taken for granted in our culture. However, the truth...

6 - The Media Actually Is a Problem... Just Not How You Think.

Let’s start this chapter with another bizarre topic: ESPN. Have you ever been sick and stuck at home for a day without anything to do and, as a result, turned on ESPN as background noise while you rest on the couch. If so, you know it is an odd experience. Ten or 15 years ago, ESPN largely played it’s flagship program Sportscenter on repeat for most of the day. It was mind-numbingly repetitive, but it felt like there was a measure of honesty in this programming lineup. Not that much happens in the world of sport in any given day, and little-to-nothing happens during the daytime hours (at least on weekdays) that requires breaking news coverage. Thus, recording a one hour-long highlight program and running it on repeat from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. makes sense. Unfortunately, ESPN looks nothing like that now. Now, the network produces multiple versions of it’s Sportcenter program with different hosts broadcasting from different locales. However, different hosts and locations does not m...

5 - We Both Want Good Things (Illustrations from Marriage)

Not long ago, my wife and I had a minor, ongoing conflict about buying a new car. The cars we possessed were both 2005 models and had both been gifts in one way or another from family. This suited me fine. There is a remarkable freedom in caring very little about your car (other than it’s continued functioning). A few months ago, I was leaving a restaurant with my kids, and two guys were standing near my 2005 Chevy Trailblazer. They informed me that a woman had just backed into it and that, when they looked at her, she made eye contact, shrugged her shoulders, and drove away. (I’ve laughed so hard imagining this.) They responded by taking a picture of her license plate and offered to send it to me, but I told them not to worry about it. It scuffed the back bumper and broke a reflector, but that was all. Thus, I just shrugged it off (much like she did), and went on about my life. There is great freedom in not caring much for the aesthetics of something you own! However, my wife had a ...

4 - Risky Systems (An excursis on Capitalism and Communism… And Everything Else!).

I once heard a brilliant insight from a very unexpected source: Mark Cuban. Growing up as an athlete and sports fan, Mark Cuban was always the energetic and idiosyncratic owner of the Dallas Mavericks. I was an adult before I realized he had an entire business career outside of the NBA, which had afforded him the opportunity to own an NBA team. I am not a disciple of Mark Cuban. I couldn’t care less about the world of business, and I think reality TV is one of the signs of the apocalypse. So I never watch Shark Tank. And candidly, I don’t know enough about him to be a fan or a critic. However, I am greatly appreciative of something he articulated a few years ago that gave language to something I’d been mulling over for some time. In an interview, Cuban was asked a business question, and his response was: I'm a big believer that the risk never leaves the system. Remember that line; you will hear it from me a lot. Just because the employer chooses not to accept the cost or ris...

3 - Constructs, Concentric Circles, and Communists.

Obviously, if we are going to talk about the Christian faith and politics, we need to talk about Jesus, and we will. But before we go there, I think it is necessary to do some deconstruction. If something is built incorrectly, you must first take it apart before you begin building it correctly. To get started, here is a brief thought experiment: When you look at this picture, what do you see? If you said, “A map of the United States,” you are wrong (at least in the ontological sense)! What you are looking at is a human construct. When God looks upon the world, does He see any of those lines? Do any of them even exist in any real, substantive way? Is God obliged to abide by the arbitrary lines and distinctions we have placed upon the world? This is a fairly simplistic thought experiment, but if you really think about it, it can shake the foundations of your worldview. How much time and energy do we spend on arguments and controversies based on the assumption that these lines...