Politics & Humanity

Over 8 years ago, in an attempt to curb my road rage, I made a decision to stop driving to music like One Step by Linkin Park, and started listening to the local easy listening station. While that worked quite well, I also decided to take it up a notch by visualizing that the driver getting on my last nerve was actually my sweet grandmother. That does the trick. Every. Single. Time.

A couple years later the local High School football coach started attending our church. He was such a nice guy, and you couldn’t help but root for him, and the team. Then we started losing, and my first instinct was to blame the coach but it wasn’t that easy anymore. I now knew the coach, personally. Everything changed.

Do you ever notice how after someone gets sick or loses someone they know to a certain disease they always get heavily involved in finding a cure? Up until that point they really didn’t pay much attention to it, but now that it effects them personally their eyes are completely open to the issue.

I say all that to say that I think politics lacks a heavy dose of humanity. When we take the time to realize that not everything is cut and dry, and that there are actual human beings involved in politics, I think a lot of our perspectives will change. Sure it’s easy to say “capitalism at all costs” but when we know someone that didn’t get the same start we have, or that struggles every day to make ends meet while doing all the right things, we start to realize that sometimes there needs to be compassion as well.

Lynne Hybels made this exact case recently while defending her husband’s choice to introduce President Obama at a recent speech on immigration reform:

“This is a difficult debate—we all know this—but for us it is no longer just about laws or policies or ideologies. It’s about the very real struggles of people we know and love, people desperately wanting to honor God and provide as best they can for their families. Knowing their stories doesn’t erase the complexity of this issue, but it certainly does reframe it.”

What a powerful statement. I think we could all use a little reframing, and personalizing, when it comes to our politics. We need to start taking off our partisan glasses and see the world for something bigger than what’s right in front of us.

“It’s not that Chirstians don’t care about the poor, they don’t KNOW the poor.” —Shane Claiborne

Filed under: Humanity, Perspective, Politics

Linkadelphia

» Jonathan reminds us that we are first human.

» Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes.

» 13 ways to be nice that will cost you barely anything.

» Craig asks Am I Broken Yet?

» A heart breaking Office Memorium.

» What if Radiohead were country.

» What kind of church member are you?

» Bentley FTW.

Filed under: Advertising, Bentley, Blogosphere, Church, Humanity, Links, Radiohead, The Office, Typography

The Big 10

For starters, could you even list the 10 commandments?

I get lost after listing about three. It’s just never been something I’ve concerned myself with, but this weekend I heard a reference that I had never considered concerning the big tablets so I thought I’d look them up. Turns out there are more than ten imperative statements in Exodus, and different religions / denominations divide the commandments up differently (you learn something new everyday).

Here is the list that I’m most familiar with.

I – You shall have no other gods before Me.

II – You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water below.

III – You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

IV – Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

V – Honor your father and your mother.

VI – You shall not murder.

VII – You shall not commit adultery.

VIII – You shall not steal.

IX – You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

X – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, male servant, female servant, ox, donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

The reference I heard this weekend was by Erwin McManus while watching a DVD of Ethos 2006. He said that most of the world looks at the ten commandments as this ceiling of being righteous, when in reality it is simply a base level marker of being human. To do less than these would be considered less than human. I don’t know why I’ve never thought about it in those terms.

And now for a little lighter diversion, here is a great short video by Coudal Partners where one man breaks all ten commandments before breakfast.

Filed under: God, Humanity, Mosaic, Religion, Ten Commandments

11 Million

So I’ve been watching the Band of Brothers series with a group of guys every Tuesday night for the last couple months. Last night we watched Episode 9: Why We Fight. It’s the point in the war when the American troops discover the Nazi concentration camps.

This is the second time I’ve worked through this series, and both times I get to this episode and it stops me in my tracks. I can’t fathom how something like this could ever happen. How one person, much less an entire group of people, could be so evil. And it always angers me to realize that there were people looking the other way as this was going on, simply to save their own skin.

But would I be any different? Easy to say while safe behind a computer screen. But what if I was faced with this type of decision in my lifetime. What would I do? I hope that my convictions reach a point where that won’t be a hard decision.

Let’s never allow ourselves to forget that this happened, and be aware that these things are still going on.

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” —Edmond Burke

As a Christ Follower, apathy is NOT an option.

Filed under: Apathy, Band of Brothers, Darfur, Evil, Good, Holocaust, Humanity