Rodent Regatta

Religion, not faith, will be a part of every Presidential race from now on. Candidates are likely to select ministers and organizations they can use as instruments of influence. This isn’t new.

What’s new is the degree to which it will be used disingenuously. Rather than saying, “they believe as I do,” or, “I believe as they do,” we’re going to see religious figures used as pawns of manipulation. To sort through this mess, interviewers are going to have to become much more adept at questions that will reveal what a candidate really believes.

• Do they hold with the views of a given organization or have they merely aligned themselves with it for campaign purposes?
• Have you always been or have you only recently become a person of faith?
• Since your dramatic conversion experience on the road to the New Hampshire primary last week…

Rumors abound that members of the Democratic Party are beginning to see the wisdom in presenting a clearer “values statement” to the public. To this end, there seems to be early indication of the political left and right conscripting the religious left and right.

Howard Dean vs. Ken Mehlman. Jim Wallis vs. Jerry Falwell. Hillary Clinton(?) vs. Rudy Giuliani(?). Imagine how confusing it’s going to become to determine what someone really believes. If advertising works—and I’m told it does—the power of religious figures and organizations to influence elections has only begun.

What we’ve called a “culture war” is about to become a full-fledged war for (or over) the beliefs of a nation.

Posting an essay called The Self-Esteem Myth, Al Mohler discusses the following:

The idea that self-esteem is an essential part of a healthy personality is now virtually institutionalized in American culture.

He goes on to explain the findings of a study published in the January 2005 issue of Scientific American. Basically, the study—and Mohler—fully discredit the notion that all of one’s ills are attributable to low self-esteem.

If you haven’t stumbled across it already, be aware that a conference for Christian webloggers is gaining momentum. With limited initial discussion, there are now many details set. It’s called GodBlogCon I.

Virginia Postrel takes a look at Nicholas Kristof’s analysis of Christian eschatology. So many people have wrong-headed notions about why they were placed here. It’s difficult to help them understand what the final battle really means. There’s a lot of ground that needs to be covered before Armageddon is placed in proper context.

There is a secret set within each of our hearts. It often goes unnoticed, we rarely can put words to it, and yet it guides us throughout the days of our lives. This secret remains hidden for the most part in our deepest selves. It is the desire for life as it was meant to be. Isn’t there a life you have been searching for all your days? You may not always be ware of your search, and there are times when you seem to have abandoned looking altogether. But again and again it returns to us, this yearning that cries out for the life we prize. It is elusive, to be sure. It seems to come and go at will. Seasons may pass until it surfaces again. And though it seems to taunt us, and may at times cause us great pain, we know when it returns that it is priceless. For if we could recover this desire, unearth it from beneath all other distractions, and embrace it as our deepest treasure, we would discover the secret of our existence.

John Eldridge
The Journey of Desire
Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed Of