Four more years of Obama: Updated and expanded

Barack Obama has been reelected and it was not as close as many predicted. I am not much of a political prophet but I had already pondered this outcome and have decided how I will handle four more years of an Obama presidency.

For examples of voices with whom I will not join see this. For the prime example of conservative Republican candidates self-destructing, see this. I predict a surfeit of similar things in the weeks ahead. Count me out.

I encourage my conservative friends to take the rest of today and gripe all you want...and then join me in the following. 

I WILL BE PRAYING FOR THE PRESIDENT. We followers of Christ are asked to do no less. My prayers will be for his safety, for his decisions, for his leadership. My prayers will be genuine and authentic rather than some contrived, boilerplate, grudging pseudo-prayers.

I WILL NOT BE LAMENTING THE DEMISE OF AMERICA. The republic will survive another four years of an Obama administration. The country survived a couple of generations of Democratic control of the House of Representatives. We survived a civil war. We have endured much over the centuries at the hands of corrupt, inept, and incompetent politicians and have survived. I have no exit America plan.

I WILL CONTINUE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE POLITICAL ARENA. Not that my vote and voice count for much, but I have no plans to relinquish either in a fit of despair.

I WILL NOT JOIN THE DISGRUNTLED, 'TAKE BACK AMERICA' CROWD, sometimes presenting itself as the 'Wake Up America' crowd. There is a pretty substantial civil rights industry and a sizable poverty industry. Lots of folks make good money in these and in like fashion, there is a growing evangelical, 'Take Back America' industry wherein not a few demagogic Christian ministers and others gain a following and often make good money out of it.  This industry is counterproductive, futile, and often unchristian. No thanks. If you want a more Christian America, then get out of politics and get back to preaching and living the Gospel and winning souls. There is no political salvation for this country.

I WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT SPEND THE NEXT FOUR YEARS BEING ANGRY, WHINING AND COMPLAINING. At my age I look back on far more years that I have the right to look ahead to and it makes little sense to spend any of these years in an angry, unhappy snit over national politics. I will not spend much time around those whose lives are dominated by an unending stream political complaints. This is a great country. Does anyone prefer the America of the depressed 1930s or racist 1850s to the one we have now? Does anyone prefer the dirty, grimy America of the late 19th century to the America of today? A little perspective, please.

I was up early this morning and checked closely: Yep. The sun rose again; birds are singing. Later today I expect to see children playing and people smiling. Did I say already that this is a great country?

My hope is built on nothing less...than...Jesus blood and righteousness.

I struck a blow yesterday for truth, justice, and the American way...

...I voted for My Favorite Mormon presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, the second time I've done so. The 2008 Georgia primary was the first time.

All this folderol about voting for a member of a cult, advancing the agenda of a false gospel, and the like is just so much high-minded Baptist hot air. Very, very few Southern Baptists who have expressed such concern about a Mormon president will end up not marking or punching their ballot or touching their screen for Mitt Romney.

To tell you the truth, we look a little silly and somewhat hypocritical in the whole process.

Romney is a vastly superior presidential candidate. I am happy to vote for him.

God can take care of His Gospel and is not powerless even if the POTUS is a Mormon, or a Southern Baptist.

Obama doesn't have much of any chance here in Georgia anyway, but I feel good about having voted for Romney. I'm still trying to atone for  the insanity in voting for Jimmy Carter in 1976 when I was in a state of  irrational exuberance over our home state candidate.

Go thou and do likewise.

The powerless God of anti-Mormons

For five years I've heard not a few Southern Baptists declare that they would never vote for Mitt Romney or any other Mormon, lest they promote and make Mormonism more acceptable to the public.

Aside from the usual politico/religious non sequiturs that we have adopted (think 2008 when we preferred "I am not a born again Christian" McCain to "I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ" Barack Obama or perhaps thrice married, former Southern Baptist now Catholic Newt Gingrich in 2012,) the aversion to a candidate who is a serious member of what most SBCers would call a religious cult, I'm wondering if we think that God is completely powerless in the matter and a Mormon president would be more than He and the true Gospel could possibly endure.

Ridiculous, of course.

We are already seeing an alternative to the concept of Mormons gaining the ultimate respectability and mainstreamism in America. That alternative is a far broader presentation of the oddities of Mormon teaching and practice.

Most Americans connect Mormonism with polygamy a practice officially ended by the main LDS body in 1890; however, few are familiar with the Mormon practices of baptism for the dead, the sacred undergarments, and a fuller history of the violent practices of Mormons. Toss in the golden plates, reformed Egyptian, Jesus appearing to native Americans, and all the rest and you've got some pretty serious oddball stuff.

The closer Mitt Romney comes to the Republican nomination the more reporting will be seen on some of these ancillary Mormon practices. To wit:

Mitt Romney's family baptized Ann Romney's atheist father into Mormon church a year AFTER his death Seminarians and many SBC pastor are familiar with proxy baptism, as is any serious genealogist who greatly appreciates the LDS' seriousness of proxy baptisms. You mean Mormons think if they are baptized for someone already dead that has some efficacy? Yep. Odd.

David Brooks, NY Times columnist highlights the Romney clan's Mormon history in his column The Wealth Issue. The piece is replete with polygamy, hyper-authorianism, and the mindless obedience of adherents the early Mormon movement which include Mitt's ancestors. Do we really admire Mitt's ancestors for jumping through Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's hoops? Not me.

In A Brief Guide To “Mormon Underwear” we are introduced to the first presidential candidate underwear discussion since Bill "boxers not jockey" Clinton. What's that? Good Mormons have to wear certain underwear? Uh huh.

No doubt serious reporting will include the core differences between Mormon doctrine and that of orthodox Christianity - the Trinity, Scripture, person of Jesus. I'd speculate that the idea of having your own planet to populate, as good Mormons have, will come up.

Or, consider this: Many of those theologically uneducated Southern Baptists who populate our pews will come to church and ask the resident expert about these things. Those pastors and teachers who have eschewed educating their congregations about Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses et al will be forced to do it. Such cannot hurt and will undoubtedly help. Good.

I think God can handle Mitt Romney as president of the United States.

I plan to vote for him in the Georgia primary on Super Tuesday and again in the election this fall, Mormonism or not.

Best show in Prime Time

The Republican debates are the most entertaining show in prime time:

Bachmann: Sorry, 999/666 is just bizarre...game over Michelle.

Cain: The guy is confident, communicates well. 

Gingrich: When he speaks, something worthwhile always comes out.

Huntsman: Come on, gov, stop looking so pained.

Paul: Are you always mad about something, Ron?

Perry: The incredible shrinking candidate...needs another prayer rally.

Romney: Lookin' pretty presidential to me.

Santorum: Gets credit for fighting for face time, going nowhere.

Love One Another? College Football. Jammie Days.

They will know us by our love for one another: Here in Georgia two Christian schools played football last Friday. Loganville Christian Academy was ahead of Northside Christian Academy 33-0 in the first half when one of the players on the losing team ripped off the helmet of his opponent and began bashing him over the head with it. Criminal charges could be filed. The game was stopped at that point and the head basher’s team forfeited to the head bashee’s team. Reminds me of church softball leagues. Tsk. Tsk.

Alas, who to vote for? The wonderful family man, the Mormon, the submissive evangelical wife, the libertarian with his nose perpetually out-of-joint, the thrice married ex-SBCer, the fiery former pizza magnate who would excise mosques, the drawling Texan who knows how to corral the evangelical vote, the three-fourths Italian one-fourth Irish Pennsylvania Catholic, or the other Mormon who attended Lutheran school whose wife was raised Episcopalian, whose kids went to Catholic school who adopted a girl from India who has a Hindu tradition. We will let the crowd shake down on its own.

Georgia lost to Boise State. It wasn’t close. I’d feel sorry for head coach Marc Richt who is under some pressure but I don’t believe I am obligated to feel sorry for anyone making $3 million a year. I don’t even feel sorry for the beleaguered defensive coach who still makes about as much as the college president.

NASA has an astronaut shortage. Plodder will be happy to recommend some of my calvinist ministerial colleagues who already have experience in deep space.

Kids have pajama days at school? What's next - underwear days?

Still searching for that political messiah

One would think that the lesson of the apostles would be sufficient to cure the followers of Christ from hungering and thirsting for a political messiah. But no, it seems to be an endless search at least for American evangelical Christians.

Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are the latest incarnations. I'm getting emails touting the fervor of the faith of Perry, as if one should go ahead and apply the term parousia to him.

Plodder was a bit put off by the Perry prayer project, er rally, with both eyebrows raised over the confluence of his political and spiritual aspirations (my humble offering on it here). There is an evangelical vote. He's after it.

Madam Titanium will uncompromisingly confront the culture. One need not be the leader of the free world to do that.

Count me as having learned the lesson that (a) there will always be those who are looked upon as political messiahs and saviors, and (b) that they will always disappoint.

Jimmy Carter was the most godly president I know of. Unsuccessful president.

Reagan never went to church, nor talked up the evangelicals, but did well as president.

Bush the First: Good Episcopalian, decent president.

Clinton/Gore: Our two Southern Baptists; we had the board covered with Southern Baptists, but few of us voted for them.

Bush the Second: Great testimony, greatly expanded the welfare state and deficit spending.

And no one did anything with the social agenda.

The solution is spiritual, not political.

I have ceased to eagerly await a political messiah but remains steadfast in expectation of the Blessed Hope, the one who is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

He may come the first Tuesday in November 2012, but will not be on the ballot.

Bachmann, submission, and credibility

I like Michelle Bachmann. I haven't seen her titanium spine but she has a penetrating gaze, a smooth and unflappable demeanor, and expresses her convictions well.

But I am intrigued by her foray into wifely submission. Here's the exchange from the GOP debate of the other evening:

Journalist Byron York: In 2006, when you were running for Congress, you described a moment in your life when your husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea. And then you explained, “But the Lord said, ‘Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.’”
As president, would you be submissive to your husband?

Bachmann’s response: Marcus and I will be married for 33 years this September 10th. I’m in love with him. I’m so proud of him. And both he and I — what submission means to us, if that’s what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband. He’s a wonderful, godly man, and a great father. And he respects me as his wife.

I don't think this is a credible answer, not because it fails to properly teach what many believe the relevant Biblical passages mean by submission of a wife to her husband but because, seems to me, it fails as an explanation of the incident in question.

Husband wants wife to study for a degree in tax law.

Wife hates the idea.

Wife subordinates her desire to her husband's wish.

Bachmann may have offered an expanded explanation of this incident on some previous occasion but this doesn't look like 'respect' to me. The short version that was presented at the debate looks like submission of her will to his, her desire to his, her ambitions to his.

There's no question that it is relevant to her seeking the presidency.

While I'm not all that familiar with her faith story, conservative Southern Baptists do quite a dance around the idea of a wife's submission to her husband. In the SBC we joke about it ("...I make all the major decisions in our marriage and my wife makes the minor ones...we've never had a major decision..."), try to moderate it by the "...as Christ loved the church..." passage, or fall back on mutual submission to the exclusion of wifely submission.

I'm guessing someone will press Bachmann on this one. I don't think her answer is fully credible.

It's only August, 2011. Anyone already have a surfeit of presidential politics?

The Epiphany of Perry, the Shining Evangelical Christian Knight

What might get Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s Richard Land together in the same room with female megapreacher Joyce Meyer and, ugh, Kenneth Copeland?

Why, a common political purpose, I suppose – the election of Rick Perry who is beginning to look like the choice of the Religious Right for the 2012 presidential election.

Ex-SBCer James Robison, who fell from SBC grace years ago, summoned our two big guns (really big guns in Hatari Patterson’s case) to meet with Meyer, Copeland, David Barton, Ruth Graham and about 75 others at his HQ in Euless, TX. They had a little confab on saving the nation.

Alas, Plodder wasn’t invited to be among the Christian Worthies. I'll try to cope.

Reported from Robison’s spirituo-political summit:

It’s not about politics but about revival.

It’s not about ‘who’ but ‘what.’

Purely spiritual.

Yeah, sure. It's political. It's about who. It's partly spiritual.

Participants were reported to hunger and thirst for their Shining Christian Knight, presumably Perry, to use the campaign to get the nation to pray and straighten up and fix all these messes.

I'm deep, deep into cynicism here but the more I read the less I like the concept of another political messiah like the one the country elected in 2008: Obama, the Anointed One.

Bah humbug. I want a president who can run the country. I don't want a president who thinks he is Moses, or, to give him the benefit of the doubt, one whom our supposed spiritual leaders thinks is Moses.

Am I too far afield in asserting that there is no political salvation to the nation’s problems?

Is it heresy to state that God doesn’t need politicians to invoke revival and spiritual awakening?

Isn't it more likely that they will mess it up anyway?

Hey, Rick! Run for office. Throw your sombrero in the ring. I'll vote for you if you're the Republican nominee. Go for it. But don’t let them talk you into hijacking God as your running mate.

Report of the meeting of Robison's Evangelical Oligarchy may be found here:

Did the road toward the White House begin in Euless?

Rick Perry playing evangelicals with prayer rally?

Rick Perry may run for president. I may vote for him if he does. He would be preferable to many of the GOP candidates and infinitely preferable to the present occupant of the White House.

But my radar is up on politicians who start marshalling the evangelical Christian vote and I'm getting a pretty strong reading on Perry. Not that other politicians aren't capable of the same but I just hate to get the feeling that evangelical Christians are just another voting bloc to be wooed, cajoled, and romanced into one politician's camp.

I started getting fwd:fwd:fwd emails last week about Perry's big prayer meeting - evangelical notables pumping 'our kind of guy' and all that. I'm all for prayer. I'm perfectly willing to grant the benefit of the doubt to him. I'm not questioning his sincerity in the prayer meetin'. Maybe it just looks like the governor has started to strum the evangelical strings as a prelude to declaring his candidacy.

There are critics. Some far more harsh than anyone quoted in this article: Perry's upcoming prayer event draws sharp criticism

So, this is merely Plodder pondering on the Perry prayer pow wow. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Perry, if he had thought of it, would have called for a mass prayer meeting back when Obamacare was passed, or when the Congress was furiously spending our grandchildren's trillions rather than when it's time to fish or cut bait on running for president in 2012.

Maybe the funny feeling I'm getting over this is too much sun, sugar, and cholesterol.

Hope so...