Clarifying My Comments

Samantha Supported 100% Pro-Life Peroutka

After having written my last post I felt the need to clarify a few of my thoughts before people were up in arms. First of all, although I am an opponent of the party system this does not mean that I discourage people from supporting local, state, and national candidates that are members of political parties. I myself was a delegate at the Constitution Party this past election year. I chose to refrain from support of the President on moral grounds. It was a matter of conscience for me and I do not regret my actions. Mr. Peroutka is a wonderful man and the vast majority of CP members are God fearing constitutionalists.

This having been said, I would have voted for him if he was running as a Republican. It was not a matter of party (at least not entirely), rather, it was a matter of the man I felt best fit the need of America. Had he run as a Democrat I would still have voted for him (as I voted for a Democrat on the local level). Once again, it was not strictly a matter of party affiliation. It was a matter of conscience and my conviction that he was the best man fit for the job regardless of the odds of his victory.

Do I believe that it is wrong to be a member of the GOP or the CP? No. Rather, I am not sure, in historical hindsight, that it has been advantageous to the Christian cause of Reconstructive social change to be a member of a political party.

If you are a Republican you may have the odds in your favor for electoral victory but the odds of any real Christian change happening through that party are slim. Ask yourself how many times we have heard Republicans give the same old promises over and over and never follow through. Worse would be the fact that the Christian constituency is the primary reason for Republican dominance and yet they have become like the blacks of the Democrat party; a default constituency. This being said, the 3rd party advocate must admit that the odds of social change are greater from within the Republican party than it is outside the party due to the fact that they at least have a shooting chance of getting into office.

If you are a CP member you may have a great platform but the odds of you having any real impact on national politics (the local odds are much greater obviously) in a two-party environment is about as probable as finding aliens on Plato enjoying a round of Five-Card-Draw. There is also the fact that in the present system you would be seen as a fringe group only to be discarded. This has happened to many a great mind in this party. Only if you were to persuade the people of America that the two-party system (or the party system as a whole for that matter) is dangerous for the Republic and the end of truly representative government will you see any significant change. We could debate the validity of this claim for some time but history is my vindicator.

So I conclude that, at present, party politics may have to be a reality we must deal with. Questions immediately arising are whether one should rely on integrity or pragmatism in deciding which party to work within and to what degree one should commit oneself to that party. These are all questions to be dealt with in future posts but I felt that it was necessary for me to at least clarify my statement(s).

Putting a Face of "Freedoms" War

The Face of War

War, Just War. What an unnecessary picture! Right? I do not believe so. We in America have truly lost our moral gag reflex and this is evidence. Or maybe we haven't. Maybe we just refuse to face up to the atrocities happening in our name? Maybe we have learned to treat war like we do abortion? It is one thing to have abortions performed in enclosed rooms by "professional" killers outside of the public view, it is a whole different thing to have it happen in our dining rooms during dinner time! In the same fashion we send off our professional killers into foreign lands and soothe ourselves by wrapping it in patriotic, righteous, even heavenly language. In technical terms it is called "cognitive dissonance" but I will prefer to call it by its more common usage of self-deceit.

It is time that we, especially Orthodox Christians, begin to seriously re-think our position on War. I have so many questions for the supporters of this war (which I was at one time and even enlisted in the NAVY after 9-11 to prove it). Here are a handful of the questions that I have had to deal with in my spiritual walk and I figured it would be good to throw a handful of them out for others consideration.

I wonder if the supporters this war have ever seen a picture of the death fields there? The guy in the picture is a real person, flesh and blood, emotions, spirit, and family. What do we say of such instances? Are they collateral damage? Is it for the "greater good" in the pursuit of a "free" secular democracy? Do we see that man and marginalize him by calling him derogatory names or presuming that he is a terrorist? Do we tell ourselves that he is probably one of the bad guys (forgetting that there are hundreds of thousands of Arab Christians and this man may be one) and therefore we should feel no pain in his tragedy? How do we respond to a picture such as this? Do we feel pray for him? Do we cry for him and all others that have endured war caused tragedies? More important than "how do we feel" is the "how should we feel?"

Shouldn't we as believers desire to spread freedom not by the sword but by the word? Does democracy bring true freedom? Doesn't the Word say that Christ alone can set us free? That unless Christ sets us free that we remain under the bondage of the prince of the powers of the air? Should Christians endorse the use of military force to spread SECULAR values across the globe? Are Christians to support the UN by insisting that the US be its military branch to enforce its resolutions? Does anyone find it strange that those who are so adamantly opposed to Biblical Theocracy (not Islamic Ecclesiocracy) are so fierce in their support for a secular theocracy (that is the end result in the global scope of Secular Democratic Pluralism)? Shouldn't we pray for our enemies as often and as vigilant as we do our allies? Should we not pray for this dying man and his family?

So many questions and so little conversation. Why can't we face our choices? Maybe for the same reason that we cannot face ourselves? Maybe for the same reason that we cannot look at the picture of the dying man? In the end it may be because we do not know ourselves. It may be because we do not know or really believe in our Bible. Or it may even be that although we say that the Bible speaks about every area of life we genuinely have no idea what it says concerning war, its proper conduct, and its proper end. Any way we go about it there are a lot of questions that need answered and until we are able to face the dying man I do not see it happening any time soon.