Author Archives: Rob Harrison

Franklin Graham likes Sarah Palin’s coattails

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I have an envelope sitting on my desk from Samaritan’s Purse, the organization founded by Franklin Graham; on the outside, the envelope references two of the many projects in which they’re involved:

Ministry in the Slums of Honduras

Feeding Families on the Alaska Frontier

Now, had you asked me in advance which of these two would get top billing, I would have figured from past experience that it would be Honduras, which sounds more exotic and a bigger deal.  Past fundraising appeals from Franklin Graham, whether for Samaritan’s Purse or for his father’s ministry, have featured evangelistic work in places like India for just that reason.  But no, Honduras is relegated to a small strip below the address window of the envelope.  Most of the front of the envelope is taken up with the mission to Alaska.

Why? My best guess in two words:  Sarah Palin.

Most of the right side of the front of the envelope, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the total space, is occupied by a picture of Graham standing next to Gov. Palin, both grinning (he looks very like his father in this shot), handing out a big box of food.  The picture dominates the envelope; the eye goes first to Graham, looking down into the box, then moves immediately to the Governor, because she’s dressed in red and so stands out from the rest of the colors in the picture.  The message in this one is very clear:  Franklin Graham is allied with Sarah Palin—they’re working together to minister to the people of Alaska.

Lest you think I’m overemphasizing this, I’m not.  Open the envelope and pull out the letter, the first thing you see is a different photo, filling the top half of the page, of Graham and Gov. Palin giving away another large box of food; the only major difference in composition is that Graham is significantly closer to the camera and therefore looms larger.  Gov. Palin is still dead-center in the shot, and her red still draws the eye.  The caption, at the top of the page, reads, “EMERGENCY FOOD:  Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and I delivered much-needed boxes of food to native families in the wilderness of western Alaska.”  In the text of the letter, the governor’s office is mentioned in the second paragraph, she’s mentioned by name—and praised in strong terms—in the third, and the entire fourth paragraph is her praise of Samaritan’s Purse.

In other words, one of the main things this letter wants you to take away is that Gov. Palin loves Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse, and that they’re allies in ministry.  This is, of course, a fundraising letter, so what this tells you is that Graham and his staff think that invoking her name is a good way to get people to give money—and that’s no small judgment, because these folks are past masters at this craft.  When most folks think of Billy Graham, they don’t think of him as a fundraiser, but all those crusades cost a great deal of money; who exactly was responsible for raising it initially I don’t know, but over the years, that’s one of the areas at which the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has gotten very, very good.  If they think Gov. Palin’s picture and imprimatur will help them raise money from the sort of folks who support them, they’re no doubt right.

Why does this matter?  Well, besides the fact that Samaritan’s Purse is a good ministry that will do a great deal of good work with that money, it also matters because those same folks make up a sizable chunk of the Republican base—and for that matter, the Blue Dog wing of Democratic voters, many of whom now self-identify as Palin Democrats.  The calculation of Franklin Graham and the development folks at Samaritan’s Purse with regard to Gov. Palin’s probable effect on their fundraising isn’t a political one, but it has political implications; at its root, it’s the same calculation Saxby Chambliss made when he invited Gov. Palin to be the closer for his campaign in the runoff election for Senate in Georgia:  Sarah Palin has big coattails.  She inspires a lot of people across this country, and if she supports someone or something, that will encourage many, many other folks to do the same—with votes, time, money, whatever.  Whether it’s “Vote for Saxby” or “give money to Samaritan’s Purse,” if she says it, millions of people take it a lot more seriously than if someone else says it.  That matters.  It matters a lot.

This also matters because it’s a good gauge that all the Democratic efforts to smear this woman aren’t really working.  Sure, they’re no doubt serving to fire up the Party faithful, but outside of the elite echo chambers where people pull out lines to convinced each other of things of which they’re both already convinced, when it comes to actually changing the minds of the citizenry, they aren’t taking root.  For all the work the Democrat smear machine is putting into breaking her image as someone of high morals and ethics, that’s clearly how most people in this country think of her, or else her support wouldn’t be this useful to an evangelical ministry like Samaritan’s Purse; they clearly don’t see her as damaged goods, or they wouldn’t be parading her support the way they are.

One might also point out that it matters because it means that Graham and his staff have a better feel for the political realities in this country right now, even without trying, than the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the various other party organs that exist inside that great echo chamber of the DC-NY corridor.  Were that not the case, the NRSC and NRCC would have hung on and waited for her to agree to attend their event (as she probably would have done) when she could do so at an appropriate point, rather than turning to Newt Gingrich as a speaker.

The bottom line is that this fundraising letter is just one more piece of evidence of Sarah Palin’s extraordinary appeal and connection to a vast swath of the American populace; Palin Power is a very real thing, and the folks at Samaritan’s Purse clearly judged it well worth their while to make a deliberate and intentional effort to tap into it.  (Which, since she supports and appreciates their efforts, was an entirely appropriate and valid thing for them to do.)  The sooner the national GOP starts doing so as well in an intelligent way—namely, without asking her to tap-dance to their tune for the privilege—the better off they’ll be.

Update:  When I posted this, I was so focused on the letter that I wasn’t thinking about the trip it recounts, so I didn’t link to the post Joseph Russo put up on that trip at the time.  That omission is now corrected.  It’s particularly significant because that post sparked people to donate to Samaritan’s Purse in honor of Gov. Palin, which probably contributed to their decision to highlight the trip.

 

John O’Sullivan sees Margaret Thatcher in Sarah Palin

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Thanks to Joseph Russo for posting the link to this—it’s a great piece.  (Since it’s 1 AM and I can’t sleep, I also appreciate my computer working well enough so I could read it.)  O’Sullivan writes,

I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common. . . .

Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match [the world-historical figure who today is the gold standard of conservative statesmanship]. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher’s depths of courage, firmness and stamina—we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time . . . to analyze America’s problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter’s speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That’s the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Mrs. Palin had four big occasions in the late, doomed Republican campaign: her introduction by John McCain in Ohio, her speech at the GOP convention, her vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, and her appearance on Saturday Night Live. With minimal preparation, she rose to all four of them. That’s the mark of a star.

If conservative intellectuals, Republican operatives and McCain “handlers” can’t see it, then so much the worse for them.

John O’Sullivan knows whereof he speaks.  Check it out.

A few tips of the hat

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We’re having some internet problems here—no connection at the church today at all, and a pretty poor one here at home—so I haven’t had much success with any online work; but I thought I might be able to get a relatively quick links post through.

Jared Wilson has a couple strong posts up, “The Kingdom is For Those Who Know How to Die” and “Faith, Hope, and Love is About Proximity to Jesus.” I’ve also been meaning to note his excerpt from Skye Jethani’s new book The Divine Commodity, which I think dovetails with my recent post on worship.

Not to leave the rest of the Thinklings out, Philip has a good post on communicating the gospel, Bird makes a good point about repentance, and Bill asks an interesting question:  is the American church actually too macho?

I love Hap’s retelling of the story of Abigail.  If you’re not familiar with it, you can find the original in 1 Samuel 25.

Pauline Evans, to whom I haven’t linked in far too long, has a nifty little post up on the development of computers, and how the comparisons we use are in some ways quite misleading; she also has one up, I just discovered, on a couple children’s fantasy books that I think I’m going to need to read.  (This may follow nicely on our recent discovery in this household of Tamora Pierce.)

Debbie Berkley posted something last January that I’ve kept meaning to write about, reflecting on the uncertainty we face these days in the light of the wisdom of a fellow Christian from India:  “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”  Sage counsel, and certainly no less applicable now, two months on.

And, on the subject of politics (and specifically political dirty tricks), Andrew Breitbart has had some interesting things to say of late about the online war liberals are waging (and winning) against conservatives.  Barack Obama promised to elevate the tone of political discourse in this country, but you don’t have to be a Sarah Palin supporter to recognize that some of his followers didn’t get the memo.

This isn’t everyone I’d like to mention, but I’m only linking to pages I can actually pull up, and it’s pretty hit-and-miss at the moment.  Still, I’m glad to note these, and maybe I’ll do another one soon to highlight the ones that wouldn’t come up.

Question on the twilight of the newspapers

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This story on Hot Air (about an intelligent new strategy the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is trying to keep themselves afloat) got me thinking:  why all the liberal angst about newspapers going out of business?  Just think of the environmental benefits!  Think of all the trees cut down every year to produce the reams and reams of newsprint used by the newspapers that are now critically endangered (as well as the ones that have already gone extinct); how environmentally unenlightened of these heartless major corporations to insist that they must be allowed to distribute “a five-pound lump of paper” to millions of people every day in order to do their jobs.  Surely in this Age of Obama they should be required to Go Green just like everyone else and spare our nation’s forests, right?  Shouldn’t we view the demise of dead-tree editions across the country as a good thing, rather than go looking for ways to prop up their environmental rapacity by putting them on the public dole?. . . OK, be honest with me—is that too far over the top?  In all seriousness, I love a good newspaper (though they’re a lot fewer and farther between than those lamenting the state of the industry like to pretend), but it does occur to me that they’re getting a very different break from the Left in this country than a lot of industries.  That’s no real surprise, of course; after all, they’re a structural component of the American Left, plus they get to set the terms in which their current peril is reported, analyzed, and discussed—an advantage that was never given to the PR flacks for companies like Philip Morris or Enron.  Even so, as I think about it, I’m still a little surprised that I haven’t heard word one about what their failure could potentially do to pulp production in this country, either in terms of its environmental advantages or in terms of additional unemployment.  I can’t help thinking that if there were somehow an equivalent failure on the conservative side of the political spectrum, we’d be getting stories with headlines like “Silver Lining of Industry Collapse:  Will Save Millions of Acres of Forest, Experts Say.”

I have to admit, this makes me smile

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I’ve been a fan of Law & Order almost since its inception.  Like most folks, my favorite characters over the show’s life are the two big ones, Det. Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach, RIP) and EADA/DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston); part of that, probably, is that both actors have always struck me as people I’d enjoy knowing in real life, quite aside from the people they play.  Also like most folks, my favorite character after those two was ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), whom I really wish had had a significantly longer run on the show (especially as I didn’t care for her replacement at all)—which meant it was a very pleasant surprise (dare I pull a Chris Matthews and say a thrill ran up my leg?) to read that she’s a fan of Sarah Palin:

I admire any kind of woman like her. My whole motto is to know what I stand for and know what I don’t stand for and have the courage to live my life accordingly and she does exactly that. The fact that this woman has made the decisions she’s made and literally lived her life according to that and takes heat for it is absolutely disgusting to me,” she added. “People cannot look at this woman. I really think they’re afraid of her and her morals, ethics and values and the fact that she hangs on them.

Of course, Fox News felt the need to conclude the article with a bunch of celebrities telling them how wonderful Barack Obama is and what a great job he’s doing; but Angie Harmon got the bulk of the piece to praise Gov. Palin (and also to express her dissatisfaction with President Obama, and with being accused of racism for not being liberal), and that’s an enjoyable little spark for the day.HT:  Joseph Russo

In defense of the church, part VI: We need each other

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Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

—Hebrews 10:19-25 (ESV)

On a nobler and more elevated note than the previous post . . .

I started doing this series over a year ago now, carried on for a while, and then some time last August, had my attention fixed firmly enough in another direction that I forgot completely about it.  (Gee, I wonder what could have done that?)  I don’t want to just let it go, though, because this is too important for that.

I’ve talked about various aspects of the church—the value of preaching, the realistic necessity of the institution, and so on—and about the fact that Jesus loves the church, whether we like it or not; I think it also needs to be said, as the authors of Hebrews do, that whether we like the church or not, we need it.  If we’re going to be faithful disciples of Christ, we need to be a part of the church, and we need to be involved.

Part of this is that, as David Wood argues, we need spiritual friendship in order to live as Christ calls us to live.  Not even Jesus tried to live the godly life on his own—he surrounded himself with good friends who went with him everywhere.  The Rev. Wood makes this point in the course of talking about the pastoral life and pastoral excellence, but if it’s more critical for pastors, that’s only because we serve as leaders and exemplars for the church; this is necessary for pastors because it’s necessary for all Christians if we’re actually going to live as Christians.

This is how God wired us:  for friendship, relationship, community, to lean on each other and depend on each other to be strong where and when we ourselves are weak.  We need others who know us well enough that they can help us see ourselves more clearly and accurately than we can through our own eyes, and whom we can trust to rebuke and correct us when we’re going awry.  And let’s face it, resisting temptation is a lot less fun in the moment than giving in to it; we need people whose company we enjoy with whom we can go find something else to do.  “Just say no” only works for so long—we need something better to which we can say “yes” instead.

This is well illustrated by an old story, which has been told in many variations, of a young man who was feeling spiritually dry and cold, and so went to see one of the great old saints of the church to seek advice.  He poured out his heart to the old saint, told him of his problem, and asked what he might do about the dryness and coldness of his spiritual life.  The old man didn’t say a word, but picked up the fireplace tongs and used them to reach into the fire and pluck out a coal, which he set on the hearth.  The coal immediately began to fade, first from bright cherry-red to dull red, to orange, and ultimately to black.  After a little while, the old saint leaned forward, picked up the coal with his hand, and tossed it back into the fire, where it was soon burning merrily once again.  The young man, with a thoughtful look on his face, thanked the old man and took his leave.

It’s not just about what we get out of being a part of the church, though—we also need the church for what we can give to it.  For our own growth, we need the opportunity to serve others as they serve us.  This helps us develop our gifts, stretching us to take risks and try new things.  More importantly, it draws us out of ourselves and teaches us to value and care for others.  We can’t become loving people without actually loving people—and the people who are the hardest to love are often the most important for us in that respect, for it’s in loving the unlovable that we come closest to Christ’s love for us.

Finally, of course, the fact that the church needs us matters in and of itself, too.  God calls us to serve him, and part of that is participating in and serving his body, his people, the church.  Yes, this means setting aside some of what we want; it means making compromises, and putting other people ahead of ourselves.  This too, of course, is part of our spiritual growth, but it’s also the recognition that the call of God on our lives isn’t just about us, about fulfilling our needs and giving us what we want—it’s also about others, and how we can be of use to bless them.

Now, I’m not so foolish as to think that this will necessarily come easily; I’m a pastor, I know better.  But what I said in the first post in this series still holds true:

I don’t stay in the church because I have found it to be a wonderful place and a wonderful experience; taken all in all, I’ve found it quite uneven. Rather, I stay in the church as an act of faith that God meant what he said when he called us his people, his family, his body, and promised that not even the gates of Hell would prevail against us—and I say that as one who knows full well that those gates threaten us from within as well as from without. However ambivalent I may sometimes be, it remains true through all that Jesus loves the church, and died for her, and that we are called to follow his lead.

All of which is to say, as much as I understand the stones people throw at the church (having fired off a few myself at times), I do believe the church needs to be defended; and I say that not because I’m in the business, of the guild, as it were, but rather despite that fact. However badly we screw it up, as we often do, this is still something God has ordained, and it’s still important that we gather together in worship and fellowship and ministry. Yes, that means friction, which is unpleasant; but that friction is one of the things God uses to sand away our rough edges and polish our strengths. True community—where, as Kurt Vonnegut beautifully said, “the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured”—is not an easy thing, which is why far too many churches don’t try all that hard to create it; but for all that, it’s important for our well-being, and if we will commit to it, it’s a beautiful gift of God.

There are days . . .

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This is right up there with wanting the James Bond car so that one could drop oil slicks or caltrops for tailgaters.  Excessive, yes, but on our worse days, the thoughtlessness of others can drive us to wishing, just a little, that we could actually do something like this.  At least, for some of us, it can . . .  Check the mouseover on this one.

The problematic blessings of God

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Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
and raise my signal to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in their bosom,
and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
Kings shall be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
and lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”—Isaiah 49:22-23 (ESV)The Jews get a lot of flak from many Christians for their failure to understand what God was trying to do and thus to fulfill the part in his plan. Now, obviously someone who believes as I do that Jesus is the promised Messiah is going to have a different take on that than someone who doesn’t; but without getting into comparative theology, I think it needs to be said that we should all be a lot humbler about such arguments. Many of us (perhaps most of us) have an unfortunate tendency to present our positions as if their truth is obvious, and should be obvious to those who disagree with us—meaning, of course, that we’re the noble ones who have the truth, and our opponents must be arguing for ignoble reasons. This is not only wrongheaded, it’s wrong-spirited.What’s more, in some cases, it’s also evidence of our own lack of self-knowledge and self-awareness; and this would be one of those. Consider this section of Isaiah (which is representative of other passages in the prophets): God is proposing to bless his people by bringing in the nations to join them. In order to accept this blessing, they need to do two things: one, they have to give up their national self-understanding—what we might, by analogy to the present day, call “Israelite exceptionalism”—and two, they have to welcome the other peoples of the world in.Now, to be sure, God isn’t asking Israel to take a secondary place; quite the contrary, the nations will honor them and bow before them in recognition of how much they owe the people of Israel. That said, remember, the nations are outsiders, and some of them are bitter enemies; he’s asking them to welcome strangers, rivals, and people who have hurt them badly into their land and into their people.  He’s asking them not only to forgive their enemies, but to adopt their enemies, to welcome former enemies into their home, to love them, and to trust them as family.That’s a challenge, if we’re honest.  If we really put ourselves into the story, it’s not necessarily all that obvious that it really qualifies as a blessing.  After all, we’re used to thinking of blessings as being for us, while the blessing Isaiah promises here is as much for the nations as it is for Israel; God blesses Israel in part so that they may bless the nations.  To recognize this as a real blessing, we need to understand that this is what the blessings of God look like—they really never are just for us.  We aren’t merely recipients of his blessings, we’re conduits.  That’s just how God works.God’s blessings often aren’t easy to receive.  Grace isn’t easy.  Love isn’t easy.  They come with challenges, asking us to do things that we don’t necessarily want to do.  I would venture to say that anyone who takes them lightly, who isn’t made at least a little uncomfortable by the blessings of God, doesn’t understand them as well as they should.  I’m certainly not saying that we should encourage anyone not to accept the grace of God; but if we find anyone reluctant to do so, we should understand that their reluctance is not altogether unreasonable.  God’s blessings are always best for us . . . but they’re often not what we think is best for us, and so we have to give up our own ideas of what’s best in order to accept them.  Doing so is itself a blessing—but we should never make the mistake of thinking that it’s an easy and obvious step.

Just to get your feet tapping a little

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I was keeping our littlest one happy yesterday afternoon after she woke up, still sick, from her nap; for whatever reason, one way I did that was by playing her a few CCR videos, and I got a couple of their songs stuck in my head.

And the best song ever written about baseball: