My main criticism with “conservatives” (most who label themselves as such deserve the sarcastic quote marks), put most aptly by the always insightful (and actually conservative) Andrew Bacevich:

Only those who recognize the omnipresence of sin—recognizing first of all that they themselves number among the sinful—can possibly anticipate the moral snares inherent in the exercise of power. Righteousness induces blindness. The acknowledgment of guilt enables the blind to see. To press the point further, the statesman who assumes that “we” are good while “they” are evil—think George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11—will almost necessarily misinterpret the problem at hand and underestimate the complexity and costs entailed in trying to solve it. In this sense, an awareness of one’s own failings and foibles not only contributes to moral clarity but can help guard against strategic folly.

Dear Christian conservatives,

The world is not going to end if Barack Obama is elected president.

Sounds hyperbolic, no? Well check this out:

Christian right intensifies attacks on Obama
By ERIC GORSKI and RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writers

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts.
All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,” produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action. …

Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, “Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected.”

This is discomforting to me, a serious Christian who assumes people will think rationally and not resort to fear-mongering instead of reasonably discussing issues. And (though it escapes Dobson’s notice, because his strain of Christianity is the only one allowed) all four Prez/Veep candidates are self-proclaimed Christians. But, maybe one is more Christian than the others? Someone on Facebook thinks so, and they’ve drawn hundreds to a group called “Ten-4 Palin”:

Could it be that Sarah Palin has been uniquely fashioned for this time in History by the One, True and Living God. The confidence in my assertion is this: that it IS actually happening! …

She pleasantly redefines modern feminism, motherhood, living in humble submission to God, actually contributing to the improvement society instead of selfishly promoting anarchy or oligarchy, to an angrily muted mass of malcontents and Sophists. There is not a rainbow of nuance when “yea is yea and nay is nay”. The wisdom and robust nature of humble Truth is a lovely as it is durable. (Can you see the lipstick on the pit bull??) …

Also, for those who oppose her, take heed, lest you find yourself fighting against the God of Heaven and Earth. IF she tasked by God for this role, woe unto the ones who try to destroy her. Before you take up arms against her – read the biblical accounts of the Pharaoh, the Philistines, the Babylonians, etc… because you like they may not be fighting against man, but against your own creator. [bolds mine, misspellings original-R]

For all those on the right who deride Obama as “messianic,” I’ve seen no actual evidence that his supporters think of him in these deified terms. Palin, however, gets a Facebook page? Hmm… but what about the actual would-be president, John McCain? He gets a mention too, in the last paragraph:

The following is a call to action: She (and Mr. McCain) must be prayed for. They are private persons fulfilling a public calling.

Why am I bothering with this, I ask myself… the “converted” aren’t to be moved, and rational discussion doesn’t generally work if a faith is both blind and ill-reasoned. I do notice, though, that there’s a point at which such sure-headed notions that we can see what God is doing, that we know what He wants, can become absolute extremism. Honestly. It’s not that far a leap from the above to, well, this (received at the BGDN fax station):

These are the same people, mind you, whose faxes usually start off with ” (x number of) American troops were killed in Iraq this week. Thank God for their deaths!” and list a variety of reasons God is punishing us with his preferred weapon, the Islamofacist insurgent.

As a committed evangelical Christian who has spent a lot of time trying to convince others of my fold that Barack Obama shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, I should really offer my opinion on the Saturday forum at Saddleback Church. Problem is, I didn’t watch it. Instead, I was off on the road with my band (a bizarre and thoroughly frustrating experience on which I will say more later). Anyway, I plan to watch the whole thing soon and will comment at that point.

Exhibit A: Five days ago, this little guy was a virtual unknown. The facts were, it was a “he,” it was kicking around in my wife Shelley’s belly, and it was to be released at a to-be-determined date.

Now, he’s Owen Andrew Shepherd, a 7-some-pound healthy baby boy, spending his time sleeping and eating and occasionally crying, here in my own house.

We got little sleep last night, as Owen couldn’t decide if he’d had enough to eat. He’d cry, we’d get up and try to feed him, and he’d fall back asleep. We did this a few times over, before he finally decided to give up and submit to slumber… at 5 in the morning.

I want him to have everything: A happy childhood, an intelligent mind, a fit and coordinated body, a high-school sweetheart and college education and six-figure job and a house with granite countertops and an undermount sink. And I fear he’ll miss out on at least some of it, due to some unforeseen error on my part.

And, of course, I want him to know the Lord… but if fathers are children’s primary examples of God, I feel very sorry for the little guy.

Exhibit B: Two years ago this Saturday, I was feeling a little of the same for this guy, Lewis Christian. He had a traumatic entry into the world, marked by 10 days of only supervised parental interaction due to a blood infection. It was traumatic, too, for us, as we wondered how God could mar such a beautiful moment with such a stupid circumstance.

Two years later, I still love this boy with all my heart, and yet he frustrates me as few other things do. He’s yet to say a single word, and this causes all kinds of problems for Shelley and me. His only ways to communicate are to cry/yell/moan, and to grab your hand and drag you around. The big problem with this is that he doesn’t understand (or pretends not to understand?) any attempt to tell him no, or to divert him to a different activity. Still groggy from last night, I was met with a Lewis who, after waking and watching “Elmo’s World,” wanted immediately to go outside and walk around the block in already stifling heat. If I tell him no, he cries and whines and is generally not fun to be around, so I’m more or less forced to give way to his will.

I want everything for him, too, but more than anything my concerns for him are in the here and now: God, why won’t you give this child a voice? Why won’t you give him the will to use a spoon on his own? Why is his mind so quick and his manipulative instinct so sharp, and yet his communicative skills nearly nonexistent?

There are no answers here, at least not yet. And that makes me—God forgive me—hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless in the face of these two miracles, these two God-breathed lives that are so utterly connected to me. My own dreams seem shattered to a million pieces, and that would be OK… if only my vicarious dreams for Lewis and Owen would show themselves on a march of progress. But Owen’s too young, and Lewis too frustrating. I’m being honest here, not righteous.

I’ve suffered little, I suppose, and Shelley probably feels these things far worse than I. Maybe you feel them, too, whether you’re childless or fruitful, married or single. Maybe we all feel it, somewhere, at some time. But it’s rather new to me… My only real hope, for now, is that this is simply God’s inoculation against something far worse. But the needle is thick and the sting is real, and I’m left reeling in both bone and blood.

By Ben Smith, Politico.com

The conservative Evangelical biographer of George W. Bush and Tom DeLay has moved on to a new subject: Barack Obama. And his new book, due out this summer, may lend credibility to Senator Obama’s bid to win Evangelical Christian voters away from the Republican Party.

The forthcoming volume from Stephen Mansfield, whose sympathetic “The Faith of George W. Bush” spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004, is titled “The Faith of Barack Obama.” Its tone ranges from gently critical to gushing, and the author defends Obama-and even his controversial former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright-from conservative critics, and portrays him as a compelling figure for Christian voters.

“Young Evangelicals are saying, ‘Look, I’m pro-life but I’m looking at a guy who’s first of all black-and they love that; two, who’s a Christian; and three who believes faith should bear on public policy,” Mansfield, who described himself as a conservative Republican, said in a telephone interview. “They disagree with him on abortion, but they agree with him on poverty, on the war.”

His book, provided exclusively to Politico by the publisher, focuses more on Obama’s religious journey than his electoral prospects.

“For Obama, faith is not simply political garb, something a focus group told him he ought to try. Instead, religion to him is transforming, lifelong, and real,” Mansfield writes, going on to compare Obama favorably to Christian Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who he says erected a “wall of separation” between their religion and their governance.

By contrast, “Obama’s faith infuses his public policy, so that his faith is not just limited to the personal realms of his life, it also informs his leadership,” Mansfield writes.

The book is published by Thomas Nelson, the world’s largest Christian publisher. It’s due out August 5. “The Faith of Barack Obama” is expected to retail in Christian outlets and the Wal-Mart chain of stores, as well as secular bookstores. A motivational speaker and former pastor, Mansfield is the author of several books on faith as well as the co-author of former House Republican powerhouse Tom DeLay’s 2007 book “No Retreat, No Surrender,” a defense of his tarnished legacy sprinkled with fierce attacks on his opponents and on liberal causes.

(more…)

My pal Kevin brought up an interesting conversation starter in the ongoing dialogue on my presidential pick (see top right of this page; click to read it). It goes:

I find it remarkable that our country is able to remain as united as it is given the abortion debate. If any other form of “murder” (currently recognized as such) were made “legal,” we would a potential breakdown of society. Think of the millions who would refuse to pay taxes to a government that sanctioned the killing off of retarded children, or unwanted 2 month old “postnatal fetuses.” Or the millions who would perhaps view taking up arms to protect these lives?

So, let’s explore, shall we?

First off, abortion is a relatively invisible thing: The women who have abortions generally aren’t touting the fact, are they? I’ve never met a woman who said out loud, in my presence or within ear’s range, that she’d had an abortion… yet I’ve heard women speak openly (even fondly) of cocaine use, random sex, theft, blackmail… if abortion is as “OK” as the pro-choice would have us believe, why is speaking of it so taboo? If it’s just another medical procedure, why isn’t it talked about as such—I’ve heard my share of “TMI” tales from the OB/GYN office from my desk at work, you know.

So we see that abortion is taboo, even in the eyes of those who think it morally defensible. This implies, at least, that the pro-choice KNOW that there is a heavy moral divide between the choosers and the lifers… which is why pro-abortion is always couched in terms of “choice,” placing the emphasis back on the mother, and not simply “pro-abortion”—or, to be fair, “pro-legality-and-availability-of-abortion.”

Anyway, abortion’s taboo-ness seems to me to be what keeps America going, despite the huge divide. Truth be told, there is little real debate about abortion in this country, only rhetoric… The law is the law, and there’s no indication it’s going to be overturned anytime soon. It’s too good a campaign tool for politicians to give up, but it may in fact be too ingrained in society to ever be done away with. This is why states have attempted to place restrictions on abortions, albeit restrictions that usually get batted down by the appellate courts (mandatory ultrasound, etc.).

IF, however, the Supreme Court ever got a case that enabled it to strike down Roe, what is right now is muted divide would threaten to erupt into near-violence. In my opinion, women (as every minority) still feel slighted, despite the tremendous advances they’ve seen since the time of their grandmothers. Abortion is truly a symbol of something bigger, of the women’s rights movement in general. What did women really want? The right to abortion, or the right to vote? But the right to abortion came suddenly, on the turn of a single court case, and that at a time of great upheaval. So, it became connected to women’s rights in general, whereas it is a very specific right and has no real effect on wages, suffrage, equality or anything else.

The fact of the matter is that the pro-life and the pro-choice are both arguing over theoreticals… meanwhile, there is a poor, unwed pregnant woman in despair as to where she’ll find the time or the money to take care of a BABY—and I challenge anyone to present me with a woman who became pregnant and thought of the thing inside her as a fetus and not as a pending baby. The fact of its LIFE is what drives the abortion… the life and its perceived effect on the carrying woman’s life. And, sad to say, abortion is an historical fact of life.

I read “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” recently, and a notable throwaway line had to do with how a certain gypsy woman had taken some sort of special medicine, which made her miscarry. This was not uncommon in the 15th century and I would guess not uncommon to most of human history, at least wherever there have been people looking at too little wealth and imagining the troubles of another human pulling from the pool.

This is why I, personally, have a hard time seeing the “answer” to the abortion debate. We’d all agree that a woman who cannot afford (or stomach) having a baby simply ought not have it. But abstinence simply doesn’t pervade, contraception fails (or isn’t used) — and, sadly, rape occurs. Do I want this woman going into a back alley to get rid of her problem? Or taking some concoction that the FDA has definitely not approved, in order to force a miscarriage?

If I were a candidate for president, I might offer a sweeping reform: Any single woman with an “unwanted” pregnancy is offered free room and board at a government-run facility, to be admitted somewhere at the start of the third trimester (when pregnancy really gets demanding). These facilities, scattered throughout the country, would offer voluntary classes based in broad, ecumenical religious teachings on the sanctity of life; they would not be mandatory, but would be the main social offerings at said facilities. At the end of the stay, when giving birth (the medical bills also paid for by the state), the “choice” is given: Keep the baby or give it up for adoption. Either way, the woman with the unwanted pregnancy comes out ahead. Granted, it’s a few months of inconvenience for the woman, but not nearly as much as would be if she had to pay the bills for this “unwanted” baby. Meanwhile, job security would be protected by federal mandate that states an employer cannot fire and must re-receive a pregnant woman who leaves to be in the facility.

There are lots more thoughts… Hopefully you’ve got them.

This post is meant to foster discussion. Please add your thoughts, disputes, etc. at bottom.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable…the art of the next best.

— Otto von Bismarck, 1867

Short Version: Barring any unforeseen revelations about his character, criminal history or secret policy positions, I will be voting for Barack Obama in November. I suggest you do too. However, unless you read the Long Version, which immediately follows, do not email, call or otherwise bug me and try to argue why I should vote otherwise.

Long Version: First things first. I’m a 27-year-old white male. My family lives near the technical poverty line, although you wouldn’t know it to look at us. We have nice vehicles, a nice house, cable, Internet access, etc. I have a pretty good job and my wife, Shelley, is fortunate to be able to stay home with our child (and soon to be children). I was raised in a somewhat Baptist household, and now belong to a Presbyterian (PCA) church. I’m college educated, though not quite a college grad.

In November, I will be voting for the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama.

Working in journalism, I’ve spent much of my time in the past few years keeping up with current events, and with a particular appetite for politics and a root word, policy. (I could, in fact, boast that I’ve read more contemporary history in these past few years than the average person will read in his/her entire lifetime—but my Moses-esque humility won’t allow it.) Through that reading, I’ve come to my current political leanings, which are as follows:

•Libertarian socially (let people do what they want if it doesn’t hurt me or my kids)
•Conservative fiscally (let me keep as much of my income as possible, to do with it what I wish)
•Hyperlocal bureaucratically (let the smallest possible group decide on its own what it wishes its piece of society to look like).
•Noninterventionist in foreign policy (stay out of other nations’ business when it does not directly harm national interests)

Sounds like a Ron Paul voter, no? But there one’s more crucial point:

•Pragmatic when necessary—and that moment is now.

If this were 1992, I’d be rooting for Pat Buchanan, or possibly crazy uncle Perot. If this year’s GOP nominee were Paul, Pat Buchanan, or possibly even Mike “The Huckster” Huckabee (one of the daring who, despite other inadequacies, supports The FairTax, which would make a huge difference to our economy and to small-business owners like myself), I’d likely vote for any of these.

Put another way, I don’t like Obama’s general policy stances on taxes, abortion, immigration, entitlements, government interference, and probably a host of other issues. That said, I don’t like John McCain’s stances on the war in Iraq—or war in general—or taxes, immigration, entitlements, government interference… but most disturbingly, his blazing globalism.

Not only does McCain support continuing the war in Iraq indefinitely, but he endorses the idea of a “League of Democracies,” a liberal position that even Obama does not hold. He mocks Obama for considering the diplomatic route in regards to Iran—despite the fact that this same diplomatic route, as practiced by conservative icon Ronald Reagan, is what won the Cold War. Nor do I appreciate the way George W. Bush’s “conservative” administration has spent and spent and spent our tax dollars, while cutting tax rates and allowing the American economy to fall into the gutter.

“Tax and spend liberal” has been a scare tactic used to great effect over the past 30 years… that and the newer claim that Democrats are “soft” on national security. Yet our nation is far less solvent since Bush took office, and our nation is certainly no more secure than it ever was.

Then there’s the issue of “free trade,” which is an Orwellian oxymoron. Anyone who will spend a bit of time reading Buchanan (or any host of other “paleoconservative” or “traditional conservative” authors) will find out that protectionism—the practice of imposing tariffs on imports and other measures designed to reward Americans for buying local and American industry for staying in America—was common course until the last 50 years, and America’s economy steadily rose during that time, making it far the most dominant the world has ever known. Contrast that with today, when so-called conservatives tout “free trade” as if it were a religion, neglecting to notice that American industry is quickly drying up, the Chinese economy is skyrocketing (and they hold the majority of our TRILLIONS in debt), and that other nations are taxing our exports to their countries, while giving manufacturers in their countries tax REBATES on their exports to us—meaning a double-edged punishment that makes buying Japanese cheap here and buying American nearly impossible there.

Obama? He’s spoken out against NAFTA and might possibly rework these disastrous trade policies. McCain? He’s a “Kool-Aid” drinker on free trade, and on the flawed notion of globalism in general.

“But,” you may say, “Obama is far to the left of Ted Kennedy!” I think that statement a bit much, but I won’t argue the point that Obama is going to be some miraculous “uniter”… his voting record is solidly left-leaning, and he has no practical evidence of being a “bridge-builder,” save for his smooth rhetoric.

Yet, practically speaking and using actual evidence, not rhetoric, as a standard, shows the lie. As a strongly conservative blogger recently noted,

“(The GOP voters’) grandstanding leaders never deliver, their fury mounts and mounts, and nevertheless they turn out every two years to return their right-wing heroes to office for a second, a third, or a twentieth try,” observed leftist Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter with Kansas? “The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes.”

Republican appointees to federal courts far outnumber Democratic ones, yet the GOP continues to trot out “judicial reform” as the thing they’re going to aim for above all. It hasn’t fleshed out—the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has no intention of overturning Roe, are GOP appointees; the judge who ruled California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional? Lifelong Republican.

And consider:

•The number of women undergoing abortions went DOWN overall during the Clinton administration, and UP dramatically throughout the Bush II years
•Unemployment went DOWN overall during Clinton years, UP overall during Bush II
•Real value of wages has gone steadily down during Bush II
•Federal funds went from surplus during Clinton to MASSIVE, RECORD DEFICITS during Bush II
•Federal government spending has gone WAY UP during Bush II

McCain shows no signs of changing many of these metrics… abortion rates have been shown to be very much linked to economics. So-called “conservative” GOP government has spent more than any Democratic administration ever did. And a globalist viewpoint, which looks at America as the biggest member of a global community, instead of looking at AMERICANS and their well-being as the crucial deciding factor in every single decision, has proven harsh over the short term and could likely prove fatal if allowed to go unchecked.

The millions we’re spending PER DAY in Iraq—a nation which did not attack us, had no capacity to attack us, and was NOT a state sponsor of terrorism—would be better spent here. The lives we’re losing won’t spread democracy across the globe—and no one asked us to do it in the first place! As most honest brokers understand, al-Qaida (and all radical Islamists) don’t hate us for who we are, but for what we do, which is meddle in the affairs of the Middle East.

Four years ago, I listened to Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention—and here I promise, no exaggeration—and after hearing him, I told Shelley, “This guy will be the first black president.” It is increasingly looking like I was right.

What was in that speech were some things I hadn’t heard from any politician before… seemingly genuine talk of faith, genuine talk of an America that didn’t want to hear about hot-button issues, but who shared more than they disagreed on… the signature mood of “Hope” (has he trademarked that word yet?) was there on display.

Once Obama is president—and that’s not a sure thing, by any means—I will be as critical of him as I have been of pretty much every politician I’ve ever heard. One thing I know is that politicians are flawed just as politics are flawed, and the American people are often not well served by either party.

But what it ultimately comes down to, to me, is the war. I don’t support it because it wasn’t right; I don’t support it because it was far from necessary. Saddam was a bad guy—but there are 50 others the world over, in Sudan and Shanghai and Minsk and Moscow. This war has destroyed our credibility, left thousands of our troops (and tens of thousands of Iraqis, if you care) dead, obliterated our nation’s wallet and left us digging deeper and deeper into debt with China, a nation we should truly be scared of in this new cold war—waged with economic weapons.

I don’t know that I want nationalized health care… but my company’s plan isn’t so hot. I don’t know that government should force carmakers to make what they want… but I do know $4 a gallon for stuff we rely on our “enemies” for isn’t working. I don’t know what Obama’s education cabinet or health cabinet will look like… but I’m frightened of a hothead like McCain, who (it’s been widely reported) rips the heads off of those who disagree with him. Our country’s had enough of a president that “goes with his gut”—I think we’re ready to elect someone who will surround himself with intelligent people, not ideologues, and then listen to those people. (This is how most presidents govern—Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, all surrounded themselves with experts, not ideologues.)

If I were to stand on principle, I’d probably vote Libertarian. Their party stances, though far from perfect, are far closer to my own than either Democratic or Republican platforms. But this is not a time for hollow principle… this is, in my judgment, a time for pragmatism. And my pragmatic side tells me that, hands down, in THIS MOMENT, an Obama presidency (as contrasted with a McCain presidency) is the best choice we have. My vote may not make a difference; of all 50-some primaries, Obama got by far the fewest votes in Kentucky (carried only two counties, and got mere double-digit individual vote totals in many in the eastern part of the state), so I’m pretty sure McCain’s a lock for our electoral votes. But maybe this post will raise some questions, not only on who to vote for, but on what exactly voting is meant to accomplish in the first place.

So we (myself and two of my friends/emps) just got done watching “Black Gold”, a documentary about Ethiopian coffee farmers, the prices they get paid for coffee, and how those prices affect their lives. I can’t really distill the movie, but I’ll share a few of the salient points, along with my reactions.

“How much do you think they pay for a cup of your coffee?” This question is posed, at the beginning of the film, to a group of coffee farmers from a man named Tadesse, who runs the coffee co-op which sells all the coffee these farmers produce. They react with absolute astonishment when he tells them that a cup of coffee is about $2.50 (I’m assuming he meant in New York or L.A.), whereas it sells there in their community for about 15 cents.

“We pray, oh God, that you would raise the price of coffee!” These words are spoken in earnest, by Christian men who grow coffee for their livelihood. The coffee market took a dive about 10 years ago — and Africa has been suffering ever since. Some men try to battle through it, continuing to grow the coffee and hoping that their luck changes. Tadesse, for his part, travels the world, attempt to sidestep the “coffee market,” which (like the stock market) determines every day how much the big corporations (Kraft, Starbucks, Nestle, Sara Lee) will pay for their coffee. He explains that these companies are only the last link in a chain with about six or seven stops, the price increasing (or decreasing, depending how you look at it) at each link. He makes deals with independent roasters, selling his co-op’s coffee directly to them. This means something like a tenfold increase in the price that can be paid to the farmers themselves — men who are using the profits not to build houses or buy cars, but pool the profits in order to build A school for A community.

“We are more interested in trade than in aid.” The film also shows a massive, U.S.-owned plant in Africa which bundles grain, which is then given to the African people as humanitarian aid. Yet they are not looking for this aid; rather, they want to see fair prices for their products. The contrast, though, is startling: We give billions in aid every year to the Third World, and at the same time we negotiate at the World Trade Organization to keep prices low. This is shown as well: African delegations essentially being shut out of the trading process, getting no voice whatsoever over what they will be paid for their products.

I took a few pots of Ethiopian Harrar — quite possibly made from bea grown by those in the film — and it struck me that I’m selling something precious. The coffee is grown by these people, it’s picked by hand, sorted by hand, washed by hand, bagged by hand… then it’s shipped to Nashville (yes, I work with a roaster who buys directly from the co-op), roasted when I order it, and shipped to me the next day. And what do I do with it? I throw it around, I grind and brew and don’t even think about how many people are truly affected by this thing that, ultimately, I am selling to people who do not appreciate their work. They don’t KNOW the work… hell, it’s hard enough for me to remember.

Where’s the balance? How do I explain to people the importance of fair-trade coffee, without sounding like a zealot or bleeding-heart liberal or whatnot? How do I explain why Starbucks is a shameful place, when they give their employees such good benefits? How their “fair trade principles” mean only that they buy 1-2 percent of their coffee fair-trade, so that they can use it as a label and make yuppy consumers feel better about what they’re buying, which is mostly NOT fair-trade? How do I not sound like a prick, seriously?

My heart was touched, at least, by the fact that many of these people are Christians, brothers and sisters of the Almighty that I worship… they’re not nameless, faceless people, but images of God as I am an image of God. And for that reason, I can’t sit idly by and let fellow Christians live in ignorance, going off the assumption that it’s JUST a cup of coffee. There’s a holy God who watches over these people, and through ignorance we do them a great disservice — no, an INJUSTICE — by allowing ourselves to walk through life, drinking Maxwell House or Millstone or Starbucks or whatever, simply because it costs us $9 a lb. with our Kroger Plus card instead of $12 a pound at our fair-trade coffee retailer. And this is not about me… I doubt I will ever make a significant income from coffee. But I do intend to make some sort of a difference, from this day forward, on behalf of Jesus Christ, who died for me, for you — and just as much, for Tadesse and all his farmers.

NEW INFO: I had guessed it already, but I can now confirm that the Ethiopian coffees I serve are from Tadesse’s co-op… which means we were drinking coffee from the very farms featured in the film! Pretty cool.

You should read this. You should make your parents, your siblings, your spouse and your pastor read this. Then you should print it out, stick it in your wallet, and read it again next year, when things really start heating up.

— Justin

People Before Prophets
We’re making too much of politicians’ religious faith.

By Peggy Noonan (taken from Opinion Journal)

I was talking with an old friend, a longtime Democrat, and she asked if I knew what religion a certain presidential candidate was. I replied that I didn’t know and hoped I’d never find out. We started to laugh, and she nodded.

I didn’t mean it and yet I meant it, for we have come to an odd pass regarding candidates and their faith. It’s not as if faith is unimportant, it’s always important. But we are asking our political figures–mere flawed politicians–to put forward and talk about their faith to a degree that has become odd. We push them against the wall and do a kind of theological frisk on them. We didn’t use to.

Forty years ago, a firm-jawed, silver-haired Michigan governor made a serious bid for the presidency. He was well-funded, well-credentialed, and was done in by one of those campaign gaffes in which a throwaway line becomes a death knell. He had changed his position on Vietnam, and in explaining his previous support said he’d been “brainwashed” on the issue. Americans don’t like their presidents to be people who’d allow their brains to be sent to the dry cleaners. Republicans in particular were not amused. So he was over.

His name was George Romney. He was Mitt’s father. And no one back in those narrow-minded, benighted days seems to have cared that much that he was a Mormon.

Now it’s an issue. Now we debate the candidate’s faith.

This is change. Is it progress?

It doesn’t feel like it.

In 1968 we were, as now, a religious country. But when we walked to the polls, we thought we were about to hire a president, not a Bible study teacher.

No one cared, really, that Richard Nixon was a Quaker. They may have been confused by it, but they weren’t upset. His vice president, Spiro Agnew, was not Greek Orthodox but Episcopalian. Nobody much noticed. Nelson Rockefeller of New York was not an Episcopalian but a Baptist. Do you know what Lyndon Johnson’s religion was? He was a member of the Disciples of Christ, but in what appeared to be the same way he was a member of the American Legion: You’re in politics, you join things. Hubert Humphrey was born Lutheran, attended Methodist churches, and was rumored to be a Congregationalist. This didn’t quite reach the level of mystery because nobody quite cared.

It is true that everyone knew Jimmy Carter was an evangelical Christian, but that was famous because they were a new and rising force in American politics in 1976, and after Watergate his immersion in faith seemed refreshing. He was a Southern Baptist who left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000 after many arguments, including over whether Mormons were Christians. He said yes. No one knows what religion Jerry Ford was and, just to add some mystery, I’m not going to go to Ask.com about it, as I did with the others. Ford didn’t publicly share his heart on these matters. He was of a generation that knew some things are actually, we should brace ourselves here, private. Ronald Reagan was Presbyterian, but his faith was both ardent and lightly held. He prayed a lot, and when he did he knew who was listening. But he was so unused to the normal ways of Christian service that, Mike Deaver once told me, he once happily dipped the bread in the wine as communion was passed. America cared that Jack Kennedy was Catholic, for a while. We’d never had a Catholic president, and only one Catholic major-party presidential nominee before him, Democrat Al Smith in 1928. But Smith was rather too exotic in a number of ways, with his New York accent and his ward-heeler air. He was a great man, but a city boy in a small-town nation.

Kennedy–urbane, sophisticated, taught by Harold Laski at the London School of Economics–made the most of his problem, giving a great speech that put his foes on the defensive.

But it is an odd thing that as a nation we seemed more liberal on these issues then than today. I think of JFK hearing that Martin Luther King Jr.’s father said he wouldn’t vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic. Kennedy is reported to have said, “Imagine Martin Luther King’s father being a bigot!” Then, being Jack Kennedy, he detached and said philosophically, “But then we all have our fathers.”

Bill Clinton was a Southern Baptist. No one gave much thought to what Bush One was, including, perhaps, Bush One, until he was older. But he’d been raised among “the frozen chosen,” which is how some denominations used to refer teasingly to Episcopalians.

His son, George W. Bush, became president a few years after an intense Christian conversion that was by all accounts transforming. In the way of many recent converts, in the great whoosh of feeling they often experience, his presidency came to take much of its shape from a certain emotionalism. Certainly there were around him a number of transported spirits, and pious connivers.

There are some people who believe faith doesn’t belong in politics. But it does, and it is there inextricably. The antislavery movement, the temperance movement, the civil rights movement, the antiabortion movement, all were political movements animated in large part by religious feeling. It’s not that it doesn’t matter. You bring your whole self into the polling booth, including your faith and your sense of right and wrong, good and bad, just as presidents bring their whole selves into the Oval Office. I can’t imagine how a president could do his job without faith. But faith is also personal. You can be touched by a candidate’s faith, or interested in his apparent lack of it. It’s never wholly unimportant, but you should never see a politician as a leader of faith, and we should not ask a man who made his rise in the grubby world of politics to act as if he is an exemplar of his faith, or an explainer or defender of it

We have the emphasis wrong. It’s out of kilter. And the result is a Mitt Romney being harassed on radio shows about the particulars of his faith, and Hillary Clinton–a new-class yuppie attorney and board member–announcing how important her Methodist faith is and how much she loves wearing her diamond cross. For all I know, for all you know, it is true. But there is about it an air of patronizing the rubes and boobs.

We should lighten up on demanding access to their hearts. It is impossible for us to know their hearts. It’s barely possible to know your own. Faith is important but it’s also personal. When we force political figures to tell us their deepest thoughts on it, they’ll be tempted to act, to pretend. Do politicians tend to give in to temptation? Most people do. Are politicians better than most people? Quick, a show of hands. I don’t think so either.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of “John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father” (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.

Check out this really interesting exchange, which is ostensibly about baseball but in fact about much much more.