This sums up everything that’s wrong with my Facebook feed today. Love him or hate him, I’m just tired of having my news feed clogged with stuff about Trump.
A Jesus Follower Encounters a Pro-Abortion Feminist
I had an interesting conversation with a feminist abortion advocate last night.
The thing that impressed me about her pro-abortion post that I landed on was that she expressed her views and opinions without all the rage and emotion that I’ve grown to expect when folks talk about the subject. I wasn’t going to leave a comment because I figured she didn’t really want to hear an opposing view and I wasn’t interested in a debate on the subject. But for some reason I decided to comment anyway and I tried to gently point out one aspect of her position that she might give more consideration.
She came back with a reasoned response that made it clear that she did give my idea genuine thought after she expressed a little surprise that someone of my persuasion didn’t simply just attempt tear her to shreds.
Normally when I have a noteworthy blog encounter I put up a link to the other person’s blog, even when we disagree. However in this case I don’t think she’d much appreciate me sending over a bunch of my pro-life friends. So you’ll have to forgive me for not posting a link to our conversation.
What’s my point?
My point is that even in a supremely emotionally charged issue such as abortion it is possible for folks with radically differing views to have a dialogue without attacking each other personally and the conversation devolving into rage.
Too often we seem to insist on proving that we are right and that those with differing views are wrong. We don’t respect other people enough to simply present information and give them the dignity to come to their own conclusions.
Where did we get that approach from?
I don’t see Jesus attacking people personally like we tend to. Sure there were some groups that he didn’t have very flattering things to say about. But even when they came at him trying to lay word traps for him he never directly attacked the person who attempted the trap. Instead he confronted some of their ideas and beliefs.
That’s a huge difference.
We would do much better if we listened to the words of Proverbs and put them into practice.
- A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger.
- The wise person makes learning a joy; fools spout only foolishness.
- The LORD is watching everywhere, keeping his eye on both the evil and the good.
- Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
Too often instead, in our need to be right, we end up screaming in someone’s face like the picture above. It’s not working for us. Maybe then we should change our approach.
Declaration of Independence:
Great Men with Great Ideals
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
These are the words that close out the Declaration of Independence. The men who signed the document that paved the way for our nation knew the possible consequences of their actions.
John Hancock encouraged his fellow delegates to hang together in their task of signing. To which the Benjamin Franklin, in all his wit and wisdom gave his famous reply, “We must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately.”
Years later Benjamin Rush remembered how incredibly serious the moment was, as well as the gallows humor these great men expressed in a letter to John Adams.
Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at the time to be our death warrants? The silence and the gloom of the morning were interrupted, I well recollect, only for a moment by Colonel Harrison of Virginia, who said to Mr. Gerry at the table; “I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air for an hour or two before you are dead.” This speech produced a transient smile, but was soon succeeded by the solemnity with which the whole business was concluded.
There is some debate as to how much the signers actually suffered during the war with the British that resulted from their signing. There is no doubt, however that several of the men did endure hardships because of their convictions.
John Adams had a firm belief in the rightness of the cause and its ultimate victory. He also had an incredibly clear vision of the importance of the day. The very next day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted he wrote his wife and told her about the future of the day.
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
The bottom line is that the course of events was far from certain on that hot July day in Philadelphia. Yet these great men went forward anyway with the force of their convictions in spite of the risks.
And in what was perhaps one of the greatest coincidences of history on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, both Thomas Jefferson (its author) and John Adams (arguably its leading advocate) died on the same day. Adams was 91 when he died that evening. His last words were, “Jefferson still survives.” He was unaware that Jefferson himself was gravely ill and had passed away earlier that afternoon at 83 years old.
There is definitely a Divine Symmetry to the events surrounding this historic document. Folks can argue the place of the US in modern history and the pros and cons of current foreign policy. But few would dispute the revolutionary ideals put forth in the Declaration of Independence or the passion and determination of the men who signed that amazing document.
Enjoy today. Celebrate in the manner Adams envisioned. Honor those who sacrificed and went before.
For a short summary of the signers, what kind of people they were and what happened to them check out this article. And you can find short biographies of each of the signers here.
Friday Free-For-All Manufacturing the News
Bruce Thornton wrote a good piece yesterday on Victor David Hanson’s web site called Sobriety Lost: How our newspapers create opinion and then report it.
In it he starts with an analogy.
Imagine that you started receiving letters in the mail accusing your neighbor of being a child molester. Occasionally you receive photographs or even a video showing the neighbor with a child on his lap or dressed up like a clown at a children’s party. After a couple of weeks of this, someone then phones you to ask if you think your neighbor is a pedophile. What percentage of us do you think would say yes?
His view is that this is exactly how the major news organizations manufacture news again and again. His point is not so much that the news outlets make up facts to report (although sometimes they do resort to that) but rather that they latch onto facts that support an opinion that they agree on and report them over and over.
Then, after people have been bombarded with these facts for a while, they take a poll, the results of which become the BIG STORY. Then they yell, “See, See, even the people agree with us!”
Because the news media so rarely explores the facts behind the events that make up the reported news, he proposes that they effectively manufacture the news.
It sounds like a twist on that quote that is usually attributed to Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. Only today’s version is, if you repeat an opinion loud enough and often enough people will believe it is fact.
I think he makes an interesting point. But that’s just my opinion.
