Why the Mighty Have Fallen: A Sequel

Last September, I was reading through the book of Job and wrote a couple of blog posts based off the lessons that my reading of the book brought me through. One of them expressed a little on how the mighty man named Job, who was "a perfect and upright man, one who feareth God and escheweth evil," fell from grace to the point of accusing God of prying into his life.

While I decently well articulated some of the ways in which Job fell from grace as it were, I spent no time explaining specifically why Job struggled with this suffering. Job was a pure man, why when suffering came, did he suddenly fall into disarray? 

The opening dialogue between Satan and God probably provides us our answer. In this dialogue, we hear God proclaim the purity of Job. To respond, Satan doesn't deny Job's character - that apparently is undeniable. Instead, he asks God a simple question, 

"Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face."

Apparently, Satan is convinced that Job serves the Lord for the material gain and blessings that the Lord places upon him, rather than for the relationship itself. In other words, Satan is convinced that Job is more interested in serving Gd as a matter of a sort of economic contract - Job serves God, God serves Job - than out of a pure and true relationship or love for God.

Satan is convinced that Job loves God because Job loves Job, because Job receives a benefit.

So how would you test Satan's theory? That would be the entire book of Job, where Satan is given the opportunity to take away the "hedge" that the Lord had made around him. That indeed is what we see Satan suggesting in the passage quoted above.

So why did Job fall? It would appear obvious from the very first chapter that the book is testing Job's motivations. If Job fails that test (and he eventually does), that's probably an indication that his motivations were not where they should have been.

Which then leads to the all-important question - why do you love God? Because of your own gain, or because of God? Do you have a relationship or do you have an economic contract? Why do you serve the Lord today?

"Christianizing" Patriotism: Why it Trivializes Both

Some of you who have followed this blog for a little while may have wondered why on Friday my post didn't have to do with Independence Day. After all, I have in the past, had a Thanksgiving post, a Christmas post, a New Year's Post, a Valentine's Day Post, an Easter post, and a Memorial Day post. Obviously, Independence Day is as important and worthwhile a holiday as most of those.

So why the sudden lack of post for Independence Day? Quite frankly, it was because this holiday came on par with a devotional post. I didn't want to replace a devotional post with a political one.

One is sure to then wonder again why I didn't just write a devotional post that branched into freedom of some sort. Now it is easy to find practical lessons in the Bible about love, thanksgiving, and specific Biblical events of the life of Jesus (that last one is particularly easy).

However, I believe that working in this manner to present both Christianity and patriotism within the same blog post would trivialize one or both of the two concepts.

Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing contrary in these two concepts. Christians in my mind have a duty to be patriotic and support their nation, just as they have a duty to worship the Lord. However, combining these two duties within the same ceremony may not be the best idea in the world.

In churches across America over the prior two Sundays, church congregations have been met with special patriotic services endowed with patriotic songs, pledges to the flag, and perhaps the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Now here's my crazy, perhaps radical feeling. Church is a place where we come to worship God. We come to church to fellowship with other believers, hear from God's word, and praise Him for what He has done. We do not go to church in order to exalt our nation.

I believe that it is outside the purpose of a church service to spend all of our time focusing on what God has done for us by blessing us with living in this fine country. A patriotic song or two, maybe even a short spiel before the sermon would be entirely appropriate, since our country is a blessing from God that we can take time to thank Him for.

But that should be the end of it within the context of a church service; we must remember that our goal is to praise God and focusing solely on the patriotic spirit will cause us to lose that objective in our church service. Instead I think a church-wide picnic would be more suitable for cultivating the patriotic spirit of the church.

So even on the Sundays around patriotic holidays focus on the Lord. Within the context of the church, we must ensure that patriotism is just another way of expressing our blessings.

But outside the church service, I feel we Christians have an opposite problem. In that particular avenue, when we come together to respect our nation, we try to be sure to add God and Christianity onto our patriotic traditions. A great example of this is the Pledge to the Christian Flag.

In a given patriotic ceremony, Christians will start off by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Immediately thereafter Pledge to Christian Flag and the Pledge to the Bible will be recited. The first priority always goes to the American flag, making the Christian Flag and the Bible lower in importance than the American flag and thus nothing more than add-ons.

But the Lord should never ever be an add-on. That is degrading to the Creator of the universe. We need not take a action and force some explicit Christian teaching onto the end to make it more worthwhile. Patriotism is a duty we have as Christians, an implicit service to the Lord.

Attempting to make that service explicit indicates to all that patriotism isn't a noble enough cause to stand on its own. Thus, we unintentionally trivialize both patriotism and God within the same fell swoop.

All these actions do come from the right heart, but methinks that these traditions are just a bit degrading to the principles of God and patriotism. That is why I didn't write a post for Independence Day.

I hope that you enjoyed celebrating our Founders' rebellion against tyrannical laws by setting off some fireworks in rebellion against authoritarian laws (or maybe you might be lucky enough to live in a state where such rebellion is not necessary). Let freedom ring! "Murca!

Reexamining the Water Hose: Why Obedience May Not Please the Lord

In Christian churches today, we often hear an emphasis that our actions need to be pleasing to the Lord. We are told that we need to obey the Lord in all that He says, no matter the consequences, and the Lord will be satisfied with our works.

Only that's not entirely accurate. You see, obeying the Lord is only one half of pleasing the Lord. As you can see in a study of the book of Haggai, obedience at great risk means nothing if we don't also have the proper heart.

Remember the analogy I mentioned in Doctrines of the Christian Faith 3: Nature of Man,

"Imagine a water hose. When you turn on the water, water flows through that water hose. If you put clean water through a dirty water hose, the water is not going to come out clean. Rather all the impurities and filth of the hose are going to pass into the water.

Similarly, in our everyday life, the good works we do are contaminated because they have to pass through us, our dirty water hose."

Our hearts are the water hoses through which all our actions must pass through. The nature of our heart is adequate to change our actions from good to bad and from pleasing the Lord to displeasing the Lord.

Thus, we must make sure our hearts are focused upon the Lord. As aforementioned, in Haggai, the children of Israel err in this particular way.

Here's the background: the children of Israel have been in captivity for seventy years, but the Lord has recently granted them the grace to go repair His temple.

But the king of Persia has been misled regarding their intentions in this rask. Due to this, he forbids them from completing their work.

At this time, instead of continuing to obey the commandment of the Lord, the Israelites obey the earthly king.

Now let's not jump to judge them here. After all, this was their easiest option. Being in the king's good graces can always come in handy, and they don't have to wonder when the axe will fall on their heads. At least not from that king anyway.

The Israelites turn their attention from the Lord and from his house, and direct it to their own homes, neglecting the house of God.

That's where the book of Haggai begins. Because of the neglect of the temple, the Lord has withheld his blessings from the Israelites. Indeed, Haggai 1 explains,

"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying,... Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house."

The Lord has been gracious again to send Haggai to rebuke the people and bring them back to obedience. Make no mistake -  obeying THE King meant directly disobeying the Persian king. This could have brought any number of punishments onto the Jewish people. The Lord was requiring of them quite a big risk.

Yet when the Israelites resume their work on the temple, the Lord was not pleased with their actions and with their sacrifice.

Yes, they are obeying the Lord, but throughout this time of outward obedience, the Israelites never turned back their hearts to the Lord.  As Haggai 2:11-14 indicates,

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean."

The Lord uses this analogy of Levitical law to indicate that the heart's unclean nature makes the work unclean. Because they turned not to the Lord, the Lord's blessings are still being withheld, and their works are not pleasing to the Lord.

In our Christian walks then, we must be careful not to just attack the visible effects of a sinful heart. Showing outward obedience may make us look good to other Christians, but it ultimately may not please the Lord.

At any rate, it alone is insufficient. The Lord doesn't want begrudging servants to His calling, He wants willing servants, with a desire to serve Him with their efforts. It's not enough that their efforts may align for that particular time. The water hose affects the water, my friend.

Theme Beyond the Screen: Captain America: Winter Soldier

Movies. They are great entertainment and can give friends and strangers alike something to converse about. But movies are probably most intriguing for their subtle (and not so subtle) teachings about people, life, God, or politics.

Today, I would like to examine and really explain the themes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

I will admit that comic book movies don't usually make a stand on anything at all. Thus, when this installment in the Marvel Universe established the theme of liberty's importance, it naturally made me pretty excited (even more so than I was just by the fact that it was, you know, Captain America).

In the movie, Captain America finds himself working for S.H.I.E.L.D., a bureaucracy which he believes has too much power and is veiled in too much secrecy. His main problem with this is not that it is inherently bad, but just that he refuses to trust a bureaucracy so large.

Director (of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Fury of course wants to calm his fears about S.H.I.E.L.D., but instead of trying to persuade him that S.H.I.E.L.D. does not endanger liberty, he argues that the slight infringement of liberty is necessary to protect security.

He even goes so far as to show Captain America three highly weaponized helicarriers to demonstrate how they can "Neutralize threats before they even happen."

Captain America responds (all of this is before the Winter Soldier is introduced in case you were wondering),

"I thought the punishment usually came after the crime...This isn't freedom; this is fear."  

Benjamin Franklin would approve of Captain America's sentiment. Remember this popular quotation,

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

For the movie, it will turn out that both of these men would be right. During circumstances in the movies that I would rather not spoil for my wonderful readers, the "Bad guys" get a hold of these deadly weapons. The rest of the movie is centered on how to prevent them from using them.

But the bad guys want to absolutely destroy freedom because they believe that freedom is inherently self-destructive. You see, man just can't be trusted with his own freedom, and thus, he needs to be told what to do.

It's a generic and cliche motivation for a villain, but there is a reason for that. It's an argument that has been around for a while and that many intelligent people have fallen prey into believing. Unfortunately, the argument fails for a simple reason. If we can't trust men with their own lives, how are we to trust the same men with the lives of others.

This is what the bad guys show us in their entire scheme. Their means to international security and peace are heinous at best. Trusting them with the power of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not wise at all.

But the Captain makes the case that trusting S.H.I.E.L.D. with its own power is also not very wise. He believes that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to govern the lives of others just as much as the bad guys do. Though they may still argue for freedom, they have forgotten what that actually looks like in their pursuit of security and interstellar peace.

Captain America sees no real difference between the tactics of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the tactics of the bad guys except whom is targeted. He does not believe that we should trust any bureaucracy with that power.

In fact, at a crucial point, S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to simply regain their own access to their deadly weapons, instead of destroying them. But Captain America refuses to stand for that!

He understands that we have to prepare for government at its worst, not at its best. Not just because that power can be commandeered by those with evil motivations, but because all men can make mistakes, or be corrupted by the seductiveness of power.

Captain America understands that liberty is important and must be protected by limiting the power of the government entirely. We must be careful not to surrender too much power and give away too much liberty to our government in hopes of security.

This may seem costly, but as the Captain says in a really cheesy, yet incredibly awesome monologue:

"The price of freedom is high, but it's a price I'm willing to pay." 

Sanctions a Beneficial Policy Tool?

Are sanctions a beneficial policy tool?

Before we start answering that question, let us remind ourselves that according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, sanctions are defined as,

"An action that is taken or an order that is given to force a country to obey international laws by limiting or stopping trade with that country, by not allowing economic aid for that country, etc."

So now to answer the question. Should sanctions be used to push the United States agenda? Are you ready for this? Ok here you go.

Sanctions don't work.

Simply put, sanctions are not an effective tool in foreign policy. Today, I would like to highlight five reasons why United States sanctions are doomed to fail.

1. It's a global market.
United States sanctions are supposed to punish the economy of the target nation by revoking them access to the United States economy. Our politicians apparently believe that the United States economy is so important that losing access to our economy alone will substantially hurt the economy of the sanctioned nation. 

While it is true that the United States economy is strong, countries can still survive just fine without goods from the United States. Indeed, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, only 8.5% of the world's exports came from the United States in 2010.

I think it's safe to say that the targeted country will manage to find a way to get by with the 91.5% of world exports they can receive from other countries. (US imports in case you were wondering are only slightly higher at 12.3%.)

2. Sanctions hurt the economy of the United States.
Oh, and did I mention that sanctions prevent the United States companies from freely trading with the target nations? Yes, indeed, the target nations find other suppliers from countries, like Canada, China, England, or Russia, but the United States businesses are still deprived of a trading partner.

We should heed the words of Dr. C. Fred Bergsten, founder of The Peterson Institute for International Economics, in 1998, when,

"We lose exports...on the order of at least $15 billion to $20 billion per year as a result of our own sanctions against other countries. Those results are probably greatly understated because, over the long term, we acquire the reputation of being an unreliable supplier...Those are big losses to the American economy, probably on the order of a quarter of a million high-paying jobs a year... Those are losses that are highly discriminatory... because they hit companies and workers who just happen to sell to countries that we don’t like that year. In short, a cost-benefit analysis suggests that sanctions are one of the worst foreign policy tools we have."

3. They tend to punish the people of the country, rather than those responsible.
But let's just take a step back for a second and assume incorrectly that sanctions actually achieve their objective -  they actually hurt the target nation. That's great, right? Not exactly.

Sanctions try to coerce nations to our will by limiting trade between the two countries. But think just for a minute about your country's commerce. Who trades with other nations? It's not a government to government deal. No, trade generally happens between one private citizen to another, or from one private business to another.

But the people within these countries are not responsible for the actions of their government! Nor is there any guarantee that the government of this nation will care about the suffering of the people. All we've managed to do thus far is harm the people of the target nation (and our own) all for naught, as the government keeps going on its merry way. As Professor Charles A. Rarick says in 2007,

"Economic sanctions deprive the people of the sanctioned country their basic right to a better standard of living."

4. Rally around the flag.
But it gets worse. Not only do sanctions have only a negligible negative impact on the government, sanctions generally strengthen the position of the government. To see why, simply picture some siblings.

Siblings are not necessarily always friendly with one another. They fight. In extreme circumstances, they can even go through entire months where they don't speak to one another. But as soon as you attack one sibling, you better expect the wrath of the rest. All prior anger, all grudges, and all tension between the siblings disappears when one is confronted.

This same principle applies to countries as well. Citizens may not like the actions of their political leaders, but as soon as you attack them, patriotism takes over, and the citizens suddenly are avid supporters of their government. This phenomena is called the "Rally around the flag."

In addition, sanctions provide a convenient scapegoat to dictators for the poverty of the people. Kim Jong-Un can shrug off his oppression of the North Koreans, as he can just blame the United States sanctions. I seriously think that anti-US propaganda is already strong enough in countries like Cuba and North Korea that we really shouldn't be giving them any legitimate grievances.

But sanctions do just that. Ivan Eland, Ph.D. explains in 2006,

"Also undermining the achievement of sanctions’ political goals is the 'rally around the flag' effect. When attacked, either militarily or economically, by a foreign power, the populace of a country usually rallies around the existing leader—no matter how odious he or she may be. Fidel Castro, despite the disastrous consequences of his centralization of the Cuban economy, has been able to blame poverty and economic stagnation on the coercive economic measures imposed by his powerful northern neighbor. In other words, the Cuban people likely would have thrown out Castro long ago if the United States hadn’t declared him 'enemy number one.'"

5. Sanctions make us feel like we're doing something to help.
But it is understandable why we would like sanctions. Sometimes, we see problems in the world that we feel need to be addressed, but we know that it would be unwise to intervene militarily in those areas. We view sanctions as an opportunity to do something. To make a difference in the world.

But our intentions and hopes just don't match with reality. We feel good that we've helped these people in their crisis, but we haven't. As the aforementioned article from Charles A. Rarick notes, sanctions at best succeed only 20% of the time. They simply are not effective tools in foreign policy.

But we keep using them. But it's all for naught. Or maybe it's all for us. Either way, we need to admit that sanctions just don't work.

A Bailout by Any Other Name

I love Rand Paul. His beliefs entirely embody mine in many ways. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether I was dreaming up this perfect politician, but that is no longer a concern (not that I still don't like him, just that now I know he's not perfect).

Last week, Rand Paul unveiled his "free market" solution for a Detroit recovery. His plan entails that Detroit (and other "struggling" cities) will be given "Economic freedom zones," where the federal government will end interference in local economies, specifically mentioning a decrease in federal corporate income taxes. The idea is to attract companies back into Detroit to boost its economy. It is presented as a more free market approach than a direct bailout. Although it is definitely more likely to be beneficial in Detroit than a traditional bailout, its linkage to the free market is questionable.

Bailouts are considered wrong because they distort the market by redistributing wealth as a form of charity. (For information as to why redistribution is wrong, I recommend Davy Crockett's "Not Yours to Give.") These tax cuts do the exact same thing, just with a disguise. Rather than being bestowed money by the federal government, you get to simply keep money that you normally would be required to give to the federal government.

This wouldn't be a problem (and in fact would be quite advantageous) if it was an across the board cut for all cities, but as it stands in the proposal to cut taxes only for struggling cities, it is nothing more than taking money from one city and handing it to another. (Yes, I understand we're talking about corporate income taxes here, but these companies are being diverted from investing in other cities. Thus, the point stands that money is being redirected.)

Using the tax system to redistribute funds is nothing new. For about 100 years, America has used the progressive income tax to redistribute wealth from person to person. Now, politicians want to use our tax system to redistribute income from city to city.

Worse than just being a bailout, Senator Paul's proposal saves struggling economies at the expense of other cities - cities that might not be much better off than the city being saved. This is not a free market solution; it is a distortion of the market that has the possibility of harming more economies than it could ever save.

Despite Mr. Paul's good intentions, this proposal seems destined for disaster should it be passed. It is one stumbling block on an otherwise spotless record for Senator Rand Paul.