Identity Crisis

This is a long post. Sorry, but the topic is a bit complicated. Thanks for tuning in.

One thing that the 2016 US Presidential Election has shown the world is that Americans are having an identity crisis. Shall I narrow this? Nominal American Christians (70%) are having notable identity crisis. Shall I go further? Evangelical, born again leaders and laity (30%) are having a shattering identity crisis.

Jesus Christ told his followers to make learners wherever they went. He gave them a message that turned the Roman world upside down a few short years after his death and resurrection, supplanting the lucrative market place pantheon of demi-gods with flesh and blood, still living, community benefiting saints.

What were some key principles that accomplished this?

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,”

was enlarged with

“…call to remembrance the former days, in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions…made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions…took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”

Early Christians invested in local community with abandon and grace, not demanding a reward from their fellows, but being confident of a reward in the after life. This was a tactic that was irrepressible by their foes.

Centuries later, a church whose identity had shifted into empire, not charitable holiness, was turned upside down by reformers, who again made learners of the serfs and tradesmen that bishops and princes had used and discarded like face tissues. The reformers got down and dirty with “sinners” like Jesus did.

Leading reformers searched the Holy Bible for clues on successful governance and market place ideology. A stream of Biblically sifted public polity insights from the Hugenots in France, to the dissenters in England and Scotland, to the Pilgrims and Puritans in America, led through town hall governance to the Old World Order defying American Revolution and Constitution.

These past Christian pioneers in governance, over centuries, faced down tremendous opposition, even amid death of many of their number. In the Anglosphere—England, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, even India, the fruits of Christian governance multiplied. At the same time, as Christians indulged themselves, increasingly giving up on earning and saving to give, [aka John Wesley], progressive dons stepped into the void, and the socialist seeds of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Darwin and Sangor spread quickly in fertile soil.

Fast forward to today. Have you tracked the 2016 national evangelical debate over #NeverTrump? Have you have seen the parade of conservative and evangelical media, church, business and educational leaders who are staggering and roaring and moaning and sweating in the tug-o-war over a “binary choice” vs a third candidate protest vote?

The “elephant in the room” is that Christian “salt” has lost its influence on America. Whether by external, strategic anti Christian driven activism in the last 200 years (Mann, Dewey, Dawkins), or by internal supplanting of the sacrificial cross life by materialism and hedonism (Presley, Bakker, Driscoll, Sproul Jr., Duggar Jr.), Christians seem to be suddenly discovering their values are mocked and they are targeted for silencing, with fewer and fewer predictable political champions for Christian concerns.

As long as there was an “evil” political opponent, the nagging question of failing larger influence was quenched by short term, feel good, united posturing in political campaigns for “prosperity”, best seen in races against socialist, tax and spend candidates with Leninist/Frankfurt Marxist ideologies, or Wilsonian quasi-Christian progressive bona fides.

The current reality of two morally bankrupt candidates for president, exacerbated by media “reality show” news bombs in the last weeks of the presidential campaign has prompted many evangelical leaders to begin to jump from their burning ivory towers.

These “thought leaders” do not want to walk the gauntlet of government with morally “failed” leaders. Rather than scrutinize the failed “saltiness” of their own systematic theologies and denominational orthopraxies, as seen in lost influence in media and public educational venues, they plan to go AWOL from voting. They appear to hope that washing their hands of Trump and/or Clinton, will convince others they cannot be associated with any part of what has or is to come.

Why are Christian thought leaders now in meltdown over Donald Trump? Did not Jesus tell his disciples to find the “worthy” man (a locally recognized leader) in each village and bring help and blessings to that village? Was not Jesus’ test for involvement with secular leaders their openness to receiving help, and not their prior virtue?

Did not the patron apostle of Reformed Soteriology, Paul, say that the first communal priority of any church was prayers for holders of public office? And included in those prayers were even governors where power came often by corruptions of dagger and purse, not observable purity?

Identity drives choices of association. If a Christian identifies with Jesus Christ, with a view of sure reward in the life to come, he or she will not fear loss or shaming in this life, even forced association with one like Donald Trump. Jesus Christ said the soul of man was eternal, but the comforts and shout outs of this life were transitory and should be rated secondary and disposable.

When Christians adore loan and credit ratings, and despise having children by using contraceptives, they have lost their salt. When Christian thought leaders can rave and admire sex and violence laden story plots in Game of Thrones episodes, they have little ground to criticize Clintonesque peddling of influence or Trumpian pimping of fleeting pelvic and pocketbook pleasures.

Christian, what will you do when you wake up the morning after November 8, 2016? Will you roll up your sleeves and seek to influence public policy with grace? Or will you extend your abstention from voting and disappear from the public square for the next four years?

On the local level, will you shut your ears, eyes, and mouth to the skewing of local school board policy because the school board members are all hardened progressive activists and you cannot not find a sympathetic ear?

At the state level, will you refuse to vote for either Republican Washington State Treasurer candidate, because one has received funds from Planned Parenthood, and the other funds from SEIU?

This identity meltdown can only be addressed at the level of personal saltlessness. When our good works as Christians are funded by walking our own capital through hard work and savings and answered prayer to God, rather than prayers to bank loan managers, then we will begin to have an identity with clout.

When our educational guidelines promote wisdom and discard folly, when we can equally accept or disdain the shifting praise of elite educators, businessmen or media stars, even Christian superstar theologians, then we will become at the same time stable local community leaders and radical world change agents.

When we abandon “Beach Boys to Rap pelvic libido culture” in our recreation and youth groups and worship services, then perhaps we will obey the still small voice that builds lasting foundations of peacemaking that over ride human bankruptcy with God’s wisdom and workings.

Until then…the saltless meltdown and identity crisis of conservatives and evangelicals will only continue to grow.

PS:

I voted for Trump.

I voted against the EMS levy.

I voted against I-1501.

Last Tuesday, I took the day to testify in Olympia on solutions to improve the Growth Management Act, where I suggested that that the Growth Management Hearings Board be repopulated with one industry qualified specialist specific to each of the 14 elements. I would further suggest that these positions be elected, not appointed.

I voted for DeWolf, Zempel and Larsen for State Supreme Court. The Hirst v Whatcom County ruling should be a wake up call for all Washington citizens on progressive strongarm takeover tactics. Saul Alinsky is a viper, but so is Mitch McConnell. Property rights is Life 101. In the Bible it comes right after the 10 commandments (Exodus 20-23). Private philanthropy (vs government funding for everything) is Life 201.

In this above list, if Trump is the only thing that you as a Christian or “conservative” can talk knowledgeably about, you need to get out from under your rock. Please don’t lecture me about being judgmental of sinners when these observations above come after six years of quite close involvement in local and state public policy issues.

JK

Power, Fear, and Tough Love

Whatcom County has just had a shift in the balance of power on Whatcom County Council. Two council members, one moderate, and one conservative have been replaced by two new council members, both aligned with the progressive movement. That gives a count of one moderate, one independent, one Democrat old boy, and four progressives.

Now is a good time for a discussion in political organizing. Are you ready? Who is the godfather of the modern progressive movement? What can we expect from his disciples? Will they be pressuring the moderates and independents? Will there be power plays? Yes!!

Consider the following insider insight from David Horowitz, a poster child progressive in the 1960’s and 1970’, former editor of the progressive standard bearer magazine Ramparts, and now hated (by progressives) arch traitor to their progressive movement. Horowitz singles out Saul Alinsky as the intellectual and practical father of the modern progressives, a man who shifted American socialists from trying to mimic the failed Russian regime, to taking a more Machiavellian, Fascist approach to unilateral government rule.

“Instead, Alinsky identified the problem posed by Communism as inflexibility and “dogmatism” and proposed as a solution that radicals should be “political relativists,” that they should take an agnostic view of means and ends. For Alinsky, the revolutionary’s purpose is to undermine the system and then see what happens.

“The Alinsky radical has a single principle - to take power from the Haves and give it to the Have-nots. What this amounts to in practice is a political nihilism - a destructive assault on the established order in the name of the“people” (who, in the fashion common to dictators, are designated as such by the revolutionary elite).

“This is the classic revolutionary formula in which the goal is power for the political vanguard who get to feel good about themselves in the process.”

(pp 5-6 Obama’s Rules for Radicals, David Horowitz, 2009). Horowitz continues a few pages later,

“In 1969, the year that publishers reissued Alinsky’s first book, Reveille for Radicals, a Wellesley undergraduate named Hillary Rodham submitted her 92-page senior thesis on Alinsky’s theories (she interviewed him personally for the project).6 In her conclusion Hillary compared Alinsky to Eugene Debs, Walt Whitman and Martin Luther King.

“The title of Hillary’s thesis was “There Is Only the Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.” In this title she had singled out the single most important Alinsky contribution to the radical cause – his embrace of political nihilism.

“An SDS radical once wrote, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” In other words the cause - whether inner city blacks or women (or coal trains and coal terminals – JK comment) - is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution. That was the all consuming focus of Alinsky and his radicals.

“Guided by Alinsky principles, post-Communist radicals are not idealists but Machiavellians. Their focus is on means rather than ends, and therefore they are not bound by organizational orthodoxies in the way their admired Marxist forebears were.

“Within the framework of their revolutionary agenda, they are flexible and opportunistic and will say anything (and pretend to be anything) to get what they want, which is resources and power.

The following anecdote about Alinsky’s teachings as recounted by The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza nicely illustrates the focus of Alinsky radicalism: “When Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: ‘You want to organize for power!’7

pp 8-9 Obama’s Rules for Radicals, David Horowitz, 2009

Power. How does a society prosper when leaders are obsessed with control? Am I just imagining here? No. Without permission to name persons, all I will say is that within hours of gaining the balance of power, a key progressive leader in Whatcom Wins approached a certain Whatcom County council member and declared the new regime. You may as well accept the progressive agenda, as we progressives have a plan and the power, and will carry it out now, regardless of the political process and rules.

Clawing, grasping power plays. What ever happened to civil debate? What happened to concern for the welfare of opponents? Is there no common ground? After this last election season with the polarizing strategy of the progressives (hit first, hit dirty, solidify an adversarial, mock and gloat dynamic that locks in your people and destroys post election camaraderie with opposition local leaders), and with the "majority" the progressives are claiming, it seems that back room relationships are what will prevail.

I would like to make two points, and will leave the discussion with that.

One. The heart of the king is in the hand of God. There is no power, except that which is established by God. Atheists may claim to rule by their own might or goodness, but then, there are no honest atheists. No man knows everything, even the smartest atheist. He is really an agnostic, feeling his way along like the rest of us.

A consistent “Christian”, who follows “the Book” will discern the fingers of “hand writing on the wall”, putting down one power and raising another. In other words, God has allowed the progressives their majority.  But, can progressives really work with conservatives after their poisonous GOTV campaign? How long will Bellinghamsters cheer for bullies? When will the progressives eat their own? It happens, you know.

Two. Power lies in either fear or love. The fear of coal train traffic in their back yard (which the new County Council cannot stop anyways—the coal will just go to the new terminal going up in Canada) has moved moderates and independents to empower leftist progressives who are promising what they cannot deliver—apart from taking over the BNSF right of way.

Power in love? The Prince of Peace said, “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and despitefully use you”.  

Conservatives are very familiar with the cursing stage. (Wendy Harris, Jean Melious, David Stalheim, ReSources, Futurewise,et. al.) We can still envision success for these people as they learn to be givers to all, not just their ideological buddies.

We have moved into the hating stage.  The Dept of Ecology, Puget Sound Partnership and the Growth Management Hearings Board have made their loves known—tribal aquaculture interventions that will promote hate for farmers, loggers and rural residents. What is doing good here? Speak truth. Return kindness and grace, not revenge. Protect the weak by shining the light on predatorial government.

The field is also set for intensified property rights persecution and the economic abuse stage. (Whatcom County Planning has been relentless in trying to insert groundwater management rules to enable planners to deny new wells any where in the county. Futurewise and ReSources are poised to regain the influence they lost four years ago. EPA and other grant monies continue to flow to community organizers to “help us gain consensus” in local resource management. (E.g. $300,000 for floodwater control stakeholder consensus facilitating).

Pray? Ask for interventions that will heal these people? Yes. Do it. And watch out for the bullets.

Power in love? If, as this “anonymous” Whatcom Wins campaign leader is modeling, there is no more significance in public hearings since outcomes are already decided, will good will do good? When a teenager rebels, what does a parent do? They protect the other family members and release that young person to the hard knocks of life.

Fools can be very smart. Very, very smart. A lazy man has more answers than seven wise men. It is easy to destroy. It is hard to build. When fools rule, prudent men hide. When non-profits“share the wealth”, everyone loses. Wise men will move their energies to other priorities, such as training the next generation.Tough love may confront, and it will also allow consequences. Love will work with the weak of today who are the leaders of tomorrow.

What does that mean? How does this all work out? Only time will tell. But, may I suggest, investment in the next generation now will pay off later in spades. As well, as the huge vote (not) from college students last week indicates, progressives may have the council reins, but they are aging and vulnerable to youthful doubts and inconsistencies. It was the oldies that came to the “hot ballot party” last Friday night, not the college students.

In other words, conservatives, spend time with young people and support conservative educators. That is the new (older) do or die battle. Stablizing the next generation, both your offspring and those of others, truly empowers and redeems. Grow local and buy local is still a hot issue. Got the hint, farmers? The question is, do conservatives really have the moxie to do this?

​-- JK

David Horowitz On Progressive Rules For Radicals

Community Organizing 101 In Whatcom County

 

The Other Election

Another election quietly took place in Whatcom County this week, one which had very little attention. For the most part, the candidates wanted it that way.

School board directors. Not counting the Concrete School District, which is more a part of Skagit than Whatcom County, fifteen positions in seven school districts were filled. Of those fifteen positions, fourteen were filled by acclamation. Fourteen candidates ran unopposed. Position four of the Bellingham School District saw three candidates vie for the position. The incumbent, Steven Smith was re-elected.

Okay, did you get that? Fifteen positions, fourteen unopposed candidates. The children seem to be high on the priority list. Now, of the fifteen positions, thirteen candidates were incumbents. Only one position in the Mt. Baker school district saw a retiring school director, where Brian Kelly replaces the retiring Gary Chadwick.

Our family home schools. Why should we care? Well, we pay taxes, like everyone else. And, we file the required registrations with our school district superintendent’s office, and have access as we wish to a number of school district programs and classes, as we wish.

Our family also teaches after school clubs in an elementary school near us. More about that in a minute.

July 24, 2013, our family started an election season project. Our teenage girls agreed to carry out interviews with the prospective school director candidates, to allow the directors to connect with the voting public, answering questions that frame issues important to many parents.

Of eighteen candidates, we were given three interviews. We e-mailed, made phone calls, and sat through meetings in five of the seven school districts. Basically, candidates who run unopposed don’t want to break silence. Would you? Would you speak to contentious issues that people have forgotten to follow?

I would encourage you to read our questionnaire. We asked about:

• graduation and dropout rates
• curriculum supervision and choice
• Common Core State Standards
• ancillary learning programs such as Running Start and charter schools
• parental involvement
• Bellingham International Baccalaureate school results
• school choice vouchers
• union restrictions on teacher assignments
• performance based pay systems
• new teacher salary packages
• use of levy funds to enhance non teacher wages and benefits
• federally funded school meals requirements
• the director candidate’s past accomplishments and future goals for the school district

Would you as a parent or neighbor not want to know about these things?

After five meetings, we had some interesting observations. Does one meeting give an accurate assessment of a school board and its schools? No. But, each school board has its flavor, and it was highly educational and interesting for our teenage “reporters” to see how other schools plan and prioritize.

Blaine: a sour taste. Up for re-election, school board director and chairperson Susan Holmes tartly addressed our questionnaire, telling us that school board directors are non-partisan postions. The inference? Our questions were party driven, not relevant to the whole community. Really! My take? Blaine was the most focused on implementing the Common Core program. Common Core is a progressive initiative, driven by Democrats and shilled by Republicans.  Read the story on how Common Core has been challenged in the state of Indiana.

A Blaine school director told me, sotto voce, after the meeting, that the students are third rate citizens in Blaine. It is all about teachers, administrators and staff. He was not a happy camper. Parents, do you know what is being planned for your children? Not just what is happening today, but what is coming tomorrow?

Our Ferndale school board meeting experience was like watching a smooth machine. Well set up, five or more support staff, reports on school meal programs and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Definitely a professionals environment. And, a somewhat vocal envy of Meridians new buildings.

Meridian school board meeting. We met in the library. You had to sit in the front row to hear anything. A very active, inquisitive board (in comparison to Blaine, where some directors looked so bored and ready to fall asleep). A high energy discussion of new construction. I was really impressed by the quality of director attention and input.

Bellingham. Very short meeting.

Nooksack. This is the “rural” school district. It has the highest tax mill rate in the county. This was our home district. Again, significant discussion of the Common Core implementation. The teachers are really getting assessed by CCSS. A five year program of performance reviews. The feds are serious about taking over the system. Wake up, parents!!

Was it worth our effort? Yes. Did we change any outcomes? No.

I finish with a cameo of progressive activism. A friend of mine visited a book review and discussion at Village Books this last Wednesday. See the link for the advertisement. After a discussion of Christian abuses in the culture, the group finished off with discussing how Christianity could be removed from Whatcom County. The first item? Remove Christian clubs from schools.

Wake up, Whatcom County. There is a national tug of war over what your children will learn. Whether it is schools, water, business, medical—what once was predictable in local government is no longer predictable. This means another job, sad to say, but an important job. Go to meetings. Question the bureaucracy. Don’t take the media reports at face value. Discover the back stories and take action. Now.