John H Armstrong

China: The People's Republic of Capitalism

China is a vast land with the world’s largest population. It is also has the fastest growing economy in the world. Year-by-year China is being pulled out of poverty and crumbling cities into a Western way of life rooted in the forces of the free market.

This story is wonderfully told by Ted Koppel in the new two-disc three hour series: “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” (Athena Learning Company, 2009). No program I’ve seen does a better job exposing Western viewers to the amazing story that is modern China.

Part one of this DVD series shows how America and China are now joined at the hip economically. The Chinese economy relies on the U.S. capital for investment in technology and on U. S. customers (through retailers like Wal Mart) for a ready market for their cheaper goods. The search for cheaper labor has led Western companies to go to China. Chine has a growing middle and upper class that has increased the demand for luxury goods, while most rural Chinese remain very poor. Anyone who thinks this relationships between China and the U.S. can be broken has no idea of the way it was established or of just how deeply connected we are at this point in history. Our respective economies now need each other and all the protest in the world will not bring the jobs lost back to America. Smart U. S. cities and business leaders are finding new ways to take advantage of this partnership so that we can replace lost jobs. The present American jobless rate underscores the fact that this transition will be painful for many Americans, much as all economic changes are painful. Many experts interviewed on this program show how U.S.-Chinese interdependence creates an eventual “win-win” situation in which outsourcing keeps some U. S. plants open.

Part two is titled “Mao-ism to Me-ism.” Many Chinese look back on the Cultural Revolution as a time of more suffering but less of the stress of the modern world. With the advent of new jobs, new cities and new transportation the Chinese are moving out of poverty and into the middle class like no other nation. Communism has little to do with anything in this change. What remains, however, is a strict government that tolerates a great deal so long as it is apolitical. Ted Koppel interviews a man on this episode who has become a Christian and actively takes part in a church in Chongqing. When Koppel presses him about protest and anti-democratic government he expresses little concern for the kind of freedom Koppel advocates as a Westerner. I found this very revealing. The man was far more interested in a society where there was order and respect for law than where there was freedom to assemble and protest. Clearly the values we place on Western style freedom are not major to China’s experience. This bright, educated, highly-successful young man expressed appreciation for the freedom that he had to worship and to grow spiritually. He did not seem concerned at all to try to change those in power. I found this segment the most powerful part of the series. I wondered how often American Christians actually confuse American style freedom with their faith in Christ. So far as I can tell the Chinese Christian is right about this matter. The goal of a Christian and the church is to worship God, make disciples and live righteous lives. Whether or not one form of government or another is followed is not the primary issue so long as we can live peaceable lives and serve God, not man. China seems, at least in the big cities, to allow for this to increasingly happen. The story is still different in the rural areas, though hopefully it will slowly change there as well.

Chinese people seem willing to forego political freedom in order to have economic security and prosperity. And what investors want in China is “controlled change” not western-style democracy. The failure of many Americans to understand this is a huge problem when it comes to their properly understanding China.

This same issue appears in showing how China deals with sexual expression. There is no problem with clubs and night spots where all kind of sexual expression is allowed, including homosexual expression. What is clearly frowned upon by the government is any form of protest that would challenge their authority. This is a kind of libertarianism lite, China style.

Disc three is appropriately called “The Fast Lane.” It shows how the automobile is changing China as much as any single manufactured product. China is becoming a “car culture” and thus building more highways than any place in the world. In the next thirty years there will be more cars and drivers in China than anywhere in the world. China automakers even have their sights set on the U. S. market so watch out for new cars in the years ahead, cars made in China.

The final episode is titled: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” Here a central part of the story is about the production and use of coal. Coal drives the need for cheap and plentiful energy in China accounting for 70% of the country's energy use. It also creates pollution and massive safety issues.

Though the Chinese government remains unabashedly and wholeheartedly pro-business, it has to be understood that the free market in China has little or nothing to do with political freedoms. I have to be honest about my thoughts regarding these developments, all of which have come about since President Nixon first visited China in 1972.

First, China is not the land of freedom. Not even close. It is a land of increased opportunity. People are being lifted out of poverty and, in general, this is a very good thing. With this come all the problems of materialism and the consumer-driven trends of the West. But if this is compared with destructive poverty who would argue that people should remain in poverty?

Second, China will likely remain a stable, politically controlled, state for some time to come. Western style democracy is not likely to change China even with the interaction China has with the West that is a major part of the development of modern China. What Christians should pray and work for, I believe, is the freedom to worship openly and teach their faith. So long as Christians are not seen as revolutionaries who want to overthrow the government they will likely have more freedom as time goes on.

There are so many parallels between modern China and living as a Christian in the time of the Roman Empire. Those who want to live faithfully for the gospel of Christ will be challenged but increasingly there appears to be an opportunity for people of peace to make a real difference in a society where greed and corruption are rampant. There will be times, and in the past there clearly were some terrible times, when believers will be persecuted. Thankfully, this has begun to change for the better, especially in the major cities. While underground churches grow in the hinterland of China, often still persecuted and harassed, churches in the cities have Bibles, buildings and resources. On the whole these churches can disciple adherents without government interference. This could be altered by a new ruler in China, much as was it was in Rome for the early Christians, but for now there is a growing era of peace for the church. A great time to grow and make millions of new disciples is clearly evident. Our role should be to pray for the church to grow and to supply resources for such growth. We should leave our sectarian denominational nonsense at home. And we should definitely keep our ideology about government out of the China equation. Whether the Chinese embrace Western style democracy or not is of little or no interest to whether believers can be truly faithful to the gospel of the kingdom in China. The church can grow under many forms of government and always has. American Christians seem unable to grasp this in many instances since we equate our history with the kingdom of God falsely. These excellent presentations by Ted Koppel will give you a fine picture of China that you could never get unless you visited there yourself. I highly recommend them.

Judge Sotomayor: A Look Beyond the Partisan Questions

By now we know that Judge Sonia Sotomayor has faced a Senate committee's inquiry and passed the process without any serious hitch. Isn't the goal that she escape a slip and get confirmed? Since the term "borking" came into our legal experience it seems this is almost always the case in these high profile nominations. Sotomayor will be confirmed by the U. S. Senate and soon will serve on the Supreme Court, replacing Justice David Souter. For most people the issue of her confirmation was primarily about partisanship. Where does she stand on certain issues that routinely come before the Supreme Court? What is her judicial approach to interpreting law? Can we get her approved and make sure the court reflects our partisan views? Is she pro-life or pro-choice? Where does she stand on guns?

The wild card in all these proceedings is that once a judge is appointed we never know how they will really vote or respond once on the Court. More than one justice has showed a remarkable ability to think and then respond with care and justice once they are appointed for life. I, for one, think this is exactly what the framers had in mind. It may be that the Court has gone too far at times (such as in Roe v. Wade) but in the big picture the Court has served its noble purpose quite well.

I read a number of opinion pieces about the Sotomayor appointment. She is an admirable person who will serve as a great role model to millions of Hispanics and women. I welcome this aspect of her choice. Many have suggested she will handle herself well. She did in the interviews before the Senate committee. But almost no one I heard asked a more important question: Does she possess a first-rate legal mind and can she actually present clear and cogent opinions in writing? I see this question as totally non-partisan precisely because we have had justices from the left and the right who could pass my test with flying colors. Sotomayor may prove me wrong here but I suggest she lacks legal brilliance. She is a fine person, with a great human story and she is quite capable. She will likely become a "safe" vote for the left on many issues. But does she have the intellectual heft to write opinions that shape the law and help us understand how it really works in the twenty-first century? "Does she have," to put it simply, "a first-rate legal mind?"

Newsweek has a now famous column called "Conventional Wisdom" (CW). It is the kind of "quick glance" stuff that you look at for only a few seconds if you read the magazine. In the July 27 issue CW said of Sotomayor, "Sets new standard for convincingly evading politically unanswerable questions." I think that says it quite well.

This is why I was so surprised when I read Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen asking the very same question I have been asking about Sotomayor since President Obama first announced his choice. Cohen, clearly a social and political liberal, noted that the two justices on the current court who write the most compelling opinions are Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts. Cohen is not an advocate for their views but he knows good writing when he sees it. The irony is that Cohen disagrees with Scalia on many legal opinions.

Cohen says, "Sotomayor will do, and will do very nicely, as a personification of what ails the American left. She is, as everyone has pointed out, in the mainstream of American liberalism, a stream both intellectually shallow and preoccupied with the past." Quite an admission I think. Cohen suggests that Sotomayor is particularly disappointing on capital punishment (she does not oppose it) to cite an example that troubles him as a liberal. He writes, "Contrast her approach to this and other problems with what Antonin Scalia has done with issues close to his own heart. Where in all of Sotomayor's opinions, speeches and now testimony is there anything approaching Scalia's dissent in Morrison v. Olson in which, alone, he not only found fault with the law creating special prosecutors, but warned about how it would someday be abused." Cohen says his admiration for Scalia is constrained by the fact that he often believes him to be wrong. But, he adds, "his thinking is fresh and his writing is often bracing." Precisely my point. Sotomayor shows no ability to do the same.

Cohen concludes, in a statement that I share from a more politically conservative vantage point: "This is the sad state of both liberalism and American politics. First-class legal brains are not even nominated lest some senator break into hives at the prospect of encountering a genuinely new idea."

If you want a liberal illustration of the point Cohen makes about Scalia remember Justice Thurgood Marshall, a first-rate thinker and writer if there ever was one. On both the left and the right we seem to fear genuinely new ideas that are faithful to our past but reflective of our present and future context. The Sotomayor appointment reveals that the process by which we confirm these judges is seriously flawed but so are the nominees we are generally given for the Court by our presidents. What the liberals did to Robert Bork, a brilliant jurist who scared the daylights out of the left, has left the country in a sad state where we now settle for appointees who can get through the process. It makes me grateful that Scalia and Roberts did get confirmed. John Roberts will leave a huge mark on this court if he serves out the normal course of his life expectancy as Chief Justice.

The Continually Changing State of Christian Publishing

Christian publishing is risky business. When I launched a quarterly journal way back in 1992 I was told the first three years would make or break us. That proved to not be true. We lasted for sixteen years. We funded a quarterly that never made a profit with mission dollars because we believed in what we were doing. But keeping a journal in print was a major problem for such a small ministry. When we finally decided to "pull the plug" there was a great sense of grief in my life. I felt as if I had failed in some way. I missed the work of editing and writing and seeing this journal come out every three months. In time I realized how stressed I was under this burden and realized I should have given up six years earlier than I did. Peace finally followed that realization.

I thought of all of this when I read last week that Discipleship Journal (DJ) was going out of business with their current issue. DJ has been published for twenty eight years by Nav Press. It was a quality publication that regularly featured excellent writers addressing great themes. The writers came from across a broad range of traditions and churches. One writer, Paul Thigpen, was actually an evangelical convert to Roman Catholicism. DJ never asked him to stop writing after his conversion. In The Catholic Answer Thigpen wrote a wonderful editorial titled: "Farewell to an Old Friend." In this tribute to DJ Thigpen says that he wrote more than forty articles for DJ. He notes that, "Their breath of mind and purity of heart was never more obvious to me than when I entered the Catholic Church 16 years ago." At the time Thigpen says that "other Protestant publications I was writing for no longer wanted my services." But DJ not only wanted him to keep writing they kept him on their advisory board. He notes that DJ took some flack for this stance because some readers complained that the editors should not be publishing a Catholic author.

I thus noted the demise of DJ with even more sadness when I read Thigpen's moving tribute. We need more magazines with the kind of charity and breadth that DJ manifested. Thigpen refers to the editors at DJ "as wonderful partners in ecumenism." Readers know that I share this same perspective. At the same time I want to encourage Catholic publications to feature more evangelical Protestants in print. When our people begin to see us having such a conversation they will take our love for one another more seriously. Both communions need this more than they could possibly realize.

Motel Rooms Become Home

The current economic recession has had a huge impact on many Americans. Yet whole regions of the country are virtually untouched, leaving some with little sense of the magnitude of the problem. When I was in Dallas, March 25-30, I realized that there was some evidence of the economic downturn yet much of suburban Dallas seems unfazed by what is going on across the nation. Clearly, people are still spending money and I found many Texans to be critical about the problems of other states, and their bad management of economic resources (which is often true). These are not seen, in some cases, as their problems. Besides threatening our sense of national unity this type of response forced me to think even more about the real impact of these times.

The New York Times reported on March 11 that the more jobs vanish in our national economy the more entire families find that the only place they can afford to live is in low-cost motels. This story gnawed at me then and does so even more today. As banks foreclose on home owners in southern California, and south Florida, families are forced to rent. They cannot afford homes or apartments so they move into low budget motels and rent one room for their entire family, sometimes with as many as four, five or six people.

The people living in these conditions are not just the ordinary homeless poor. These are hard working people who simply lost their jobs. Sometimes this came about through health problems, the loss of insurance, etc. The security deposit needed for a place of their own is unaffordable and the rent is just too much. So the motel is their only choice.

In Denver this is happening big time, where hundreds of families live this way. It is also happening in diverse places like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, places where anything like this has not reached such magnitude in the past. I have to wonder how many churches realize this need even exists in their own area. If they miss the opportunity to love their neighbor in the process what a tragic loss of mission. Some are responding, as I have noted in earlier blogs. Some are oblivious, especially where they are enjoying relative prosperity. We should all wake up to the call of Christ to love and care for those in need.

How Is the Economy Impacting Religion in America?

Cathy Lynn Grossman, reporting in the March 30 edition of USA Today, says: "Pleas for help---spiritual and financial---are flooding U.S. churches, from tiny congregations to megachurches, as recession woes seep into the pews."

Pastors report that they are distributing benevolent funds in record numbers and that ministries to the unemployed and the fearful are on the rise. Some are even using their own personal funds to help (27%). Nearly two in three pastors (62%) report that more people from outside their church are asking for help. Nearly a third (31%) see such requests from their own church members. The survey, done by LifeWay Research, dealt with 1,000 Protestant pastors. LifeWay finds that 40% of pastors say they have church members out of work and 37% say their church has increased spending to help the needy.

One church, in Overland Park, Kansas, held a special February service where people who lost their jobs could come to be anointed with oil and prayed over. This same congregation has added ministries for the unemployed and will soon hold a baby shower for new mothers from 17 shelters in Kansas City. (What a marvelous response!)

There is a great deal of confusion, left and right, about how Christians should think about, and respond to, the poor. God's revealed intentions are that people not be destitute. The Scripture thus treats those who are poor and in real need with special consideration and compassion.

The causes of poverty and destitution are numerous. Some causes include sins like the lack of discipline and bad debt. But misfortune also brings poverty (Job 1:13-21). And many who of the godly have been poor (cf. 2 Kings 4:1; Luke 16:20; Romans 15:26). Jesus was himself poor (Matthew 8:20), yet his small band of disciples received and handled money for their mission.

Poverty results in ruin, shame, misery, crime and (sometimes) ungodliness. The primary example for dealing with poverty is our Lord Jesus Christ. The early church saw his actions, heeded his teaching, and followed his model. The poor were clearly not neglected by the early church (cf. Romans 12:13; Galatians 6:10 and James 2:15-16). The Bible indicates that the poor were generously helped (cf. Luke 19:8; Acts 10:2 and 2 Corinthians 9:7). This help was never given in an ostentatious or demeaning way (Matthew 6:2).

The Scripture also makes it plain that compassion for the poor will be rewarded (Matthew 19:21; 25:34-36; Mark 9:41 and Hebrews 13:16). I wonder every day if this present financial meltdown could be a dark cloud sent to awaken the church to her deep need in this hour. May it be so. Surely this is not a political issue, at least not when Christians respond to it as they should.

Roland Burris Wants a Legacy Just Like So Many Other Public Figures

Politics in Illinois is sad business, indeed the stuff of late night jokes. One bad governor after another and then came the Blagojevich impeachment in January. Now Blago is going to get a book deal. It makes you wonder why he signed for only six figures. But John Kass, in his often humorous and rightly cynical Chicago Tribune column, suggests the former governor could shake down a lot of folks to keep quiet about their connections to his "pay-to-play" political career. The one thing I personally feel fairly sure about is that President Obama never got hooked up with this scandalous business. (I hope this belief is proven true or the whole nation will face a crisis that we can ill afford right now. Watch the Blago story for unfolding dramatics.)

But what about Senator Roland Burris? This is the man the ex-governor appointed to take the seat previously held by Barrack Obama. Burris was tainted from the beginning but most thought that he was clean. Now he tells us a lot of information we did not have during his appointment process. Even Senator Richard Durbin has called for Burris to resign. But Roland Burris just keeps on ticking, like the old Timex watch commercials tell us their watches do. I often wonder why?

You must understand that Roland Burris will serve two years and not be re-elected. There is no way he stays in the Senate. So why does this two-year term matter to him that much? One might suggest it is the pension but maybe not. It is clear that he cannot accomplish much of anything in such a short time. He has labored to even hire a staff in D.C. and get an office up and running. And no one in his home state sees him as all that important or effective. He is simply holding a seat and voting with the president and his Democratic peers. That's about it.

So why does Burris do this at 72 years of age? Thursday's edition of the Daily Herald gave me the answer I was seeking. It is just as plain as a noon day in an Arizona dessert. Burris is doing this for legacy. Legacy, for those who do not remember their dictionary well, refers to anything "handed down, as to one's ancestors." I never understood the power of this emotion and personal force until I turned 60 recently. It is your tendency, if you are honest, to think about your friends, family and those who knew you as you get older and face your own mortality. How will they think about you when you are gone? What did you leave to them to pass on to others? How will you be really be remembered? I think this drive is far more powerful in some people than in others. In the case of Roland Burris it is a major reason that he wants to hang on to this seat in spite of all the calls for his resignation. He is deeply committed to preserving his legacy. But how did I come to this conclusion?

Oak Wood Cemetery is a rather famous spot in Chicago. Jesse Owens is buried there. So is the physicist Enrico Fermi, a pioneer in nuclear and quantum physics who won the Nobel Prize in 1938. The mortal remains of  William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, a Baptist school in its origins, are also there. William "Big Bill" Thompson, a mayor of huge fame before the Daley family, is at rest there. So is "Big Jim" Colosimo, who brought a kid named Capone to Chicago. Even Clarence Darrow was cremated at Oak Woods. And there is a mass grave there, near a statue of Abraham Lincoln, where the remains of 4,275 Confederate soldiers are buried. (These men died in Northern prisons.) Across Memorial Drive in the cemetery is the tomb of the late Mayor Harold Washington. For the sports fan there is the first great Cub, Cap Anson, and Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's first commissioner. Landis is the man who banned "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, and seven other Sox stars, after the 1919 White Sox threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. One of my favorites, the "Father of Gospel" music Tommy Dorsey, is also buried in Oak Woods.

So Oak Woods is a place many go who like to think about the history of this area and this great state. And only sixteen blocks straight north of Oak Woods is President Barack Obama's home if you want to view a piece of living history and legacy.

But what has all this to do with Roland Burris? A lot. You see Roland Burris has a marker already in place at Oak Woods that is one of the biggest and most impressive in the whole cemetery. When you see the marker and read what is on this tomb stone, and what will yet be put on this marker, you can understand the thinking of our besieged junior senator. I have always been inclined to ask the psychological question: "Why do some people act the way they do, especially when so many people (a majority in this case) think they are wrong?" Why would Burris hang on to a seat when he is an unpopular and ineffective lame duck? Why should he care so much? The answer is not in the stars but on the stone. This man is living to make sure that his legacy is in keeping with his ego. He is making sure that he is remembered as a "trail blazer," a true African-American leader for the ages.

When politicians live this way I am not that surprised. What once surprised me, and now doesn't even elicit as much as a small notice, is when I see "important" Christian leaders who live and think the same way. I admit freely that legacy has a unique tug on you as you age. But the apostle Paul plainly addressed this in his letters. And the disciple who said of Jesus, "He must increase but I must decrease" left for us a far better way of thinking about legacy and our own future. I still think George Whitefield got it about right when he was asked about his legacy and burial. He said, "May the name of George Whitefield perish. May the name of Christ live forever!" I just wish I saw a little more of this in my own generation of leaders the older I get. I am not cynical about this but I am a little wiser, I hope, as I look around. The one thing I must deal with is the only thing I can deal with: me!

Sudan Will Not Go Away

Michael Gerson noted this last week "That while a new administration is just getting started, history doesn't stop." He expressed deep concerns about the problems in Sudan and Darfur. There is a very good reason for this concern. President Obama's Africa policy team is already working on these issues and what they will find should open everyone's eyes if the truth on the ground is brought into the light. Everyone familiar with this part of Africa knows that it is a terrible situation that needs a careful and involved contribution from the United States.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), of the United Nations, issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of the Sudan last week. He is charged with war crimes. Thus the new administration faces a very tough question: "Can a hunted war criminal also be a partner in the Sudan peace process?"

Gerson wrote last week that when he was in the White House he generally felt that ICC war crimes charges pushed a dictator into a corner and then made him more dangerous, not less. But in the case of al-Bashir he believes the traditional forms of diplomacy have plainly failed and he must be brought to justice, not bargained with in a peace process. America has sat out the ICC in the past and Gerson thinks it will continue to do so under Obama. But he now believes the ICC warrant should really mean something in this case. Sudan has broken so many pledges and so many people have died that it is time to take a different approach. A verified cease-fire is called for in Sudan. The international community needs to be involved and America needs to lead. A comprehensive peace plan between the north and south of Sudan is a must. Bashir is an international pariah and we should treat him as such if we are serious.

Concludes Gerson, "Change in Darfur will not arrive with the delivery of an arrest warrant. It will require the construction of a broad coalition to isolate and marginalize Bashir. And if he is offered a negotiated way out, it must be costly and comprehensive." I agree. I pray that the Obama administration will show both courage and moral conviction. We should be watching and praying and letting them know if we believe that they have failed. Too many have already died and more will die if we do nothing. Watch the news over the coming months and let your voice be heard. The man who ran on changing America's role in the world needs to step up and take action in Darfur and Sudan. Darfur is a great place to find out if he will actually address a really tough argument that does not get the attention that the Middle East garners.

President Obama: "I Screwed Up"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I sat down to watch a brief portion  of the evening news and there, on CBS no less, was an interview with Katie Couric and the president. The words that I heard stunned me. "I screwed up. I take responsibility for this mistake." President Obama was referring, of course, to the problems several of his choices have faced in the U. S. Senate in seeking confirmation.

First, there was Governor Bill Richardson, then former-senator Tom Daschle, and now Nancy Killefer, his choice for chief performance office for the federal government. (Obama's choice of Republican Senator Judd Gregg (photo at right), of New Hampshire, for Secretary of Commerce seems to be a solid one and an evidence, again, of non-partisanship in style and effort.) Even Timothy Geithner, the new Treasury secretary, faced challenges about $34,000 of self-employment taxes that he had not paid. (Anyone familiar with this issue would understand why the Senate approved him since this is a more honest mistake to make and does not reveal the same problems discovered regarding both Daschle and Killefer.

The President also told ABC's World News that "This is a self-inflicted injury that I'm angry about, and we're going to make sure we get it fixed." The first response to Daschle had been the typical "defend your colleague" no-matter-what response. Even Vice-President Biden had weighed in on Daschle very favorably. The club was rallying to defend its own. Republicans rightly challenged this and the President saw the problem more clearly as it unfolded. He acted in the right way and with honesty. One can hope we will see more of this action and candor in the days ahead. I personally pray that we will. Americans will, generally speaking, respect any leader who tells them the truth and also admits he is wrong when he is.

Ethics in government is hugely important. We have accepted this kind of behavior for so long that the people rightly listened to Obama's pledge to change Washington and many were affected by it. He took a step in the right direction on Tuesday. Since I am not a political cynic I believe that there will be more of the same. Obama does not have a life-long membership in the so-called Senate club so there is real hope here since he owes little or nothing to the gang. This Washington swamp needs draining. One can hope this leader will actually do it. He is not perfect but he is showing us that he has principles. His policies are worth serious debate, especially the stimulus package, which so far is not favored by a growing number of Americans. (I saw a number that said 58% disapprove of it as it is right now!) I think we need a "real" stimulus package but the one being promoted by Congressional Democrats needs to be challenged significantly. Will the president lead in the midst of this mess? Time will tell. I am praying that he will. He took a serious step in the right direction by showing leadership and honestly with regard to his own mistakes and bad judgment.

Rush Limbaugh: There's No Business Like Show Business

Ultra conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh got his own stimulus package recently, signing an eight-year radio deal worth a reported $400 million. That is pretty good for a syndicated talker who attracts millions of listeners five days a week. I admit I once listened to Rush, even found him humorous at times. Once in awhile he even made sense. You knew he was being funny, but you also knew he believed his basic points and made an occasionally decent argument.

Well Limbaugh should be happy that he has President Obama in the White House because now he has exactly what he needs to keep his show lively for another eight years, assuming Obama is re-elected in 2012. And President Obama gave Rush just what he needed, if the New York Post got it right, when he said to Republican leaders, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh." If he really said this one wonders why.

Limbaugh has already declared that he wants Obama to fail if he pushes his "socialist" solutions to the economic problems that we face. It seems Rush thinks almost everything President Obama wants is socialism. Some conservatives have even expressed great reservations about Rush but he has pressed on in insisting that most of what Obama desires is bad for the country.

Columnist Clarence Page, writing in the Thursday Chicago Tribune, said "Limbaugh sounds like he cares more about preserving conservative ideological purity than he cares about saving the economy, or the country." Strong words, but likely not far from the truth. The problem is that President Obama defies the typical labels and stereotypes and some conservatives already see this and applaud it. Call him a "pragmatic liberal" or a "progressive" of a new sort, he is not the liberal of the far left that we have known the past thirty years or so. Obama, adds Clarence Page, has less angst about conservatism than he does about strong ideology. (By the way, this was demonstrated by Obama's leadership of the Harvard Law Review.)

The truth is that the stimulus package the president sought this week had far more tax cuts in it than the Congress will likely give him. My fear is that an over-aggressive Congress, just dying to spend more money, will harm us much more than President Obama. What I do fear about the president is that he will sign what congress gives him even though he promised to cut pork and waste. Time will tell. I think the majority of Americans believe government has a role in solving this problem but many of us fear the government will make things worse by creating a much bigger debt that will potentially ruin those who make up the next generation.

Peter Roskam, my own congressman, wrote in a Thursday edition of our suburban newspaper: "The politics of change has come to Washington, rhetorically, but we have yet to see Democratic leaders in the House and Senate follow through on this promise. It's not too late but the clock is ticking." Peter Roskam is right. (By the way, Roskam and Obama like one another personally. They know each other from their days in the Illinois Senate!)

It is estimated that it will cost the taxpayers $235,000 per job to create new jobs under the stimulus proposal. The private sector could do this a lot better and thus would call this plan, adds Roskam, "a bad investment." I agree. "The government," concludes Congressman Roskam, "calls it business as usual."

I think President Obama may not be our primary problem in the coming years. I think the Democrats in the House and Senate may use these years to spend money in ways that will in-debt us beyond repair. I hope I am wrong. But I am not about to support Rush Limbaugh's approach for how to address the problem. I much prefer the insights and political good sense of thinkers like George Will, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes to the silliness of people like Rush Limbaugh. Rush makes a serious argument look clownish and the end result is not one that helps the civil and social well-being of our nation. We can do much better in mounting serious alternatives to gross over-spending.

Rick Warren's Public Prayer

Dr. Rick Warren seems to live in the eye of the storm these days. I think this actually is where all faithful ministers must live if they are to make a real impact upon people. On the right Rick Warren is now being attacked for tolerance and civility toward the wrong people, especially toward President Obama. I read one criticism after another the night before the inauguration. I found it disheartening and disappointing. Then after he prayed yesterday at the inauguration I visited the Web again and found the left had gone to work on his prayer with ferocity. Web sites have comments of all sorts of course. Those who post the responses of all continue to savage Warren as an intolerant bigot and a vile intolerant homophobe. For such people the one thing they will not tolerate is a Christian who still believe homosexual practice is a sin. So what we have here is a very public Christian minister, one who clearly loves Jesus Christ and cares about his nation deeply, who accepts the invitation of the president-elect to offer prayer at his inauguration. He then prays as a Christian and what he says comes under fire from the far left and the far right. This seems about right to me but then I admit I like Rick Warren and find his blend of faith and public service a wonderfully balanced.

I thought back to the prayers offered by evangelicals at previous inaugurations yesterday, most offered by Dr. Billy Graham, who prayed at seven such events over the years. (Public prayers were apparently not prayed at such events until the 20th century.) Dr. Graham was always gracious, appropriately measured and always seemed to fit the occasion well. But I never heard him offer a prayer so powerful as that offered by Rick Warren yesterday. If you have not read or seen the prayer you can now do so online. Listen for yourself. I would love to know if you think he spoke both wisely and biblically.

People of a more liberal bent preferred the prayer of Dr. Joseph Lowery to that of Dr. Warren. I liked them both, but for very different reasons. Lowery spoke for the African-Americans who lived through the Civil Rights movement and thus took us back to the historical events that made this event possible. I do know this: Rick Warren confessed the Lordship of Christ powerfully and prayed a truly Christian prayer that spoke to my heart. I was deeply moved by it, having anticipated it for some days.