Where to begin...
There is so much going on in recent news that I'm not even sure what would be the best for discussion.
There is the obvious election results from yesterday. It seems that the Rebublican party took a huge hit. Is that because of Bush's supposed "failings", because of years of media push in one direction, because of a sea of discontent people or is this just part of the natural give and take swing of politics? The most recent story link, click here. How much does this affect faith issues, life issues and the moral future of our nation?
Second recent news story has been the Pastor Ted Haggard scandel. A sought after leader in the Christian church who has fallen hard, been labeled forever as a hypocrite and beyond proffesional trouble must have a shattered home and personal life. How do we reconcile this? How do we pray for our leaders? How can a guy like that, hide something so dark for so long? We probably all have stories of fallen pastors, priests or religious leaders. Here's a link to the story. Here's a link to his written confession.
Thirdly, I noticed a story floating around yesterday that has potential deep moral implications. The mixing of cow eggs and human DNA to form living embryos (babies) for the sake of harvesting new stem cells. How far is too far? As if doing this with humans wasn't causing controversy. Now, blending cows and man? What do you think? Here's the story.
I know, a lot to drop out there at one time. But, somebody has got to be talking about it.
I was reading a news article this morning about the Illinois governor's race that was won by the incumbent democratic governor whose administration is currently under federal investigation. There was all sorts of speculation in the article about the amount of money spent on negative television ads and the fact that his opponent was shown in those ads with a former governor that was just convicted. (Another reason not to move home to Illinois.) Do you vote because you respect the person or do you vote because you are a republican? Do you vote based on the issues? Can we thank or blame President Bush for any of this? (Personally I think it's lame to lump it all on him. But interesting that Donald Rumsfeld didn't step down until the election was over probably based on republican fear that it would affect opinion?) It is interesting to see how the tide turns.
The approval/ban on gay marriage in Wisconsin and their election of a majority of democrats last night makes me wonder about whether liberal or conservative really is a link between candidates and their constituients anymore or whether it is just being a liberal or conservative is only an issue-by-issue-based "label"? Maybe it is a promising example of faith playing a greater role in a political process?
It is really frightening to me how media and advertising plays so much a greater role in the vote and the maddening shift away from fair and balanced reporting. Has "relationship" been replaced by 30-second news bytes? (Comment this)
This Pastor Ted scandal breaks my heart. I don't doubt that it gets pretty easy to keep the dark secrets if you return to them over and over. And in this instance covering them up with half truths only seemed to darken the deception. If you have that high of a spiritual position and it becomes more about keeping up appearances than honesty - and you've strayed that far from God - how do you come clean to him and mean it if you don't tell someone else?
And in the instance of sexual immorality - it's probably easy to evenutally let the depravity of those actions just become unfeeling acts without any deep intimacy.
As for prayer - I pray for our spiritual leaders deep connenction between their hearts and their minds. I hope they have awesome accountiblity partners. And for those that sin and are exposed - pray for the sin and love the person.
Sure, a spiritual leader should be morally sound and truthful. But a part of me wonders about the sinful man beneath that and perhaps that is something else to pray on - that the path of those in leadership stay centered on the cross. But what I'm not sure about is the line between being sinful (as we all are) and a sin terrible enough for public reprimand or exposure. That just doesn't sit right with me.
I also am not entirely sure what I think about the media in this instance. They played a vital role in exposing him and the fervor of stories the first few days just irritated me. (Comment this)
It also make me wonder if one day we are going to wake up and realize the Movie Jurasic Park has come to life and we probably shouldn't have played around with the natural order of things. (Comment this)
When a person is fired from their job, they can move on, get another job and not really have the world know why they left. For this to be so public, where does he go to find the love he needs to heal? And then, midlife to have to try and figure out what other sort of job he can do, when his call was to serve God, that would be so difficult. (Comment this)