Who Says You Should Not Argue Politics Or Religion?
By Lee Hemen
December 26, 2008
Who says you should not argue politics or religion at family gatherings? I do not adhere to this nonsense. Why? Let me explain: This Christmas season has been a very enlightening one for me both as a Christian and as a political observer. I spent a lot of time listening to others spout their views of the world and what is occurring and was surprised but also convinced of people’s myopic view of the world around them. I found it extremely hilarious and had to actually laugh out loud when I heard these same folks voice their opinions of conservatives and Christians in general. However, it also helped me to realize that Christians or conservatives are not getting their message out in a clear and concise manner that is worthy of a good listen by the world at large. We are fast losing the ear of a lost and dying world because they are being convinced that the gospel message is no longer relevant or at best just an aid in helping the human condition as far as giving hope, in the form of care or handouts, to the homeless and downtrodden. Sadly, it became apparent that this view was reinforced by what they had heard from the emergent church crowd. Folks like the Rick Warrens of the world have not helped. They see his church’s willingness to remove any “offensive” material from their web site as a social compromise at best and another form of Christian hypocrisy at its worst.
Believers are living in a day and age where there are those within the Christian ranks who want to sellout their faith and become like the world around them, thinking that this is what will make the gospel massage relevant. Conservatives are succumbing to this mindlessness as well thinking they should sound more like liberalism. Far too many calling themselves “Christian” want to reintroduce the tired old heresy that Jesus is just another answer in a world of many religious teachings and thereby reduce His message as another way of life. They argue from an “us too” kind of mentality, kind of like many browbeat conservatives. Yet time after time, when I as a Christian and a conservative, am able to articulate and guide the conversation into asking the age old questions of who, what, when, where, and why, I am not only given a listen but individuals are often surprised that they actually agree with me on some very core issues. Issues such as that mankind’s answer is not found in government and that we as human beings are evil at our core. That this evil affects and will effect everything we try to do even as a government.
I surprised several of my listeners when I told them that I did not consider our President elect the embodiment of evil, but that I considered his political proclivities as harmful. In fact I was able to set this notion up with the rational argument that now that we have both Houses of Congress and the Presidency under one party, we will not have compromise that so many think will ensue, nor will we have change, but rather we will see political corruption on a scale we have not seen in years. If they thought that Republicans pork-barreled, all they need to do is watch what the Democrats will do now that there is no constraint on them. People who have power want to maintain it and their evil tendencies will dictate how they strive to do so.
I was amazed that several of my listeners had not considered that Obama has now set a standard in campaigning that will never go away. A standard that will dictate that every presidential campaign from now on will have to raise at least a billion dollars and begin right after the previous election. My listeners were incredulous, but after they realized I was correct it suddenly dawned on them what this meant for future elections. Every candidate now will opt out of public funding and raise money whenever and wherever they can beg barrow or steal it. Obama set the standard. This is what we can expect from now on for campaigning.
I laughed as one grandly stated that he felt that no one should be allowed to earn more than a million dollars and that salaries had gotten way out of hand. That perhaps a free enterprise system was not what we needed. (This was voiced by someone who works in the restaurant field, as management, that canters to high end wage earners and is totally dependent upon their income levels to be able to come in and eat at his upper crust establishment! I asked him if his boss came to him and said, “Hey, we need a manager to run four of these restaurants for us and we will pay you two million dollars to live here and do it,” would you refuse? He, of course, answered “No.” And he had to admit that if he was able to live in a better part of town and be the owner of his own home, he would buy something that was a lot nicer for his new wife. (Gee, go figure.) All of sudden his altruistic spouting did not mean much. He also groused about people who wanted to drive Hummers. I blandly pointed out the window to his full-sized four-wheel drive pickup truck that gets worse gas mileage than many of the newer Hummers he complained about. He sheepishly agreed he needed to change his “lifestyle choice.”
Another grandly gripped about “global warming” and how many textbooks confuse global warming with the green house affect or the greenhouse gases. And that “these,” sniff, were “not the same thing.” So, I calmly asked, “How much CO2 do you think is released into the atmosphere by human beings in total?” She had no clue. I then asked, “Would it surprise you to learn that it is almost so minuscule that you can almost not even measure it? That the oceans and forests give off way more CO2 than human do.” She retorted, “That’s not true!” I related to her that just because you think it is untrue does not make it so, because that indeed was the case. I then took one of several Build-A-Bears® that her daughter had on the coach and related that “everything this bear is wearing, everything this bear is made out of, this couch, the rug you are walking on, the varnish on the furniture, most of your clothing, your eye glasses, cameras, wrapping paper, Christmas ornaments, and the fake tree all come from petroleum.” She tried to respond by saying we were too dependent upon the oil industry, and I replied by reminding her that almost all medicine, the bottles it comes in, syringes, surgical tape, gloves, sutures, artificial joints, and even the tires on the car that brought her to the house, all came from the “oil industry.” That the world could not produce, make the grazing space for, feed, or raise enough crops or animals to naturally produce what we get from the oil industry not including gasoline and oil. We cannot produce enough electricity for industry or our homes without it. People would starve, die of the cold or heat, and would have less of a lifespan without the byproducts of the oil industry. Guess what her answer was? Nothing. She did not want to talk about it. People often do not want to think about the consequences of their statements. I did not even get into how the ethanol craze is causing worldwide hunger from feed and food corn shortages, myopic land usage, and huge subsidies that we pay for at the pump. By this time her eyes had kind of glazed over. However, I did mention that the even though we have tripled in the population in this area that the air quality is far better than when I first moved here because of the clean air standards and how the auto industry and oil industry had made huge changes that affected it. I can remember not being able to see Portland, Oregon from the heights area in Vancouver, Washington right across the Columbia River, because of the smog but now there are no days in the year when this is true. She had to admit this was true. I conceded that we needed to invest in electrical cars and that there was no reason why vehicles in America were not run on natural gas, a replenishable resource that would open up more oil for industry and other uses. Reluctantly my listeners had to agree because it was logical and a reasonable solution.
Herein is what my argument is for us as Christians and as conservatives. Do not get myopic in your arguments nor in how you relate to people because we did find common ground in that we all hated big government, pollution, wanted better schools, and saw mankind’s nature as the problem. These are all starting points for anyone to share their faith or their political point of view. Stop preaching at people and engage them. Stop grousing about bad things will be or are and begin finding and rationally discussing answers for folks who will definitely be affected by the policies enacted. Obama is not the antichrist and those who voted for him are not his demonic minions. His ideas and those being espoused by liberalism are the danger and must be met head on with reasoning. Each of these that I spoke with thought of themselves as reasonable people who had thought out their ideals, but realized that they had not allowed themselves to ask the tougher questions of who, what, when, where, and why? These are good ones to use in any witnessing situation, political or religious. Who says you should not argue politics or religion? Not me.
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This article is copyrighted © 2008 by Lee Hemen and if you reprint it, reproduce it, or want to use it in any way, you must do so in its entirety or get the written permission of its author.
