Truth and the Presidential Election

I received a forwarded e-mail with a subject line about Barack Obama's "Not Exactly's", claiming to have been penned by Bill Brown, a former Billy Graham associate. Here is my response:

Dear friends -

After some hesitation, I have decided to share my thoughts on this forwarded e-mail. Or perhaps just one principle thought: This e-mail purports to reveal inaccurate and misleading statements by Barack Obama. My expectation for such a serious group of charges is that they be carefully worded and thoroughly documented. In the Bible the standard for accepting an accusation is that there be two credible witnesses. If there are not two credible witnesses, or even one, the accusation does not stand. To this we may add the excellent American principle that a person is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

In light of this, here are my problems with the e-mail:

1. It claims to have been written by a former associate of Billy Graham. But the Bill Brown who was a member of the BGEA, when contacted, expressly denies having written it. See http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/naivete-cynicism-and-wisdom.html
(I googled "Bill Brown BGEA".)

2. I checked the reference to accusation #7 in the e-mail, which was the point that I found most shocking, and found no evidence of any sort supporting the accusation.

3. The tone of the e-mail is thoroughly un-Christian, we who are to "Honor everyone" (I Peter 2:17).

So let us as Christians hold firm to the teaching of Psalm 15 and so be salt and light to the nation during this election process: Who does not slander with his tongue, ... nor take up a reproach against his neighbor.

One of our roles as Christians is to hold the world accountable to the truth. Regardless of what candidate we prefer, a Christian never wants to win at the cost of the truth.

Feel free to share these thoughts with others. And your reactions and comments are welcome.

Mark Farmer

Chrysalis

There is a post today on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed site that I wrote regarding Alan Jamieson's book, Chrysalis. Here is the link:

http://www.jesuscreed.org/

Hopefully it is understandable enough for folks who haven't read the book.

Do Hard Things

That's the title and theme of a book just out written by two 19-year-olds, Alex and Brett Harris. (Yes, they are twins.) The subtitle is, "A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations." Pretty strong stuff, eh?

I'm a third of the way through the book, and plenty of it is for whatever age we happen to be. This, for example:

Alyssa Chua, a seventeen-year-old ... from the Philippines, explained her pattern this way: 'My comfort zone was the place where everything was just the way I wanted it to be; a situation where I never had to make extra effort or do something difficult; a place I could sit back, relax and enjoy myself.'

The problem, she told us, was that she stayed inside her comfort zone, she was essentially refusing to surrender her life fully to God; she was avoiding the hard things He was calling her to do.

The authors go on to put their finger on the real issue:

What we're really saying is that we don't want to do things that come easily or naturally. We don't want to break through our fears. And by our actions, we're also saying that God isn't good and powerful enough to help us do what we can't comfortably do on our own.

Alex and Brett describe another young man who, unlike Alyssa, spent his life avoiding taking that first step out of his comfort zone. "The result? He's basically the same person he's always been."

Seeking the truth about God

Thanks to Laurel for this excellent interview with the son of a Hamas leader who has decided to follow Jesus. Mosab Hassan Yousef is refreshingly - and painfully - honest in his remarks, which have much to teach us.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html

Near the end of the interview is the puzzling phrase "a 100-person peace when Jesus returns." This is no doubt a misprint for "a 100 percent peace...."

Teaching a person to think and explore for themselves instead of blindly following what they have been taught is one key to world evangelization. The French writer Jean-Claude Guillebaud, in Re-founding the World, writes that Jesus himself emphasized the individual's responsibility to search out the truth and follow it (him). Luke 9:59-60 is one example of this. And this indivudual responsibility is one of the founding pillars of the Baptist movement.

This applies as well to the children of Christians. In his book Chrysalis, Alan Jamieson raises the question in the final chapter of how churches can be safe places for people who have grown up in the church to ask their questions about matters in the Bible and in Christianity that trouble them.