Scott Freeman

I, for one, was greatly disappointed in the President’s state of the union address. So much more could have been said about poverty both in the US and on a global scale. Instead we saw some political sleight of hand to make the numbers appear better than they truly are.
Here is a great video that puts it into perspective.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were absolutely devastating to the Gulf Coast and its economy. A whole lot more needed to be said.

Another day, another fantastic album.
On September 12, 2003 the world mourned the loss of one of it’s greatest poets.
Roseanne Cash mourned the loss of her father.
Black Cadillac deals with loss, anger, hurt, despair and hope. It is a seminal album from an often overlooked artist.
I said yesterday that Derek Webb’s new one will probably make my 2006 list. This one will definitely join that one.

Charles Colson has an outstanding article on Christians and Roe V. Wade. The conservative Christian world needs a whole lot more of this sentiment.

I’ve received some criticism for my decision to see “Brokeback Mountain.” I went seeking understanding and to confront my own hatreds. I just can’t allow hate in my heart anymore. I’ve encountered many people in my 17+ years of ministry for whom homosexuality is more than just a black and white issue. They have wrestled with it personally, seen families break apart, and felt their own dark night of the soul. I have never failed to respond in love to those who have come to me with this struggle. But I have often failed to show it to others. Brian McLaren has an insightful and powerful article in the latest Leadership that states exactly what I feel. Allow me to share a brief quote if you don’t want to read the whole article:

“I hesitate in answering “the homosexual question”
not because I’m a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but
because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there
is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we
must also be ? pastoral. That means understanding the question
beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that
motivates the question.

“We pastors want to frame our answer around that
need; we want to fit in with the Holy Spirit’s work in that person’s
life at that particular moment. To put it biblically, we want to be
sure our answers are “seasoned with salt” and appropriate to “the need
of the moment” (Col. 4; Eph. 4).

“Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony
over this question. We fear that the whole issue has been manipulated
far more than we realize by political parties seeking to shave
percentage points off their opponent’s constituency. We see whatever we
say get sucked into a vortex of politicized culture-wars rhetoric-and
we’re pastors, evangelists, church-planters, and disciple-makers, not political culture warriors. Those who bring us honest questions are people we are trying to care for in Christ’s name, not cultural enemies we’re trying to vanquish.”

Great music for the heart. Great reading for the mind.

Republicans maintain their commitment to cutting social programs. Is there really nothing we can cut other than health care, child support and school loans?
A tip of the hat must go to the five Republicans who showed some heart and voted against it: Lincoln Chafee (R.I.),
Gordon Smith (Ore.),Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), and Mike DeWine (Ohio).

From Sojourners:

Many in the religious community cannot believe that leaders
could pass a federal budget cutting health care, child support,
and educational assistance to low-income families while further
lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans and increasing the
deficit for our grandchildren. Making this decision just before
Christmas does not proclaim goodwill toward all. Although the
faith community played a strong role in preventing food stamps
from being cut in this budget, we cannot ignore the many other
cuts that could become a reality for many of the 36 million
people living in poverty in the U.S. Despite clear messages from
people of faith that the poor families and children with whom we
work need better policies and support, our political leadership
is missing the meaning of Christmas. Instead of filling the
hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty, this
budget process will only fill the rich with good things and send
the hungry away empty.

Bipartisan efforts to prevent severe budget cuts continue to
provide hope. Congressional leadership may cast today’s slight
change to the budget bill as a way to delay the inevitable. That
is not the case, and your voice can continue to have an impact.
Please keep doing the great work you have been doing all
year!

Make sure your member of Congress knows you are still
watching and praying. Call your rep today and urge them to vote against this bill.

Link: Cheney breaks Senate tie to pass budget bill – Yahoo! News.

President Bush vehemently denied today that the U.S. is involved in torture.

Why is it that I don’t feel reassured?
Why is it that I doubt this man that I have voted for twice?
In the light of Abu Ghraib, the revelation of additional CIA prisons, and a track record of manipulation a categorical denial of any clandestine acts rings hollow to me.

Are we above torture? I would like to believe that we are.
But why are we holding suspects outside the U.S.?

And if we don’t torture why is congress discussing millions of dollars in cuts to social programs at the same time considering another tax cut for the wealthy?
Is a budget a moral document? If so, where are our morals?

Color me one very disgruntled conservative amidst a party in major jeopardy of losing its soul.

Michael Brown blames the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans.
The Governor and Mayor blame the federal government.
Flight attendants blame Jodie Foster for disparaging flight attendants.
Did William Bennett just tie the crime rate to the lack of abortions among blacks?
George Bush is responsible for the 1918 Influenza pandemic.
The disgraced Army reservist blames her ex-boyfriend for her complicity in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

The oldest profession is not what we generally consider it to be.
The oldest profession is casting blame.
It is surely as in vogue today as much as it was in the Garden.
As much as it was among the Israelites during their Exodus and their wilderness wanderings.

“It was this woman that made me eat”
“The Devil made me do it”
“If only you had never led us out of Egypt”

Why is it that we are so quick to place blame on others?
Why is it that we are so slow to say, “I was wrong”?
“Forgive me”
To take ownership for our own failures, our own mistakes.
To say unequivocally, “The buck stops here”

But don’t we all do it?
How many of us seek to diminish our partnership with transgression and iniquity?
How many of us blame our spouses for our own bad mood?
How many of us blame our children for acting like we have taught them to act through our own examples?
How many of us blame our parents for our poor decisions?

But, to me, here it the interesting thing: not many people buy it.
Most of us are astute enough to recognize when someone is being dishonest with their sins.
When they are being coy with their contraventions.

Why do we do it?
When it would be so much easier to say, “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
To stop the blame game and seek to be conciliatory with our lives.
The Jews were required to offer both sin and guilt offerings in Leviticus.
The sin offering was a required act to seek atonement for unintentional sins against God or others.
The guilt offering was also required in order to seek atonement for intentional sins.

It seems that God knows all about our seemingly eager proclivity to place blame on others for our own action.
May we seek His Spirit to humble us and acknowledge our own failures. To take responsibility for our own actions. To refuse to place on others what belongs rightfully in our camp.
To say, “I was wrong and I am sorry.”

I know that you are a very busy man. With a war in Iraq to fight, Supreme Court vacancies and a national disaster, I know that you must be overwhelmed with the responsibilities of your office.
Allow me to take just a moment of your time and make a special appeal to you:
Repeal the new bankruptcy bill.
I know the bill was passed in April due to the perception that some are taking advantage of current bankruptcy laws. I understand the desire to make people pay what they owe. And capable people should pay their debts.
However, in the light of Hurricane Katrina, the devastation upon the American economy, and more importantly the people of this nation, will make this bill an unnecessary burden. It will cripple people already crippled by Katrina’s desolation.
Some have suggested delaying the bill or providing a loophole for those survivors of Katrina. I urge you to go further and seek to repeal the entire bill. The ramifications of this disaster is, as yet, not fully known. The economic fall-out will be one that may take years to properly assess. The implications on unemployment, interest rates and other economic indicators is too murky to fail to offer adequate relief to all who may bear the brunt of this catastrophe.
Not only would such a move be shrewd politically but it would be healing, compassionate and biblical.
Release from debt, the resistance of an overwhelming socio-economic gap, and ending the cyclization of poverty were principles that God wove into the fabric of the nation of Israel. That love for the poor and compassion for the down-trodden culminated in the glorious year of Jubilee: slaves set free, debts forgiven.
In the aftermath of Katrina the heart for people must supercede the relationship to this nations creditors. The people must come before banks.
August 29th was a black day in American history.
October 17th, the day the new bankruptcy bill is scheduled to go into effect, does not need to be another black day.
Our nation can’t stand another setback of this magnitude.
Please Mr. President, repeal the bankruptcy bill.

Respectfully,
L. Scott Freeman

If we, as Christians, ever wonder why some people don’t like us, look at us rather skeptically and have a hard time taking us seriously we need look no further than right here for one of the main reasons: Link

Pat Robertson calls for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. That’s just great. Super way to go and make disciples don’t you think?
Someone gives the republic grief? Let’s go take them out.
I think I remember reading that somewhere in scripture.
Yeah. Right after loving your enemies and praying for those that persecute you.

If you are a non-Christian and are somehow reading this blog, please understand this: unfortunately, Pat Robertson may be speaking for some Christians who endorse and condone acts of violence and coercion as evangelism but he does NOT speak for Jesus.

Jesus would suggest we pray for Hugo Chavez.
That we would love him despite any differences of opinion or policy that we might suggest.
The idea that Jesus would support the violent toppling of a rival governmental leader is both nauseating and a gross dismissal of Romans 13.
Jesus, himself, did not actively engage the Roman empire of His day, despite how wicked and corrupt it was. No, His ire was typically reserved for the uber-religious who espoused the Messiah destroying Rome by force and establishing an earthly kingdom of His own.
Jesus didn’t resort to such drastic measures then and I doubt He would choose to do so today.

If we, as Christians, become enemies of the message of Jesus then how can we disseminate His truth in a lost and dying world? How can we be His hope if we wish the damnation of others? How can we be harbingers of salvation if we neglect to pray for the souls of the lost? How can we convey grace if we condone destruction?

I’m saddened.
But thankful, that the Way of Jesus is more than human rhetoric.

Or do you find this just plain wrong like I do?

It seems this site is selling car magnets with “Bush” inside the Christian icthus, a symbol dating back to the early days of the church that represented to those persecuted followers of Christ a message of hope and salvation, not American policy or leadership.
The letters, icthus, stood for JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, SAVIOR. Not G.W.
That means a lot to me. I have to deal with pagans co-opting the fish for their sacrilegious pleasure and Christians slapping it on their car with little regard for how often they fail to drive with the spirit of Christ but this really galls me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this country. I am as patriotic as the next guy. But the United States of America is not my Kingdom. I await another world.
I don’t even dislike GW. I mean, I’ve even voted for him in the past. But he is a president, not a Savior. And I don’t agree that all of his policies reflect the intent and desire of Christ.
To intimate that the US and the Kingdom of God have the identical purposes and intent is to grossly overestimate the nobility of earthly kingdoms. And it diminishes the Sovereignty and Power of God.
I could rail on but I will get off my soapbox now.

When I started writing on this site I made a silent agreement with myself:
No politics.
It’s just too messy and all I will do is fire people up when there are others more qualified than myself to deal with sticky hot-button issues of the day.
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep that agreement.
The way it is shaping up only for about another sentence or two.
For my heart is breaking. And I feel that we are repeating the same mistakes of the past.
In 1994 the African nation of Rwanda lost over 800,000 people due to tribal fighting.
America did nothing.
I was 26 years old and knew next to nothing about what was taking place on the other side of the world.
When I did learn of the atrocities I brushed it off as not my problem.
“We can’t bail out the entire world.”
“Let’s offer a hand-up and not a hand-out”
And precious souls, the least of these, found themselves abandoned and broken on the unforgiving wheels of living.
In 1998 Bill Clinton went to Rwanda and apologized for our blindness:
We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not
have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers.
We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name:
genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything
in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of
hope…. We owe to all the people in the world our best efforts to
organize ourselves so that we can maximize the chances of preventing
these events. And where they cannot be prevented, we can move more
quickly to minimize the horror.

Although no excuse exists for not intervening, the pledge to be more vigilant in the future is the least that we can do.
Yesterday, after a 6 month silence on the issue, President Bush acknowledged that there is genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.
400,000 people are dead.
2.5 million people are without homes.
Now we must make sure that we stand up. That our government is not once again silent to genocide in a nation that has no money to give us, no precious resources that we covet.
We must make sure that this time we value human life not just what human life can give us.
This is not a Republican issue.
This is not a Democrat issue.
The blame does not go solely to Bill Clinton for our un-involvement in Rwanda.
The blame will not go solely to George W. Bush for our un-involvement in Darfur.
We must stand up and make our voices heard.
For this is a Christian issue.
It smacks at the heart of who we are called to be.
To be hope for the hopeless.
Provide homes for the homeless.
Salvation for the lost and downtrodden.
And a voice for those whose voices have been muted by the cacophony of war.

I am ashamed that I have been so silent in my cries for social justice.
That I have been content to live a prosperous life while others struggle for survival.
That I have relegated to the government the work of developing a heart for those in need.

I don’t know where I got the idea that dropping a tithe in the collection basket was giving enough.
I don’t know where I got the idea that preaching as a career was service enough.
I don’t know where I got the idea that loving my family was loving enough.
I don’t know where I got the idea that it was solely the responsibility of Washington D.C. to tend to the needs of others.

I do know that I did not get this ideas from Jesus.
I did not get these ideas from the example that He set.
He loved people. He gave all of Himself.
I must endeavor to do the same.
Will you? Go to Sojourners and Darfur Genocide to learn more.
Together we can make a difference.
Thank you for listening to me.
Now back to the regularly scheduled stuff.

We can now legally starve people to death. We rail against the atrocities at Abu Ghraib but how is this different?
Link: Yahoo! News – Schiavo Dies 13 Days After Feeding Tube Removed.