Category Archives: Politics

My American Tribe

Leave a reply

There are thousands of distinct tribes and ethnic groups throughout the world. Each one has a culture that distinguishes it from others, and often language is indicative of those distinctions. Those differences and similarities can help us to understand ourselves and one another. For instance, some languages have words for more than two genders; those pushing the gender boundaries can find comfort that their cause is not new (a recent discovery coming from my research of the book Black Leopard, Red Wolf).

Thinking about words in that context makes me wonder about America: how does language and culture differentiate different groups within our country? “American” is a nationality, indicating citizenship to a state, while ethnicity refers to those groups with ties that go beyond American borders and can be older than its existence. But is race an ethnicity? In other words, is being white an ethnicity? Black? Asian? Race appears to be a category that has ethnicities within it. Also, there are regional distinctions, because there is a culture in the American South that is distinct from the American West and the American Northeast—but are these cultures largely distinctions within the white Euro-American ethnicity? Are Black Americans the same in the South, West, and Midwest?

These are only a few of the many questions that can all lead to various discussions (I’ll let you decide if those conversations would be interesting or not), but I want to turn toward myself (and maybe you). I am a white male and I feel like I don’t belong to any particular ethnic group. I do not have cultural ties to any of my European ancestors, and because I have moved dozens of times and lived in a few regions of the United States and the world, I have no ties to a particular location. The closest thing I have binding me to a particular place would be my membership to a church where I connect to small and large groups with whom I share common beliefs and lifestyle. However, I’ve had to change churches a number of times in the past few years, which means I’ve lost that recently. I am disconnected from the places I graduated high school and college. I’ve lived in Colorado since 2012 and currently reside in the city of Denver, but what binds me to the culture of Denver and Colorado? I’ve been listening to the City Cast Denver podcast as a way to get closer to the Denver culture, but listening to it makes me feel like I don’t belong here. This, itself, is due to socioeconomic differences, because . . . well, I guess I’m not cultured enough to be participating in all the goings-on of the city.

Yet, I do have a tribe, and I am fortunate for it. My last name is Chinese because I’ve been adopted into my stepfather’s family, and still my mother’s and biological father’s family consider me one of theirs as well, and now my wife’s family has embraced me as one of them (and she’s almost half Cherokee); thus, I have plenty of family. That is my tribe. We all speak English (and other languages), we all live in America (scattered among many states), we share common values that don’t always align perfectly but well enough, and despite plenty of disputes and offenses, I can almost always walk into any family gathering and be welcome. But I don’t have a single location where I can connect with all or even most of this tribe because we are spread out. This is America, and many of us here can say the same or similar.

This brings me to my point. What if America were a tribe, an ethnic group? What would define it? What would distinguish it among the nations and peoples and cultures of the world while uniting all of us?! I want to suggest two things: the American Dream and “all men are created equal”. Aren’t these what make America great? Maybe this is wishful thinking, because these two ideals have not been true for large portions of Americans throughout our history, and still we are the most powerful nation in the world, with people all over the world coming here to pursue that American Dream.

I think the American identity is changing today, but not really. We’ve always been hypocritical, racist oppressors who claimed the American Dream applies to everyone here while suppressing the rights of those we secretly despise. But today, under Trump’s presidency, we’re flaunting that hypocrisy. His leadership is divisive—he makes enemies of those he’s closest to who dare disagree with him, and a significant portion of Americans do not want his ways to define us. I believe Americans need to come together around what unites us, and then build an agenda and identity around that ideal. Even with the most divisive of issues, there are things we can all agree on, and that’s where we need to start. Because the American Dream is real, and it is made possible by our governmental system and cultural ideals, even if they often fail, and America won’t give up on who we are and who we want to be. #Hope

Is There Justification for American Colonialism?

Leave a reply

Over the years, I’ve seen white Americans argue for why we shouldn’t be made to feel bad for the sins of our ancestors, including slavery and the colonial conquest of America, and I can feel sympathetic toward people not wanting to be held responsible for something that someone else did in another time. However, I haven’t heard any arguments actually justifying the wrongs of our past, and was surprised when I heard Ben Shapiro do this on his show in May 2025.

Shapiro claims that it is “obviously true” that “the world is better off because of . . . American power [and] the spread of European ideals.” He says that although “bad things are a tragedy . . . overall, in the broad scope of history . . . [i]t’s an absolutely wonderful thing that Europeans ended up on the North American continent.” His justification is “[t]he spread of things like property rights, due process of law, capitalism, freedom of religion, these things which are not a human universal.”

I wasn’t merely surprised when I heard this, I was shocked, and I don’t think this is an extreme response. He is saying that the end justifies the means, and he identifies the end as “an absolutely wonderful thing” that includes “property rights, due process of law, capitalism, [and] freedom of religion.” These are all good things that, unfortunately, have not applied to all Americans for much of our history. Further still, the means he refers to, those tragic “bad things,” include the genocide of Native Americans and an economic system that legalized slavery, two very significant parts of United States history that did not die off quickly. The Civil War didn’t end slavery because it was transformed into legalized oppression and dehumanization through Jim Crow laws that continued into the 1960s, and we were sterilizing Native American women against their will as recently as the 1970s, meaning people alive today experienced these abuses.

Shapiro claims that the genocide, oppression, and dehumanization of thousands upon thousands who had to die, suffer, and lose land and culture is made just by the fact that he, a rich white man, has a right to own land. Property rights and due process of law obviously didn’t apply to the victims of our conquests, and for most of the time that the United States of America has been a country, those rights were not given to everyone who called America their country and home. Those property rights he mentioned were only meant to protect land-owning white men when they were established. I would also argue that due process only applies if you can afford lawyers to defend that right, capitalism itself isn’t worth killing over, and freedom of religion is debatable.

This changes the narrative of American history. We Americans do not have the “freedoms” we enjoy because a handful of patriots rebelled against unjust oppression (what is taxation without representation compared to genocide and slavery?). Rather, we enjoy the comforts of the American way because we are “better at war,” as Shapiro puts it, which is not a Judeo-Christian ethic (something else that Shapiro promotes). Shapiro’s end currently applies to all Americans, for the most part, but only because those we oppressed endured a great struggle to undo our hypocrisy. Shapiro’s argument is “might makes right,” and embarrasses America by showing how sanctimonious we are. Our constitution was hypocritical the moment it was signed because it claimed to grant unalienable rights to its citizens while depriving slaves (and others) of those same rights. We cannot claim a moral right to contest the rebellion of those fighting for rights when we used unprovoked conquest to forcibly and oppressively take and maintain our own “rights.”

Refusing to acknowledge the wrongs of our past creates a barrier to addressing today’s failures, but this topic gets considerably more complicated from here. There is no simple fix to the flawed narrative of American history. I somewhat agree with Shapiro when he blasts the concept of simply giving up property, or “your dingy apartment in Brooklyn,” as he puts it, to make amends. It isn’t feasible to hand over the country to the remaining Native Americans, and what do we have that we can restore to the descendants of slavery? But doing nothing isn’t acceptable, and neither is pretending it didn’t happen, ignoring it, or minimizing the atrocity of it. There are a number of books that I recommend, fiction and non-fiction, to better understand the experiences of non-white Americans, including Unsettling Truths, Beloved, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Quite a few other books, movies, podcasts, and TV series are presenting American history more accurately than ever before, but there is so much working against this good work, including comments like Shapiro’s.

I believe we must not only be honest about who we are as Americans, but choose who we want to be and make it so. What does it mean to be American? What is the American dream? What is the American way of life? As for me, I detest Shapiro’s vision that justifies genocide and the dehumanizing actions, policies, and laws that are an unavoidable part of my country’s legacy. However, if we are (or want to be) a land of equality and opportunity for all, then let’s ensure it is truly that.

The Three Lives of Abortion

Leave a reply

There are three lives involved in the decision to abort an unborn child, and no law or political agenda addresses all three. The two dominant ideologies on this issue address only one of the three, to the detriment of the other two.

Mother. It is her body and life that will be most significantly affected, not only in the nine months of gestation, but in the months and years that follow. She will lose time at work and will incur medical expenses, and her lifestyle will be completely transformed. A pregnancy that is unexpected or unplanned could put the mother at great financial risk and be jarringly disruptive to her daily routine as well as her life goals. The laws that protect the child leave mothers who are disadvantaged at an even greater disadvantage.

Baby. Is it a person at conception? That is semantics. What is created will become a person, a human being. At what point does it become a human being? It has all the genetic material at conception that is required to grow into a self-sufficient person. If the mother has rights, so does the human being created by what the mother did to create it.

Father. The genetics inside those two initial cells that come together are half from the mother and half from the father, should he not be a part of the discussion? The human being that was created required two people agreeing to perform an act together (rape is the obvious exception), why should they not be required to make decisions together regarding the product of the act that they together agreed to do?

There is no such thing as “rights.” Unless there is a God or Ultimate Creator who establishes a moral standard and assigns rights, what we call “rights” are merely a decision regarding what we personally or our society collectively values. Therefore, the better question is: what do we value? You do not value “life” if you neglect the mother, the unborn child, or the father.

Choice. A conception happens when two consenting adults choose to have sex (rape is the obvious exception). This choice comes well before the decision to abort. Should we not be required to consider the consequences of sex? When I was a kid, HIV scared us all, and we all considered the consequences of sex. I have heard well-to-do young women speak on avoiding sex acts that could lead to pregnancy because they first wanted to get established, go to school, and get married and settled. A choice. Our culture values the right to have sex when and with who we want, and Christians are as culpable in this as anyone else, because we participate in this culture’s values. But if that “right” to make that choice has a consequence of creating a human being, that decision is a very weighty decision. We take it too frivolously.

Life. What law can be written that will be able to distinguish an abortion for convenience verses an early birth due to medical complications? Or a medical condition that endangers either mother or child necessitating an abortion? Why should doctors fear doing their job because of zealous idealogues pursuing a self-serving agenda? And it is self-serving, because the all-or-nothing anti-abortion campaigns are not pro-life at all. They are singularly focused on a narrow agenda that excludes the impacts on all the lives surrounding that child’s life. And the life of the mother matters, because if an unexpected pregnancy has a devastating effect on the mother, should not her life matter as much as the child’s? Those who are “pro-life” should put their money where their mouth is and pay for the expenses caused when the disadvantaged have an unexpected child.

Lost. The fathers are lost in all these ideologies. Except in rape, the mother made a choice to share an intimate experience with a man who becomes a father at the exact same moment that she becomes a mother. We can hold him financially responsible for the choice he made to have sex, and yet we exclude him from having any say in whether what is created lives or dies? My brother has six kids, but he also had two miscarriages. After the first one, I was talking with him on the phone and babbling on about my own nonsense when he snapped at me and said he was mourning the loss of a child. I had no idea, but a miscarriage has the same emotional impact on the parents as losing a child, both mother and father. I hear woman talking about their bodies and their rights, what about a father’s rights, a father’s soul? My three-year-old is half me and my wife: my choice matters, and my wife’s choice to have a child with me matters, and I have a say in my child’s life.

Rape. The perspective that the created child is a part of the trauma is just that, a perspective. It is also a valid perspective that the life created from that horrific experience can redeem that loss. What we value matters, and if the created life matters, it can become redemptive. However, I do not believe we should force a woman to have the child if it adds to her trauma. No law can contain the compassion needed to address the trauma and the healing process of rape.

No law or political ideology addresses all the lives involved in an abortion. But what we value matters, and the laws reflect what we value. Do we value our pleasure over the consequences of our decisions? Do we have a “right” to make laws that are completely unable to address all the issues and needs surrounding this huge event? And the creation of life is just that: huge.

Our society is wrestling with what it values, and the different sides are demonizing each other. But all I see are demons arguing against the value of lives that are unimportant to them.

This is a brief article touching on issues that obviously can be explored much more thoroughly than I have done here.

Blessings!

Faith and Politics

Leave a reply

I am neither conservative nor liberal, Republican nor Democrat. I grew up in a very conservative environment, and for many years I believed the conservative way was the most good and that it made the most sense. However, I never really understood the liberal perspective, because the TV channel was always changed when a Democrat was talking. It was not until I left home that I was able to listen to other perspectives, but even still it was not until I was in my thirties that I truly sought to understand other political perspectives.

In listening to other perspectives, I heard things that made sense. I heard people who genuinely believed the best thing for the country and for people was a perspective that differed from what I had always believed. I began questioning my beliefs about political policy, everything from economics and immigration to welfare and even abortion. What policies really worked? Was there data to show what was really beneficial?

I doubt the numbers we hear that “prove” one perspective or another are clear, because the talking heads that espouse their side of the argument do not really care about facts, only about being right, and they are very good at sounding smart and making the opposing arguments seem foolish.

Yet as a Christian, I do not need to trust political commentators, I do not need to know for certain which news outlet gives the most unbiased information, and I do not need to fully understand what really goes on in the power struggle at the highest political and financial levels in this country or the world.

I just need Christ and his word to guide me.

What does the word say, then? What is the perspective of Christ? What does the Bible say is the responsibility of politicians and leaders, including the wealthy who wield and influence power over many? What sort of policies should I, as a Christian, support?

Start with the obvious: God demands that rulers and judges pursue and execute justice and righteousness:

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you. Deu 16:18-20 ESV

This is what the LORD says to you, house of David: “‘Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it.’” Jer 21:12 NIV

The laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy not only teach of sacrifices to atone for sin, but laws regarding justice and moral living. In these laws, we see the heart of God, and that the intent of rulers and judges executing justice was for them to protect the poor from the oppressor. Looking a little past one of the verses above, we see what is truly on God’s heart:

Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates. Thus says the LORD, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jer 22:2-3 NASB

The charge is to do justice and righteousness, but what does that look like? The charge continues in explanation: Rescue those robbed from their oppressor, do no wrong or violence to the stranger (also translated: foreigner, sojourner) or the fatherless or the widow. Elsewhere, there is another added to the list:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart. Zech 7:9-10 ESV

Either the “one another” includes or is an addition to the sojourner (foreigner, stranger), the fatherless, the widow, and the poor. In ancient society, orphans and widows would have no means to provide for themselves, being without father or husband; therefore, relatives were charged to provide for them. This would surely be a burden on family without means, while those with means would easily be able to provide for relatives.

This brings us to the poor, which is really what all of these words refer to. Those with means do not need protection or provision from the government.

The word for poor refers to the afflicted, humble, lowly, needy, and poor (from the Olive Tree Enhanced Strong’s Dictionary, h6041), and I believe each of those words points to an important group that God wants us to look after.

Finally, there’s the stranger or foreigner or sojourner, which requires a more lengthy definition:

Sojourners are not like foreigners visiting some other country; rather, they have settled in the land for some time and live there, even though they are not native to that area. Abraham was a sojourner in Hebron (Gen. 23:4), Moses in Midian for forty years (Exod. 2:22), Elimelech and his family in Moab (Ruth 1:1), and the Israelites in Egypt (Exod. 6:4; 22,20). (Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Word)

It should be obvious why God wants us to care for the poor, orphans and widows, but why the foreigners? The answer is in the law itself: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21, NIV). This refers to the same category as the others, the poor and oppressed foreigners among them, because the Hebrews went to Egypt to flee famine and years later were oppressed by the government and made to be slaves.

I also believe the focus on foreigners is meant to include non-Jews in God’s salvation, but that is a different discussion. Interestingly, the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians out of fear of their numbers, which seems very similar to the immigration problem in America today.

Foreigners, orphans, widows, the poor – all of these are people without the means to defend themselves from those who do have means, from those who abuse their power and take advantage of the social and economic difference between them. Who does this refer to in today’s society? It probably differs from country to country, and even within each country there may be differences state to state and city to city, so I will refer to my specific experience.

Recently, my wife and I went to court against someone who was a criminal, who had a criminal income and connections, a man with means and influence beyond our own. We were unable to afford an attorney at the time, so after trying in vain to get multiple law enforcement agencies to pursue this criminal, we represented ourselves in court. Despite ample circumstantial evidence showing what this man was doing, despite the judge believing us, neither law enforcement nor the court acknowledged that this man was a criminal, nor did they give us justice. The system was unable to provide justice to those without the means to spend money on attorneys and without the influence to get law enforcement to do their job. And we are comfortably in the middle class!

This is why I do not believe capital punishment is a good option for this country, because it seems only the poor will ever end up being executed for their crimes. While I believe capital punishment is Biblical (Gen 9:6, Rom 13:4) (I acknowledge this is debatable), it is not Biblical to have laws that are only enforced on those without means to defend themselves.

This is what I believe God intended the rulers and judges of nations to consider in their execution of justice and righteousness. It is easy enough to say that stealing is wrong and that those who do so should be punished in some way, it is much more challenging to ensure that the poor man stealing because he is starving (Pro 6:30-31) is not punished more severely than the stock broker who steals to increase his already substantial wealth (Jam 5:1-6). When a judge sentences a white man to a few years for embezzling millions while sentencing a black man to decades for embezzling a couple hundred thousand, he may be adhering to the laws of the land, but he will fall under the judgment of God.

God’s provision for the poor applies not only to laws and courts, but to social services like welfare, housing assistance, financing education, but there is not time here to explore all of this. And while I do not see any indication in Scripture that the wealthy and those with means and influence need any special protection or provision from the government, I do see God commanding fairness even for them: Do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit. (Exo 23:3 HCSB)

From here, I would like to address a handful of specific issues, exploring how I can use the Word of God to guide my support of the various political issues and debates, but in separate articles. In conclusion, I see the Bible being very clear about the role of government as well as those with power and influence, that it is to protect those without means and those who are suffering.

Blessings!

The Refugees – 10,000 Chances to Choose Faith

Leave a reply
Tired and Poor and Hungry and Hurting © Anchels - Fotolia.com

Tired and Poor and Hungry and Hurting
© Anchels – Fotolia.com

I want to comment on allowing Syrian refugees into America, but from a Christian perspective not a political one. As a Christian I strive to be guided by Christ and the Bible, not by conservative or liberal political ideas. Too many Christians allow a political affiliation determine their beliefs, and consequently their actions. The only filter we should have for political arguments is our faith.

President Obama wants to bring 10,000 refugees from the conflict in Syria over to America, but ever since the Paris attacks occurred, this plan has become a political weapon for conservatives to attack liberals. Politics is politics, and some politicians are playing into the fears of the people to get attention. What bothers me is seeing Christians using the exact same rhetoric as the politicians in arguing against bringing over refugees from this conflict. My point is not to call anyone out specifically, so I will not cite any examples. I simply want to examine this issue from a Christian perspective.

These refugees are fleeing exactly what we are trying to keep out of America: the war and terror and lawlessness, the killing and death and bombs and gunshots. These refugees are tired and poor and hungry and hurting, they are persecuted and desperate and have no where to go but places that don’t want them or can’t handle all of them. They are what James, the brother of Jesus, meant when he wrote this:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (Jam 1:27, NIV84)

When James wrote this, orphans and widows were those who were unable to provide for and protect themselves. They survived off the generosity of others. Do not these refugees of the conflict in Syria qualify? Especially since there are so many trying to get into Europe that Europe cannot handle all of them. We absorb millions of illegal immigrants, what is 10,000 more who will be vetted before coming over? Was not John, the close friend and disciple of Jesus, referring to just this circumstance when he wrote,

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:17-18, NIV84)

Should not Christians be rushing to help these refugees, rather than joining with those who are yelling for them to be kept out?

The argument for refusing these refugees has to do with our security. Americans want to feel insulated from the killing and explosions and the resulting fear and instability. I understand the concern, but this argument is allowing fear to trump love, and God commands love. If we are to fear, we should be fearing God, not terrorists. Jesus said this,

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matt 10:28, NIV84)

Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah provided an example of this faith, the proper kind of fear, when they said this to Nebuchadnezzar,

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or woship the image of gold you have set up. (Dan 3:17-18, NIV84)

I for one trust that our American vetting process will keep out all the terrorists, a process that takes one and a half to two years! But if our process fails, I will accept the risk of harm to me and my family to give 10,000 hurting and suffering people the opportunity to experience the same freedom from war and death that I enjoy here in America.

We Christians should be calling for much more than a mere 10,000 of these refugees to be allowed over, and the Christian community alone can absorb every one of them. Let me know what you think.

Blessings!

A Hard Teaching for Americans

Leave a reply
Slavery is a hard word for Americans to deal with. © Durluby - Fotolia.com

Slavery is a hard word for Americans to deal with.
© Durluby – Fotolia.com

Americans have a thing about slavery. It is offensive to us, it is an embarrassment, it is something hateful, it is a dark past that has never fully unlatched itself from our present, and it is completely and absolutely not-good! It is in opposition to the motto we sing, “Land of the free, home of the brave,” and goes against our founding document that states our belief in the “unalienable rights” of every human being.

This is probably why many Bible translations today changed the word “slave” to “bond-servant.” I have heard pastors explain away Biblical teaching directed to slaves, saying the word really refers to someone who voluntarily submitted to their master. Kind of like an employee.

It makes it sound not so bad that way.

As far as I can tell, when the New Testament writers used the word slave (or bond-servant), they were writing about what we would consider slavery, or human trafficking: a person who was property with no rights. This distinction is important because what the Apostles wrote to slaves is a beautiful expression of how deeply a Christian’s commitment to God must be.

This is from the Holman translation of 1 Timothy 6:1

All who are under the yoke as slaves must regard their own masters to be worthy of all respect, so that God’s name and His teaching will not be blasphemed. (HCSB)

Now, read that again. The Greek word translated to “respect” means either value or honor. This is an instruction for Christian slaves to not only treat their unbelieving masters with “all respect,” but to consider them worthy of all respect! This has nothing to do with deserving it, either, since these masters were likely quite harsh. Rather, the reason is to protect the name, or reputation, of God.

Who would tell a slave to give their harsh master a high value and deem them worthy of great honor? No one in America, I think. But if you get caught up in the slave/master relationship, you may miss that this has nothing to do with those harsh masters. It is about God, how glorious he is, and how important he is to us.

I asked myself if I take God’s name that seriously. Is the reputation of my Lord and Savior so precious to me that I am willing to honor those who have taken away my rights, abused and oppressed me, bullied me and harmed me? Do I value those who have made themselves my enemy so that I can ensure God’s name is held in high esteem?

How many Americans are willing to hear this? How many Americans who go to church every Sunday actually live this? We Americans believe in our rights, we cling to them and champion them and demand laws protecting them. We even protect the rights of criminals, those who have grossly violated others’ rights. The thought of a loving God wanting a slave to give honor to a vile master is unthinkable to us.

This, however, is what the Bible tells us to do. And it goes much further than teaching us to be good employees. This shows us how far the command to love our enemies must go, and that our Heavenly Father is worthy of so much respect that we give honor to the unrespectable.

I heard a story on the radio of a woman whose daughter was bullied. They responded by praying for the bully and by the end of the year the daughter and the bully were good friends. That is loving our enemies, giving the oppressors enough value to spend time in prayer for them.

Can you think of an example of how to do this in your life?

Blessings!