Hi Glenn Hager

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Jonathan Brink
Provoketive Magazine

You posted the following comment:
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Beverly,

Thank you for your very thoughtful comment. I apologize for taking a while to reply. It was a busy weekend around here. I also apologize that my response is longer than your original comment.

I am struck by how divided the people of our nations are. When I hear their response to the debates, it sounds like they were watching different things. That’s because their personality, their friends, and their brand of faith has formed a very specific filter through which they view the world. Of course, we would be better off to throw out the filters; except for “the Jesus one” that considers his example.

He didn't seem to care about government and the one he lived with was exponentially worse than ours, being a nasty blend of a cruel occupying militaristic empire and a corrupt theocracy. Jesus did encourage people of his day to pay their taxes with his “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” comment, but I can’t imagine him aligning with any political movement.

I understand why you believe he would lean to the left, since the left claims to be more compassion toward the poor and more accepting of people of various ethnicities. I have found that reasonable people agree upon the problems facing our nation, but they disagree upon the best way to address them and the role of government in that process. That’s a worthy discussion since so many government programs have evoked the law of unintended consequences and are no longer sustainable in these hard economic times.

Concerning President Obama, some people thought the Nobel Peace Prize was undeserved for no other reason than the fact that he had been president for less than a year and had no major accomplishments to show for it other than toning down the nationalistic rhetoric. 

Probably any president would have taken out Bin Laden given the opportunity he had. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratic Party kept “spiking the football,” something he earlier said was inappropriate.

These days Democrats and Republicans vehemently oppose anything coming from the other side. It’s a kind of semi-civilized tribalism that does a great disservice to the people of our nation.

There are no excuses for racism. Period! However, people who have sincerely challenged President Obama’s policies have been branded as “racists” and that is just as wrong. Both devalue individuals.

President Obama’s associates should be called into question as should those of any candidate.

Personally, I believe there was more hatred directed toward the last President Bush than there has been toward President Obama. This is largely because the media was complicit in the critical attitude toward Bush.

Perhaps my biggest concern of the liberal perspective is that it preaches tolerance, but there seems to be very little tolerance and a lot of misrepresentation of people who disagree with them.

Both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party are responses by people who are frustrated with the way things are. They each have the right to organize and be heard as long as they are not infringing upon the rights of others by destroying property or something like that.

Beverly, I love your compassion, but I would encourage you to examine your filter through which you see things. I suggest that people get their news from various sources and avoid becoming die hard adherents of either party. That way you have the flexibility to accept or reject whatever parts that don’t line up with what we know about Jesus and then you can merge the best parts of various perspectives.