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I was pleasantly surprised to find that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I reproduce here most of my post from May 10, 2008 in which I applauded Palin’s strong pro-life stance:

Al Mohler has a post in which he reflects upon a phenomenon gaining increasing acceptance… eugenic abortion. The impetus for his reflection is the recent birth of Trig Paxson Van Palin to the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Trig has Down’s Syndrome, a condition for which prenatal screening is now routine and often leads to the killing of the unborn baby. According to Mohler:

Kudos to the Palins for their decision which bucks this disturbing eugenic trend.

The Christ on Campus Initiative is a ministry…

… created for the purpose of preparing and circulating literature for college and university students, addressing an array of important intellectual and practical issues from an evangelical Christian perspective.

Top evangelical scholars are recruited to write articles which are…

… intellectually rigorous, culturally relevant, persuasive in argument and faithful to historic, evangelical Christianity.

I’ve taken a quick look at the first three articles. They appear to be excellent resources, not only for college students, but for any interested parties. The articles are:

Do Christians Have a Worldview? by Graham Cole

Jesus of Nazareth: How Historians Can Know Him and Why it Matters by Craig L. Blomberg

I Believe in Nature: An Exploration of Naturalism and the Biblical Worldview by Kirsten Birkett

HT: Justin Taylor

Althought the presidential campaigns have been underway for some time now (it almost seems like they never stop), we are about to enter the homestretch when advertising will intensify. The respective national conventions are coming up in the next two weeks. It is always disheartening and disappointing to see all the negative advertising, but a look back at American history will reveal that it is nothing new. As a matter of fact, my studies of American history over the past few years has reassured me that the country is not going to fall apart any time soon. All the bickering and partisan politics which characterize today’s election process is not new. In fact, one might conclude that today’s antics are mild. (I am no way encouraging mudslinging and, in fact, wish we could somehow do away with it. Unfortunately it has been part of the process since America’s inception - and before.)

I came across an article on CNN today, Founding Fathers’ Dirty Campaign, which chronicles some of the mudslinging from the nations earliest presidential campaigns (The candidates themselves actually did little campaigning in those days. Others did the dirty work for them.) In 1800, President John Adams found himself running against long-time friend Thomas Jefferson. According to the article, Jefferson’s campaign said Adams had a…

… hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.

Adams’ men called Jefferson …

a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.

Kerwin Squint, the author comments:

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was “one of the most detestable of mankind.

The article contains more of the like, also noting the blistering rhetoric of the 1828 campaign between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. So, while we’re not happy about the name calling and dirty campaigning of modern American politics, there is at least some consolation in knowing that America has survived over 200 years of similar stuff.

Christian Audio continues their generosity to the Christian reading public by providing this months free audiobook, The Confessions of Saint Augustine. There are no strings attached. The Confessions are considered to be the first Western autobiography written (around 397-398 A.D.) and has been very influential throughout church history. Augustine tells the story of his wayward youth and his conversion to Christianity.

While reading Ronald H. Nash’s The Gospel and the Greeks, I came across the following quote of A. H. Arrstrong which came from his An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. These comments, according to Nash, illustrate Plato’s relevance for Christian thought. I found them worthy of consideration.

Everyone who believes in an objective and unchanging standard of morality governing public as well as private life, in the soul as immaterial and immortal and the most important part of man, in the governance of the world by Divine Reason and in the existence of eternal archetypes or patters of all things that come to be and pass away, with which our behaviour and thought must conform, everyone who believes all this or an important part of it can claim to be in the tradition which goes back unbroken to Plato and Socrates: though the later development of teh Platonic school and, much more, the transforming influence of Christianity have very much altered the content of these beliefs, yet the tradition of their development has been continuous. However much we may find ourselves in disagreement with Plato on really serious and vitally important subjects, the nature of God, the eternity of the cosmos, the uncreatedness of matter, the value to be attached to the body and to sense experience… yet in other vital matters we are still of his school. As against the hosts of materialists, relativists, pragmatists, positivists, deniers of any eternal universal and objective truths or standards, who dominate so much of our thinking today and whose feebler predecessors were dealt with by Plato in his time, we who still hold to the older tradition are on Plato’s side and he and Socrates are on ours, and we should reverence them as of the greatest among the founders and fathers of our thought.

Armstrong has succinctly identified the major areas of commonality and difference between Christian teaching and Plato. I couldn’t agree more with his commendation of ancient philosophy. There is much to gain by reading and understanding the arguments of old as they are still fresh and relevant today. One who is equipped with such knowledge will be be better able to defeat today’s false philosophies.

Rachel Motte has a post at Scriptorium called “The Candidate and the President: Rachel Motte Reports from Saddleback.” The following two parapraghs from her post provide a concise summary of the impressions made by the two participants:

Mr. Obama has talked at length in previous forums about his ability to bring people together. In reality this means that he has an inability to displease his audience. He needs to be liked. This is useful in a candidate, but fatal in a President. He excels in the art of sounding good while saying little, and his refusal to take a firm stance on almost anything in this forum will not help him gain the vote of those who were actually listening.

John McCain has no such qualms. He is well-known for being unafraid of what people think of him. This is not always a desirable quality in a candidate, but it is absolutely necessary in a President. Let Obama remain a candidate for a few more years—he’s good at it. John McCain, on the other hand, is ready to be President.

John Mark Reynolds has a three-part discussion on what evangelicals want in regard to the coming election. In Part 1, he lays out some major issues of concern to most evangelicals. In Part 2, he presents a letter, in its entirety, from an Obama supporter who is also evangelical. In Part 3, he responds to that letter.

Here is Reynold’s interaction with one portion of the Obama supporter’s letter:

You say:

But I will make my case, briefly. Whenever I’m asked how I can be pro-life and be a Democrat, my answer always seems to surprise people. It’s because neither party is pro-life enough for me. I hate abortion, and I hate the death penalty. I hate the situations that make people think abortion is the only option they have. I hate that poverty, which is mentioned far more in the Bible than most issues that Christian march to the polls for, is ignored in the Church. Neither party is fully committed to the cause of life, so I have to pick and choose, as we all do, come election day.

I say:

I don’t think this quite true. The nominee for the Democrat Party doesn’t like poverty, but Senator McCain doesn’t either.

They disagree about means to ends, but agree on the goal.

When it comes to abortion this is not true as the Democrat nominee wants to see abortion, even in terrible and hard cases, fully legal. That is out of bounds to me.

It is true that both parties contain hypocrites who do not care. There are Republicans who support free markets because they don’t care about the poor. There are Democrats who support government solutions just to get some taxpayer money. Both parties have bad citizens.

Nobody has a monopoly in good intentions. Sadly one party has nominated a pro-life candidate and the other did not, so all things are not equal in this case. It is sad that because of this situation abortion is a partisan issue. If Democrats had nominated one of their pro-life leaders, it would not be. I support your bold choice to work for Democrats for Life to bring on that good day.

I was unable to watch the civil forum which took place at Saddleback church on Saturday evening, so I recorded it and watched last evening. It was one of the most enjoyable political debates/discussions I have ever viewed. I feel like I know both men better now. It was clear that both men had different styles and personalities. And it was clearer that both men had different views and positions on important issues. It would be obvious to those who regularly read this blog that my positions are more closely aligned with those of McCain. Having said that, Obama was a thoughtful, warm, intelligent individual who I think anyone would like to spend time with. Here are a couple of thoughful reviews of the forum:

John Mark Reynolds - Stunning: McCain Actually Won

Byron York - How McCain Won Saddleback

Here is an excerpt of York’s discussion of the candidates’ responses to the question, “At what point does a baby get human rights?” He starts by quoting Obama’s response:

“Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade,” Obama answered. “But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion because this is something obviously the country wrestles with. One thing that I’m absolutely convinced of is there is a moral and ethical content to this issue. So I think that anybody who tries to deny the moral difficulties and gravity of the abortion issue, I think, is not paying attention. So that would be point number one.” Obama went on to say that he is pro-choice. Even for people who agreed with him, it wasn’t a terribly impressive answer.

An hour later, when Warren asked McCain the same thing, he got this: “At the moment of conception. I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate, and as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies.”

“Okay — we don’t have to go longer on that one,” Warren said, quickly moving on…

To further press the case on abortion, McCain had brought along New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith, one of the most forceful pro-life voices in Congress. After the forum, I asked Smith whether Obama had helped himself at all with pro-lifers. Just the opposite, Smith said. “I thought Sen. Obama’s statement in quoting Matthew 25, which is my favorite scripture since I was in high school — ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do likewise to me’ — when as a matter of record he voted against [a ban on partial-birth abortion ]…well, I find it discouraging and disingenuous for him to talk about the least of our brethren.”

William F. Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, provided an exercise for his readers in which the goal is to explain why the syllogism is invalid.

There are formal rules of logic which must be followed to arrive at a valid conclusion. Inversely, there are also formal fallacies which, when committed, lead to an invalid conclusion. Bill provides the answer in the comment section of the post at his site.

First of all, Al Mohler (here) examines the question of whether marital infidelity and sexual immorality should have any bearing on America’s judgment of the fitness of political candidates for public office. Mohler comes down on the side of unfitness:

The American people are incredibly forgiving, but John Edwards violated a basic sense of public dignity and personal morality. The fact that his wife, Elizabeth, is in the fight of her life with cancer only adds to the public’s sense of outrage at his violation of his marital vows. His repeated lies added fuel to the fire. On top of all this, the narcissism and recklessness of his affair revealed a poisonous disregard for his responsibilities, his supporters, his family, his friends, and the public.

I think the majority of Americans would generally agree with Mohler, but this is not obviously the case (see the previous Clinton administration). In fact, Mohler speaks of a Psychology Today article whose author feels his sexual promiscuity better qualifies him for office.

Looking at the sad affair from another perspective is John Mark Reynolds who reminds us here of the importance of mercy and forgiveness. If you are able, read the whole post, but here is portion:

We cannot forgive his moral sin because his sin was not against us. As for his lies to the public, the charitable are eager to forgive, but the wise not so quick to trust. As for his sins against God, which at the hour of his death will matter most, God knows his heart, but forgiveness is freely available to Edwards, though bought at great cost to God.

Meanwhile, we can pity him and be charitable in our beliefs about his repentance. We can marvel at his audacity in running for high office so soon after his sins, while the wise will carefully consider his words in the future, but the charitable will also hope for the best. It does us no harm to be generous and might do us some good.

Forgiveness is good medicine for our souls, but only if we do not confuse forgiveness with something else. Forgiveness is not naïve or incompatible with justice or the other virtues. If we forgive, then we release the evildoer from his immediate obligations, but do not give him a free ticket to repeat the behavior.

One can only forgive a man who is truly sorry for his misdeeds. While charity will err on the side of trusting the penitent man, being loving is not incompatible with prudence. Forgiveness without wisdom can become a vice because it empowers future harm.