The key question is - when you think your “leadership” is lacking judgement, missing the boat, way out of line or killing prime opportunities what does the 4th commandment require in the modern world? The modern world has two things that level the advantages of experience: the pace of information and a default egalitarianism. The diligent 20yr old can be much better equipped and informed than the mediocre 55 yr old. The hard working entreprenuer can have much better insight than the corporate executive. The latters would appear to be the “superiors”, but the formers actually are in the better position. Does the 20 yr old shut up and obey, or is the better part of honoring to speak up and bear the consequences if there are any? Does the entreprenuerial spirit fall in line to the corporate thinking, or do skunk works become the correct response.

This is also mixed up with the fact the the Baby-boomers, a group that as a collective disregarded the 4th commandment, and still often act like juvenilles, are in many of those “superior” positions. Is stupidity a requirement of the 4th commandment?

There is a corollary to the 4th commandment given to mothers and fathers. Don’t provoke your children to anger (Eph 6:4).

Right now, to me, the better part of honoring seems like the old National Review slogan - Standing Athwart History, Yelling Stop! The hierarchical postions are not ours. The “leaders” should be allowed to make their mistakes. But that honoring stops at the active need to further something that makes one angry enough to spit nails. Argue, warn, cajol and act to minimize the damage both direct and colateral.

As his biographer (Fuess) later put it, “he embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength.”

After graduating from Amherst, at his father’s urging, Coolidge moved to Northampton, Massachusetts to take up the practice of law. Avoiding the costly alternative of attending a law school, Coolidge followed the more common practice at the time of apprenticing with a local firm, Hammond & Field…Coolidge was able to open his own law office in Northampton in 1898, where he practiced transactional law, believing that he served his clients best by staying out of court. As his reputation as a hard-working and diligent attorney grew, local banks and other businesses began to retain his services

The next year, 1904, Coolidge met with his only defeat before the voters, losing an election to the Northampton school board. When told that some of his neighbors voted against him because he had no children in the schools he would govern, Coolidge replied “Might give me time!”

Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society; when asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties, he replied “Got to eat somewhere.”

Representing the genius of the average, skipping grad school to save money, actually working as a transaction lawyer, losing an election to the school board, coming back with a quip, uncomfortable with Washington swells…hmmm, sound familiar. And that is before getting to Cal’s cleaning up his own party’s ethical problems.

The main gist of this post is more a question. Will the US ever see another man or woman of action and real integrity in high political office? Or have we as a people decayed to the point: where we can’t discern real straight talk from high sounding words, where we can’t discern a person of real integrity from fluffy claims, where we can’t muster the personal fortitude to care? Kathleen Parker, Christoper Buckley, David Brooks, and other “Thinking Conservatives” have all jumped on Sarah Palin - a cancer, an embarassment, and other snotty phrases. Roger Kimball answers many of those writers with roughly the argument that they overvalue their own trade - thinking.

The modern world seems to have built a very thick filter around political office. What that filter does is clean out all men and women who are primarily disposed to action. That filter selects based on your facility to think, or at least mimic thinking. Please note that this thinking is not the thinking that engineers do, or that businessmen do, or that mothers do to raise children. This thinking is restricted to “big thoughts” and “big themes”. The kind of thinking done at say, Harvard.

Let’s look at some past great presidents: Washington - soldier and farmer, Lincoln - lawyer entreprenuer, Coolidge - lawyer entreprenuer, Reagan - success in highly competitve Hollywood. The common thread in almost all great past presidents is success in something else before politics, and success that necessitated taking risks. (Not all fit this. FDR appears an exception, but TR was clearly an action based risk taker who happened to be able to “Think”.) The “Thinking Pols” of today have much handed to them with the fat envelope to Harvard. Not everything, but that is the start of the filter. Anyone, other than a general or a combat veteran who the Thinkers have to hold their manhoods cheap next too, who does not have something approaching this is mercilessly attacked.

Questioning if that filter is appropriate, or supporting someone who doesn’t make it through that filter, either by skirting it in the frontier of Alaska, or in the military, or by making a forture and using it, does not make someone anti-intellectual. It does not disdain thought. It puts “Thinking” in its right place. It places character, actions and successful experience before thinking. Would anyone like to also have a holder of high political office who could be a big thinker? Yes. Is the lack of that a major disqualification? No. A high view of virtue, a strong sense of personal character, a knowledge of what risks are good and what are foolhardy in the path to success are much more important. The Thinking can be outsourced when you have those which give you the ability to choose the right thinkers.

The reign of the thinkers is not good for the U.S. Until the country returns to its fundamental character in favor of people of action it will not be well served.

Lou Gerstner (former IBM CEO) is semi-famous for the firestorm he elicited when he said ‘the last thing IBM needs is a vision.’ The point behind that statement was not that vision was un-important, but that IBM had more than enough visions, what it lacked was execution of any of them that would actually ring the cash register. With IBM then having posted the largest quarterly loss on record, Gerstner and York (CFO) had to restore some basic blocking and tackling before turning to strategy. I bring that up because the core disconnect that we danced around and fleshed out was that strategy was everything to my collegue. My position was that restoring some basic blocking and tackling got you to the point of being able to talk about strategy.

In restoring blocking and tackling my approach has been - in my collegues phase - shotgun. I would prefer experimentation or learning. What practices that are logically unhelpful are people in an emotional place to consider? What potential answers are they willing to consider? What to persue? The goal is two fold: 1) to encourage an open learning environment and 2) build the ownership of both problems and solutions by the congregation. Both of those goals don’t eliminate the emotional response, but they make it part of the considerations by the people who would have it. The approach is one of shared discovery and action. Acknowledge and Fix some of the fundamental problems, gain some good feeling from righting the ship and then build on that into a new vision.

I’ll continue with these thoughts, but for now the fundamental break was where does that vision come from? Does is come from an individual, or does it emerge from a group? I’ll argue that in some situations the second approach is actually faster and more helpful in reaching necessary change.

“As in every preceding crisis, the main cause was far too large a mass of credits — that is, of debts — for the amount of cash in which they were redeemable. Trade and speculation had long been so active, and too often recklessly expanded, that this disproportion had become dangerous, and a menace to our safety…a serious reaction, a serious revulsion, was inevitable unless we moderated our pace and mended our ways..I could foresee that this vast and growing disproportion between the volume of credits and cash would finally lead to collapse.”

Notice the language of the expansion and that of the contraction. It is all moral language. Reckless, menace, serious revulsion…moderated and mended our ways. The picture is one of sin and redemption - confession and absolution.

Money is just one of the ways in life, one of the sternest, that we can see the law at work. When we have transgressed the law, the reckoning always comes, although we can often delay it for a while. The law shows us our recklessness, our menace, our revulsion, but it also points to the way out. Moderate and mend. Turn and be healed.

Money as morality play. Many enlightened people would sniff at this conception today, but it is part of how we are made. If we say we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…

I severely edit myself on my church site.  There I stick with church announcements and theology driven topics.  Theology will by necessity touch things like culture, but the approach is different.  I take generally the same approach as to my sermons - speculation that is not called out is not allowed.  A sermon is supposed to be the Word of God for the people at that location - so it should be what God has to say and not my bias.  Being human, that is tough, but that is the reason for the viscious editing - and sticking to the Bible other than functional announcements.  

The purpose of this site is two fold: 1) there are things I want to approach without that thick filter and 2) I want to try and think theologically in a broader way on subjects that might not be as settled.  As a minister with a public responsibility, I still have to watch my words, but under my own heading should allow some of those culture driven issues. 

So, that is the basics of what this site will be about - current events with a theological lens.  I’m sure I will mention some of the formation of that lens in future posts.  If you want to be able to place a lable on me quickly you can check out the about page.  The long and short of it is that I’m a quirky theological conservative.  You can probably guess my thoughts 80% of the time, but the 20% will surprise you.   I guess you’ll just have to see.  Maybe I’m not as quirky as I think.