So What's This All About?

In case you didn't know, I'm in the multi-year-long process of posting a Christian devotional at the TAWG Blog. The TAWG Blog is, and always will be, mostly apolitical. For the most part, Bible-believing Christians will find little to disagree with there. But I also firmly believe that God's word can--and should--inform everything in life, and this should include politics and popular culture. How should we vote? How should we respond to hot topics such as abortion, capital punishment, taxes, and other issues? Which party, if either, is closer to the Biblical ideal? Tony Campolo and Ron Sider, Evangelicals whose political leanings are on the Left, have made the case in several of their writings that God wants his followers to vote politically on the Left more than on the Right. At times, some of them have gone so far as to equate voting on the Left with obedience to Christ, either subtly or not-so-subtly contending that the converse is true as well: If you vote Republican, you're sinning against the Savior.
I don't agree. I think that to the degree they actually resort to the Bible, they're misinterpreting it. With a whole bunch of caveats, I think politically conservative positions are a lot more compatible with the Scriptures than the Leftist positions.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
So there are two main purposes for this blog. One is to make a case for my political beliefs based on Scripture. The other is a bit more vague, basically to work out my political beliefs and figure out what's based on Scripture and what's based on my own biases. I certainly don't have all the answers. Some of this stuff I'm still figuring out. And I'm certainly open to correction. As long as you make your case civilly and based on Scripture, feel free to make a comment, and I promise I'll post it and consider your arguments thoughtfully and prayerfully. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn a little something from each other.
May God bless our common striving together towards both the "little t" truth and "Big T" Truth. Our watchword here is a line from C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle: "Further up and further in!"

P.S. -- Below on the left is "Topics I've Covered" which lists everything I've posted topically. It's come to my attention that some people would like to see everything just listed for them. If that's you, you can get it here. Thanks to my friend Stephen Young for the tip!

Friday, November 9, 2018

Benjamin Banneker

From Bill Bennett's American Patriot's Almanac:

To Benjamin Banneker, born this day in 1731 in Baltimore County, Maryland, the words “all men are created” had potent meaning. A free black and descendent of former slaves, Banneker had been limited to a few scattered months of education at a one-room Quaker school. But from an early age he exhibited a mathematical and scientific genius. As a young farmer, he decided to build a clock that struck the hours, even though he had never seen one before. He made it entirely from wood, carving the gears and wheels with a pocketknife, and it kept time for more than forty years.

At age fifty-seven, Banneker borrowed some books and a telescope from a neighbor, George Ellicott, and taught himself astronomical calculations that allowed him to predict a 1789 solar eclipse. In 1791 he helped lay out the boundaries of the nation’s new capital, the District of Columbia.

From 1792 to 1797 he furnished the astronomical tables for Benjamin Banneker’s Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack. The yearly almanacs spread his fame as the “African astronomer,” and abolitionists used them to fight antiblack stereotypes.

Banneker sent his first almanac to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, along with a letter reminding him of the ideals he’d expressed in the Declaration of Independence. He wrote Jefferson that he hoped “that your sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are, that one universal Father hath given being to us all; and that he hath . . . afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties.”

Jefferson’s cordial reply expressed satisfaction “to see such proofs as you exhibit.” A more cogent observation came from Maryland’s James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution. Benjamin Banneker’s work, he wrote, showed that “the powers of the mind are disconnected to the color of the skin.”

Every day, Bill Bennett provides via email--for free--a reading from his American Patriot's Almanac. You’ll read about heroes, their achievements, and key events that took place “On This Day” in American history. Click here to subscribe.

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