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!

Thursday, August 2, 2018

PT-109

From Bill Bennett's American Patriot's Almanac:

In the early morning hours of August 2, 1943, torpedo boat PT-109 was patrolling the Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands when suddenly a black shape loomed in the darkness off the starboard bow. A crewman yelled, “Ship at two o’clock!” but it was too late. The Japanese destroyer Amagiri plowed into the little boat, slicing it in half. The collision threw the PT’s commander, Lt. John F. Kennedy Jr., hard against the side of the cockpit, and as gasoline ignited on the water around him, he thought, So this is how it feels to die.

Two crew members were killed in the crash. The eleven who survived, including Kennedy, clung to wreckage. When the remains of the hull began to sink, they made a four-hour swim to a tiny deserted island three miles away. Most of the crew clung to a large piece of timber as they swam, but one man was badly burned, so Kennedy clenched the straps of the man’s life jacket in his teeth and towed him, swimming the breaststroke.

Leaving his crew on the island, Kennedy swam out again, hoping to flag down another PT boat, but none appeared. Exhausted, he barely made it back to the island. The next day he led his men to another islet. Several times he ventured out into the shark-infested waters, looking for help but found none.

On August 6, two Solomon Islanders in a dugout canoe found the stranded sailors. Kennedy carved a message onto a coconut, which they took to Allied troops: NAURO ISL NATIVE KNOWS POSIT HE CAN PILOT 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT KENNEDY. Within two more days, the PT crew had been rescued. When he became president of the United States, Kennedy kept the coconut with its scratched message on his desk in the Oval Office to remind himself of the awful ordeal and his two lost comrades.

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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