Why I Voted for John McCain

Posted on November 4th, 2008 by Neal Locke

I posted my vote via twitter a few hours ago, and I’ve already gotten several inquiries from both sides of the aisle wanting some elaboration.  What exactly did lead me to vote (for the first time ever) for a Republican Presidential Candidate, with whom I disagree with on a number of issues?  What exactly led me–a lifelong liberal democrat–NOT to vote for one of the most viable, historic, and articulate democratic candidates we’ve seen in many years? Honestly, it’s been the culmination of an eight-year long decision making process, and it hasn’t been easy.  Regardless of who wins tonight, I’ll be glad this is over.  But, for those who *really* are interested, here’s the story…

Background: Pre-2000

My first vote for a presidential candidate was Bill Clinton, but the first campaign I ever worked was for a democratic gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi, in 1987, when I was 12.  In college, I was the founding president of ORU Young Democrats, as well as the President of Tulsa Young Democrats, and for short time, the Parliamentarian for Oklahoma Young Democrats.  In those capacities and beyond, I’ve volunteered for countless democratic campaigns–senatorial, gubernatorial, congressional, mayoral, etc.  So, it really pisses me off when people question my commitment or contributions to the Democratic party.

That said, as my views on theology, education, and technology have evolved over the past decade, so have my views on politics.  I now consider myself a liberal libertarian.  That may sound like a contradiction, but if you want to know more about what that looks like, try here.  I still tend to agree with the democrats more than republicans, but I also realize that neither party (nor any candidate) is perfect, nor is either one evil incarnate, though they often toss that accusation at one another.

2000 Republican Primaries and Beyond:  Enter John McCain

Although I eventually voted for Al Gore, I was never that enthusiastic about him.  He seemed like a smart guy, but devoid of heart and passion.  I’ve since seen a little more of that side of him, but I didn’t see it in 2000.  And while my ears pricked up at Gov. George Bush’s call for “compassionate conservatism,” I didn’t really buy into the “conservatism” part of that equation.  But then there was John McCain, who, at one political rally in the primary season, waved a lightsaber in the air to the background music of Star Wars, and talked about the Bush campaign in terms of the “Evil Empire.”  That got my attention.  Through the primary season, I listened to him talk a little more, and he didn’t sound like any Republican I’d ever heard.  It’s now become a way-overused cliche, but he really did (then) come across as a Maverick.  If you know me at all, you’ll understand why that appealed to me.

When he lost the primaries, I kept following his words and actions in the Senate.  Every time McCain made the news, it was for doing something bold, bipartisan, and often something that said “screw you” to the powers-that-be, whether they were democratic or republican ones.  The one exception to this, of course, was his stance on the war in Iraq.  Despite this, I grew to admire McCain, and often found myself saying to others, “now there’s a Republican I could actually vote for…if he ever got the nomination.”  I was pretty certain that the mere fact that I liked him so much meant he never would.

2008 Primaries: They ALL suck!

When the 2008 primaries rolled around, like everyone else, I was ready for anyone but GW Bush.  Because of my sympathies to illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, and the primacy of that one issue in my thoughts, I evaluated all the candidates in both primaries on that one issue alone.  They all sucked, especially the democrats.  Nevertheless, I voted for Hillary Clinton in the democratic primary–her “official” stance on the issue was just as bad as the others, but several Latino friends I talked with said they trusted her more on immigration issues than the others, as she had actually been working for and among them for most of her adult career.  Around that time, I also read a very unflattering magazine article about Obama by a reporter who had covered him as a state legislator.  He painted a picture of an arrogant, self-centered Obama motivated primarily by ambition to rise to the top, and overly concerned with his image.  I didn’t really put much stock in the article (the same things have been written about all the candidates) but over the next months, I began to notice little things here and there that did seem to hint at an “elitist” attitude in Obama.  I say “attitude” because I don’t think his background makes him an elitist.  John McCain is more subject to that criticism.  But there are times when Obama seems condescending.  It’s more of a gut feeling than something verifiable, but if we’re honest, I think we all rely to some extent on those feelings.

2008 General Election: Back and Forth

When it became clear that Obama and McCain would be the nominees, I leaned in the direction of McCain, but decided to hold out for awhile longer before making a decision.  Let me also say that at this point, I was disappointed with the way both were running their campaigns, and with the issues they both were staking out as “central.”  Personally, I think tax cuts are stupid in this kind of economy (sorry Trait), and both of them pander to the popular vote on this one.  Neither of them are talking much about immigration.

Barack Obama did two things that deeply, deeply disappointed me, however:

  1. He broke his promise to rely on public financing for his campaign.  I understand all the arguments he made in favor of doing this, but to me it said that at the end of the day, politics is still all about the money.  I suspect that will be the same when and if he is elected.
  2. He chose in a running mate the most boring, safe, white-milk-toast, uninspiring person he possibly could have chosen.  I realize that it was politically expedient of him to do so, but I was really hoping he would be bold and choose someone like Bill Richardson.  Or even Hillary.  Had he done so, I probably would have come around and voted for him.

Meanwhile, McCain wasn’t doing much better.  In fact, the McCain I remembered from 2000 seemed largely gone, but did rear up in at least one issue that I think was greatly mis-understood and mis-cast by my liberal friends:  his selection of a running mate.  Now, bear in mind that politically, I disagree with Sarah Palin almost across the board on most issues.  But I do think it was a bold choice.  Liberals dismissed it as him playing to the conservative base.  It was indeed that, but it was more.  If he just wanted to accomplish that, he could have nominated Mike Huckabee.  I don’t think Democrats truly understand that John McCain is about the only Republican in the world who could get away with nominating a woman as a VP candidate.  He did change the nature of the game in conservative land forever.  I also genuinely believe he chose someone with an “outsider” mentality–even if I disagree with her positions.  Biden, on the other hand, is the ultimate insider.  McCain is an outsider who happened to sneak “inside.”  But once he got in, he lost a lot of his appeal.

This was compounded a week or so ago when some ultra fundamentalists on facebook who told one of my Obama-supporting friends that she couldn’t be a Christian and vote for Obama.  I engaged in a (useless) argument with them, and even got some flack on my own profile, and for awhile really toyed with the idea of voting for Obama just out of spite.  That’s when I changed my facebook “middle name” to “Hussein” in solidarity with the many intelligent Christians I now who are passionate Obama supporters.

In the end, though, spite is not a reason to vote for someone.  I voted for McCain crossing my fingers and hoping that if he’s elected, the McCain I knew eight years ago would show up for the job.   I voted for him because of the many times I found myself saying “there’s a Republican I could vote for.”  I disagree with McCain on a lot of things, but I feel much more of a kindred spirit with him than with Obama.  I kept going back to this silly little game I play in my head:  If I were stranded on a deserted island, who would I rather spend a few days in conversation with, McCain or Obama?  To me, from what I’ve observed over the past decade, there’s just a little bit more of a well-rounded human personality to McCain, where Obama still seems to me just a candidate for office.  I really don’t know Obama.  If he’s elected, maybe that will change, and I’m more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Posted in Random | 16 Comments

Joe the Messiah

Posted on October 27th, 2008 by Neal Locke

Warning: I’m thinking out loud here, so if you’re ultra-orthodox or easily offended, this might not be for you.

Earlier today in my Patristic Readings in Greek class, we came across an interesting word. I don’t have a good Greek font installed to reproduce it here, but it’s the same word in the New Testament that we usually translate as “cleave” (as in, a man shall leave his family and cleave to his wife). It also has connotations of “glue” and “stick” — but at least one Greek dictionary also used a stronger, more interesting word: Weld. The image of “God as Welder” instantly conjured up (for me, at least) a blue-collar, working class sort of God, and borrowing a popular political meme lately, I blurted out to my Greek class, “Hey, it’s Joe the God!” Not surprisingly, I got a lot of raised eyebrows on that one.

But I’ve been thinking about it a lot today. Yes, it’s true that John McCain has kind of been beating the whole “Joe the Plumber” thing to death lately, and all of its related offshoots (Bob the bricklayer, Craig the Construction Worker, Sue the Waitress, ad nauseum) but there’s an undeniable appeal to the “common person” here.

It’s one that resonates with me. My favorite author, John Steinbeck, spent a literary career celebrating the lives of working class people in books like The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Once there Was a War. Actually, it permeates everything he wrote. My musical icon, Woody Guthrie, and folk music as a whole, celebrate the “songs of the simple folk.” In my own life, I have often championed the cause of the masses–it explains my infatuation with blogging, Web2.0 technology, Wikipedia, and open-source software.

Back to “Joe the God.” I’ve been really stressing lately in my church history class over the issue of the “Divinity of Christ” that keeps showing up in the early councils and creeds. While I can’t completely deny that Jesus is God, I’ve had a hard time affirming it outright. I’m beginning to realize that perhaps this is because for a long time now, I’ve been far more enthralled with Jesus’ favorite title for himself (Son of Man) than with our favorite title for him (Son of God). I’m captivated by his humanity more than by his “divinity.” It’s the idea of “Joe the God” — or perhaps more accurately “Joe the Messiah” that really moves me, and I sense I’m not alone in this either.

Here’s a thought: The early church “fathers” struggled to find a balance between Christ’s divinity and his humanity. Is it possible that in our own time the pendulum has swung to far to the “divinity” side, to the point where [people like me] feel a strong need to advocate and emphasize Chris’s humanity? Yes, I know I sometimes take this to the extreme, calling the divinity into question–but perhaps its a needed over-compensation necessary in order to bring balance to the force. Oops, wrong universe–how’s that for syncretism?!

Back to politics and a nod to the other point of view: A few months ago, long before the rise of “Joe the Plumber” my friend Trait Thompson made a case against looking for a “Joe Six Pack” to lead the nation, arguing that instead we need an FDR or a Thomas Jefferson. It’s a great post, and you should read it. Ironically, we both like John McCain, but (obviously) come at it from different angles, as we always have (It’s great to have friends across the aisle, btw).

So I wonder if those who yearn for strong or exemplary leadership in our government are more drawn to the image of Jesus as “Son of God.” Drawing Augustine into the equation (just for fun), I wonder if perhaps those who, like him, view mankind as depraved and fallen are more likely to feel a need for an external, all-powerful divine Savior. Conversely, perhaps those with a pre (or post) Augustinian view of things, who see mankind as “made in the image of God” and therefore intrinsically good, look internally to humanity for our salvation–casting Jesus as the “people’s Messiah” or “Son of Man.”

If this is the case, following the threads begun in the age of Enlightenment, through the democratizing influence of the internet today (think web2.0), and looking toward a post-modern future with shades of Ray Kurzweil’s messianic/apocolyptic concept of Singularity…

Maybe the pendulum is ready to swing in Joe the Messiah’s direction. Second Coming of Christ, anyone?

Posted in Christianity, Greek, Open Source, Politics, Steinbeck | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Augustine: Patron Saint of Bloggers?

Posted on October 23rd, 2008 by Neal Locke

I started reading Augustine’s Confessions today, in conjunction with a chapter “about” him (and his theological positions) in my Church History textbook.  I find myself growing more and more perplexed, being pulled in two separate directions.

On one hand, when I read what others have admiringly written about him, and when I read summaries and explanations of his doctrine and highly influential contributions to western theology, I dislike him intensely and am resentful at the direction in which he led the church.

And yet, when I read him in his own words, I can’t help but recognize a kindred spirit.  I’m struck by his painstaking authenticity, his earnest search for understanding and relevance, and at his keen insight into humanity, psychology, education, and culture.  To be sure, I see early traces of doctrines he developed in later writings (original sin, depravity, salvation by grace alone, etc.) and I still disagree with him.  It makes me wonder how much my affinity toward Augustine has to do with his personability as a writer, and some shared circumstances — in addition to being a seeker-of-truth, he was a teacher, a rhetorician, student of literature, and devoted father to his son.

I’m also amazed by the intensity of Augustine’s need to write — his corpus is immense — and while Confessions is probably not the very first piece of world literature with an autobiographical bent, it is universally recognized as the father of that literary genre.  That means he was willing to experiment in new styles of writing.  It’s written in the first person, ostensibly directed to God, but he readily acknowledges that much of what he says is for the benefit of “my readers.”  Mind that he wrote this while still relatively unknown, and in his early 30’s.  Delusions of grandeur, self-confidence, or just a desire to share?  In addition to a stack of books, he also wrote instructional “how to” manuals, soapbox sermons, and back-and-forth conversational letters to both contemporaries and heretics alike.

Any of that sound familiar?  Augustine fits the profile of a typical blogger.  I think he would have loved the interactivity of blogs, too, although he probably would have been a frequent violator of the “comments should be shorter than the original post” rule of blog etiquette.

I don’t know if I’ll ever quite come to terms with Augustine.  In fact, the more I’ve been studying the “heresies” of the early church, the more I come to identify theologically with Pelagianism — the exact heresy Augustine spent the last years of his life combating.  Still, he’s no longer a voice I can just ignore or dismiss out of hand.  In addition to inspiring me to write this post today, Augustine’s Confessions was the inspiration behind the Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau, a profound influence on my own thinking and educational/social philosophy.  Somehow, I don’t think Rousseau could have agreed with Augustinian doctrine that much either.  But perhaps, like me, he was enthralled by the writer and the writings, if not by his conclusions.  Come to think of it, Rousseau would have made an excellent blogger, too…

Posted in Blogging, Christianity, Reflection, Writing | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Reading Week

Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Neal Locke

Tiffany Window of St. Augustine - Lightner Museum

No classes this week — it’s a tradition called “Reading Week” here at Princeton Theological Seminary.  I think at my undergraduate college, we called it “fall break,” but the implication here seems to be, “No break for you! [insert whip crack here] Time to catch up on all the reading!” Hmmm…guess I could also look at it as mercy and grace, on the flip side.

I feel guilty admitting this, but even while I’m only taking ten credit hours this semester (eight in the “long term” and two in the “Jan term”) I’m still way behind in my reading.  I could blame the whole “having a family thing” or having been “out of college for ten years,” or even “blogging when I should be reading” but none of that changes the fact that I’m behind.  So, time to lay excuses aside and buckle down with some books this week.  Here’s what I’m reading:

  • St. Augustine‘s Confessions — The week after Reading Week, I have a paper due in my Early & Medieval Christian History class analyzing his contribution to medieval thought.  Personally, I’m more interested in his contribution (with this particular book) to the Confessional Autobiographical genre of literature, of which this is apparently the “first” (at least in the western canon).  Oh, and that’s him up there in the picture, “reading” too.
  • On Christian Teaching — This one’s also by Augustine, but for my Christian Education & Formation Class.  Apparently the good Saint dabbled in a little bit of everything, including my favorite field.  So far, I’ve appreciated some of what he’s said (he’s an early proponent of age-appropriate pedagogy), but he often frustrates me with his highly dualistic Neo-Platonism (an overrated philosophy, IMHO).
  • The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education, Walter Brueggemann — Also for my Ed & Formation class.  The jury’s still out on this one, but so far (I’m on chapter one) he has an interesting premise:  That in teaching Old Testament, we should study not just the scriptures themselves, but also the methods by which they were taught as they evolved over centuries in ancient Israel.
  • Reclaiming Our Roots:  An Inclusive Introduction to Church History, Mark Ellingsen.  Another for my church history class, this one is exactly what the title indicates — a reconsideration of the contributions of women, Africans, Asians, and other “non-Western” voices to the development of the early and medieval church.
  • Documents of the Christian Church, selected and edited by Henry Bettenson.  If you think the presidential debates were contentious, try reading some of the early “church fathers” and “heretics” in their own words, debating through council after council.  I tend to side more with the heretics, but no big surprise there.  It is interesting figuring out “which” heresies I identify with more.  I’m definitely not Gnostic, but I could get right on board with the Ebionites and the Sabellianists.
  • On the Incarnation of the Word, St. Athanasius of Alexandria.  This one is for my Patristic Greek Readings class.  We’re reading it in the original Greek, and translating as we go.  I’d comment on the theology, but right now I’m doing pretty good just to eek out a basic meaning, sentence by painstaking sentence.
  • Constructing Local Theologies, Robert J. Schreiter.  Another for my Ed & Formation class — this guy reminds me a lot of Paulo Freire, and incorporates a lot of sociology, cultural anthropology, progressive education, and liberation theology into his writing.  It’s perhaps the first approach to theology and education that I’ve been able to get really excited about.
  • Brew Like a Monk, Stan Hieronymus.  Ok, ok, so this one’s not “officially” for a class, but I do find significant overlap with my church history class.  Anyhow, it focuses on the Belgian Trappist Monasteries — their history, evolution, philosophy, and brewing practices.  It may not be for a grade, but it also might be one of the most relevant ones to my future pursuits, so I’m keeping it on the list this week.

Anyhow, think that’s enough to keep me busy?  I’ve also got a field trip on Wednesday to The Cloisters art museum in NYC, and a choir concert Friday evening.  Ok — enough blog-crastination.  I’m off to read…

Posted in Books, Classes, Education, Seminary | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Calling all Pastors (and other churchy types)

Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Neal Locke

First of all, I’m not asking you to do my homework for me–just to add some “real world” perspective to it. One of the criticisms of seminary is that much of what we learn is in theoretical isolation, and often not practical or relevant to actual practice. And yes, I asked my professor’s permission before doing this.

In my Christian Education and Formation class, a big part of our grade this semester is responding to case studies of potential “church situations.” I’ve already written my initial response to this case study (and you can read it here) but I’m more interested in hearing how you would respond to this situation — especially those of you who are pastors, educators, or have ever served in a church leadership capacity.

You have recently been called as pastor of a local church in Atlanta. The search committee was articularly interested in your interest in Christian education and formation as they think that you will help bring young families into the church. This urban, struggling church has approximately 200 members on the rolls and averages 75 members in worship on most Sundays. The average age of the congregation is 62.5 years of age. Though there are a handful of families with school-aged children, several of them leave and join churches with large youth programs as soon as their kids enter middle school. At the previous meeting of the congregation’s governing board, you promised to lead a discussion at the beginning of the next meeting about envisioning new directions for the church’s programs for children and youth. After you provide a dazzling ten minute Augustinian mini-lecture on the central importance of love in the church’s ministry of education and formation, several people raise their hands to express concerns or disagreement. Here are a few of the more forceful comments:

“That all sounds, nice, pastor; but it is too abstract. We have kids all around us who live in broken homes and are tempted by drugs, sex, and crime. We need a plan that deals with the hard realities that the kids in this city are facing every day.”

“My neighbors up the street go to Grace Church. They have a huge youth group. Every other weekend they go on a ski trip or a trip to the beach. My daughter has been begging me to let her join that youth group because it is so much more fun than ours. What are you going to do to make this church fun for the kids?”

“Atlanta has become such a diverse place culturally and religiously. We have so many languages and ethnicities here now and more are moving in all the time. The city now has as many Muslims, Buddhists, Bahai, and Wiccans as Lutherans or Jews. My family is religiously mixed and I know we aren’t alone in that. It would be irresponsible for us to ignore this reality. We have to prepare the children of this church to function as good neighbors in this increasingly diverse religious situation in which we live.”

After providing sufficient time for everyone to share their views on the proper aims of education and formation for that congregation, the attention turns back to you. Everyone wants to know what you will say and how you propose to move forward.

My “developed response” is due this Friday, and then a final response by the end of the semester.  If I use any part of your responses, I’ll make sure to ask your permission and attribute your words to you in the paper.  I’m pretty excited about the idea of citing “actual pastoral practitioners” alongside of professional authors and academic theologians.  It’s Open-Source, of course…

Posted in Classes | 4 Comments

Avast, Scallywags: Me New Commentin’ Policy!

Posted on September 30th, 2008 by Neal Locke

I’m not a big fan of anonymity on the internet. Real conversations are best when they happen between real people. It’s too easy to be a jerk when you don’t have to stand by and own your words.

On the other hand, I’m also not a big fan of censorship. It’s too heavy-handed and too easy to abuse when you have the ability to make someone’s words just disappear.

So, I came up with a blog comments policy that might be, if not a *good* solution, at least an amusing one:

  1. If you post comments to my blog, please make sure to include your real name and your email address. The only one who will ever see your email address is me, and I promise not to disclose it or use it for anything except to contact you, if needed.
  2. If you don’t follow the above, the first time I’ll probably just nicely ask you to do so, and direct you to this policy.
  3. Failing that, I will take any future comments you make anonymously, and run them through the Pirate Speak text translator, and edit them to appear that way on the blog. Hence, your comments will still stand, and be mostly intelligible, but they’ll probably also sound pretty ridiculous.
  4. If you just *have* to post anonymously, you could save me the trouble by running them through the translator yourself before posting : )

There is one possible exception to this: I have a Presbyterian minister-friend who sometimes posts anonymously to various blogs she frequents, because she’s afraid that if her church ever came across her comments, they’d use them against her. While this is certainly a sad statement of affairs for the church, I can understand her need for protection. If that’s your case, I still want to know who you are before engaging in conversation with you, so if you have a similar reason for posting anonymously, just shoot a quick email to mstrlocke at gmail dot com and I won’t pirate-speak your comment.

Carry on then. Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.

Posted in Random | 3 Comments

First Seminary Paper

Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Neal Locke

I have a paper due in my Education and Formation class this Friday — as described in the syllabus, it’s a five page “reflective essay about key elements, components, people, events that have contributed most to [my] education and formation as a Christian.”

This is tricky on a couple of levels.  First, I don’t like to distinguish between “Christian” education and education of any other sort.  If I consider myself to be a Christian, then all my educational experiences are part of my education as a Christian, and hence “Christian Education” (for me, at least).  Second, and even more problematic, I consider *all* experiences to be part of my education, whether intentionally so or not.  Life is an educational process.  I’d go so far as to say that in most lives, the vast majority of education happens outside the classroom, unscripted.  Even for scholars.  I’m heavily influenced by Rousseau on this one.

Back to the paper:  It’s my first grad-school paper, so I’m probably stressing over it unduly.  Unlike most papers I’ll do in the next few years, this one doesn’t seem to require any research, citations, comparative analysis (at least none outside my own brain).  It’s “reflective” in nature — as a blogger, I should be pretty good at that, right?

Still, it’s my first grad-school paper.  I have to perform.  When I finished summer Greek with a 98% average, other seminary students told me not to get used to it, that my grades would surely drop in the school year.  That annoyed me, and made me want to prove them wrong.  Here’s my first chance.  Of course, I’m also supposed to “not care about my grades” because I’m here for the education, not the grades.  Welcome to my hypocrisy.  

Really, since it’s due in less than 48 hours, what I *really* should be doing is writing the paper now, not “writing about writing” the paper.  But such is the meta-cognition of the self-obsessed blogger… Oh, and in that vein, I’m a “wikifier,” too — so I’m writing it on my wiki for the world to see (and potentially contribute, although that raises some interesting and dangerous academic questions).  Anyhow, here’s the first paragraph.  I did the English Major thing and decided to start with a metaphor.  Let me know what you think.  Suggestions for direction are welcome, too…

There was never any question if, whether, or which of the evening leftovers would go into the stew pot. In my six-person family of origin, everything that wasn’t eaten for dinner got absorbed into the big stewpot in the freezer, waiting to be thawed, reheated, and reclaimed at the end of the week. The only real question was how this particular addition would affect the taste and character of the stew when the pot was full. Thinking of this dubious family tradition provides an apt enough metaphor for my education as a Christian through the years — mixed up and messy, formed in community, experimental, more concerned with input than outcome, while still intensely practical and sustainable at the end of the day (or week, rather).

Posted in Education, Seminary, wiki, Writing | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments