George Stephanopoulos Returning to ABC This Week

Tomorrow, George Stephanopoulos will be returning to ABC This Week, taking the place of Christiane Amanpour. I have enjoyed Christiane’s tenure on the program, particularly the debates that she moderated on Islam and big government. But I will be glad to watch George tomorrow. I did not care for George Stephanopoulos back when he was working for the Clinton Administration, for he came across on television as a pompous, arrogant, liberal know-it-all. I admired him, however, because he had a sharp mind. I started to like Stephanopoulos when he wrote an honest book about his experiences in the Clinton Administration, both good and bad (entitled All Too Human). And, whereas he struck me as narrowly partisan when working for the Clinton Administration (which I suppose is to be expected), I appreciated an interaction I heard between him and Sean Hannity on Republicans and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When Hannity pointed out that many Republicans voted for that bill, George responded that many great achievements in history have been bipartisan.

Nice People and False Doctrine

Is it okay to attend a church where you like the people, even if that church is teaching false doctrine, with which you disagree? I’m not talking about the Presbyterian Church (USA) that I attend, but rather a post that Teresa Beem wrote on her blog, It’s Okay NOT to be a Seventh-day Adventist. Her post is entitled NICE PEOPLE, and she criticizes progressive Adventists who do not take seriously Adventism’s end-times scenarios, Ellen White, the Investigative Judgment, etc., but they remain within Adventism because they like the people. And they do so, even after Teresa shows them that the Investigative Judgment is not Scriptural!

Personally, I can attend a church even if it teaches “false doctrine”—-as in doctrine that does not line up with every single teaching of the Bible. It’s abusive doctrine that I cannot stand. If a church teaches me that I am loved by God and that I should be loving and compassionate towards others, then I am satisfied with that church’s teaching, and (provided that the people are somewhat friendly), I can go there, even if some of their doctrines are off. In my opinion, the notion that a doctrine can be “biblical” or “unbiblical” is rather illusory, for the Bible is a diverse document, and it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Plus, even churches that are the loudest about adhering to the Bible do not follow the Bible entirely. How many of them believe that God punishes sons for the sins of their parents?

Take the Investigative Judgment, the Adventist idea that Christ in 1844 entered the Holy of Holies in heaven and is now going over our records. Is this view biblical? There are arguments against it, and arguments for it. Arguments against it are that there are passages about Christ being in the holiest place—-right beside God the Father—-long before 1844. In addition, I interpret that passage in Daniel about the sanctuary being cleansed in reference to the Maccabees, not 1844—-though I can understand how interpreters who are not sensitive to the historical contexts of biblical books (i.e., William Miller) can arrive at 1844 from the Book of Daniel. The argument for it is that there are passages about Christ coming with his reward for the saints in his hands, which implies that he has judged their works before his Second Advent.

What concerns me is not whether or not the Investigative Judgment conforms technically to the Bible. Rather, what concerns me is whether or not it makes people feel more secure or less secure. Do they envision Christ in heaven nitpicking their every move and removing them from the Book of Life, or do they picture Christ lovingly forgiving their flaws? If the spiritual effect of a doctrine makes a person feel insecure and worried all of the time, then there’s a problem.

But I can fellowship with people who have odd doctrines. I tend to avoid Adventism because I find it to be overly-dogmatic, but my point is that I am open to fellowship with groups that have nice people. As long as the teaching of the group promotes the notion that God is loving and wants us to be loving, I can eat the meat and spit out the bones. But if there are too many bones—-bones that make me feel spiritually insecure—-then I’d have second thoughts about being in the group.

Psalm 58

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 58 and its interpreters. I'll post the Psalm in the King James Version (which is in the public domain) and comment on select verses.

To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David.

¹Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

Translated literally from the Masoretic Text, the verse probably reads: "Truly, the silence of righteousness will you speak? Will you judge uprightly, sons of man?" The Hebrew word that I translate as "silence" is ailem (as in AY-LEM). The point here, according to many commentators, is that the Psalmist is rebuking judges for their silence in not executing righteous verdicts: they are not doing their job of speaking out for righteousness, in short. Although the verbs of this verse are in the second person plural, many interpreters have sought to relate them to individuals, perhaps thinking that the verses are directed at both the individuals and also the people in the individuals' party. Rashi says that David is speaking these words to Abner, rebuking him for not standing up for righteousness by telling Saul that David is innocent and that Saul is wrong to pursue him (see I Samuel 26:14). Keil-Delitzsch propose that Psalm 58 concerns Absalom, who sought to undermine David's authority by acting as a judge at the gate.

Others emend the text, in some manner. One approach is to read ailim as elim, "gods". That could mean that the Psalmist is criticizing the gods of the Gentile nations that are persecuting Israel (Sigmund Mowinckel), or that the Psalmist is saying that the judges of Israel act in a divine capacity or even assume that they are like gods, when actually they are mere sons of men. Mitchell Dahood thinks that the word is "rams", which he deems to be a metaphor for rulers. And the Septuagint and Jerome simply maintain that the word is ulam, "truly".

²Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

The Hebrew root for the word that is translated as "weigh" is p-r-s. That can mean to weigh, or to ponder, or to prepare a path (see here). The wicked are being berated for carefully thinking about ways to do evil, or for proudly surveying their evil deeds, or for preparing to do violence as their heart works wickedness. (Marvin Tate argues for the last one.) The last interpretation teaches a lesson about how bad thoughts can lead to bad actions, if one is not careful.

³The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

I heard some Christian commentators appeal to this verse to support the doctrine of original sin, the notion that we are all born with corrupt moral natures. Quite a few noted that children do not have to be taught how to lie, since it comes naturally to them, whereas they do have to be taught to tell the truth! Jewish interpreters whom I read, by contrast, did not apply v 3 universally, but rather to specific wicked people. The orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary states that the point here is that the Psalmist's enemies have such a propensity for evil that it appears to be inborn. The Midrash on the Psalms affirms that God sanctifies the righteous in the womb, as God did for Jeremiah and the Servant (Jeremiah 1:5; Isaiah 49:1-3), whereas the wicked are evil even inside of the womb. Both the Midrash and also Rashi cite Genesis 25:22, which refers to struggling that occurred in the womb of Rebecca. Their argument is that wicked Esau was doing violence to Jacob even in the womb!

I think that there is a sense in which we are all inclined towards evil, though I seriously doubt that every single one of us is as wicked as the Psalmist's enemies in Psalm 58 and other Psalms. Not all of us take delight in plotting our next deed to hurt the innocent! And yet there may be some people who are born with especially destructive tendencies, but hopefully they can be acculturated to behave themselves as responsible members of society.

Something that has long challenged me about the Psalms is that I do not know many people whom I would label as absolutely evil, and so I often have a hard time identifying with the Psalmist's characterization of his enemies. Even those who do not particularly like me do not try to destroy me, nor do they get a kick out of plotting ways to trip me up. I'm sure that there are people like that in the world, but, fortunately, they haven't targeted me (yet). Their evil deeds may be rooted in jealousy, or anger at having been hurt, or selfish ambition. Saul and Absalom may have attacked David for any or all of these reasons. (Saul was jealous of David, and Absalom was upset that Amnon had raped Tamar, Absalom's sister.) But there are some who are so bored with life that they actually do entertain themselves by plotting mischief. In my opinion, it's important for us to be extremely cautious about attitudes that can snowball into destructive deeds.

I think that human nature is often too complex for us to say that wicked people are born that way, which is what the Psalmist is essentially saying, even if there may be a grain of truth somewhere in that proposition. But when we are the objects of somebody else's attack, it's easy for us to conclude that our attacker is evil----that he has no redeeming qualities and was probably corrupt from his birth. Being a victim can lead one to make generalizations about the victimizer, as does the Psalmist.

⁴Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

⁵Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.

The point here is that the Psalmist's enemies are so intent on destruction that no one can persuade them otherwise. They are deaf to morality and reason.

⁶Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

Some argue that the point here is that the Psalmist wants God to rob his enemies of their ferocious power, the way that removing a lion's teeth would make the lion less harmful and unable to eat people and animals. Jo Ann Hackett and John Huehnegard, however, refer to instances in ancient Near Eastern literature in which breaking the teeth is a punishment for a breech of contract. Perhaps both are going on here: the breechers of contract are being likened to lions!

⁷Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

Vv 7-9 are difficult verses, but they are essentially the Psalmist asking God to cut short the deeds of the wicked. The second clause, "when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces", could be saying that the wicked will shoot arrows and the arrows will hopefully fail to destroy the Psalmist and others, or that God will shoot arrows that will destroy the wicked.

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

Charles Spurgeon had an interesting comment on the second clause----"like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun." He says that those who are unregenerate are like aborted fetuses because they do not mature to the manhood that God desires people to attain, and they do not see the light of God in this life and the next. I think that it would be an incorrect and an insulting generalization to say that non-Christians are immature or do not see some (or a lot of) light of what God is about, for there are plenty of non-Christian thinkers (i.e., Buddhists, Taoists, atheists, etc.) who are quite mature, insightful, and wise, in terms of such things as empathy and compassion for others (even enemies), making peace with life, etc. For me, however, there have been times when Christianity (or some theistic spiritual path) has stood between me having that kind of spiritual life, and me being consumed by immaturity (i.e., pride, lust, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc.). So a part of me appreciates Spurgeon's point, even if I do not view it as a cart blanche summary of all of humanity.

⁹Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

The image here could be one of two things. One proposal is that the Psalmist is asking God to stop the wicked deeds of his enemies, the same way that a whirlwind could come along and interrupt a guy cooking his dinner. In this scenario, the wicked are looking forward to enjoying their evil deeds, as the guy cooking his dinner is eagerly anticipating his meal, but God cuts that short. The other proposal is that the Psalmist wants God to stop a thorn before it can mature, for the Hebrew word that the KJV translates as "pots" can also mean "thorns". The idea here may be that the Psalmist desires for God to nip his enemies' deeds in the bud, to stop the enemies and the deeds before they become worse.

¹⁰The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

Why do the righteous wash their feet (or, in the Septuagint, their hands) in the blood of the wicked? John Gill says that people whose feet are washed feel refreshed, and so the righteous feel refreshed by God's punishment of the wicked. Augustine affirms that God's punishment of the wicked encourages the righteous to repent of their own sins, to wash their hands spiritually, if you will. And Theodore of Mopsuestia, a fourth century Christian exegete, states that the righteous here are disassociating themselves from the wicked, as Pilate disassociated himself from Christ's persecutors by washing his hands (Matthew 27:24). Some have appealed to Isaiah 63:3-6, which is about God treading the winepress of the wicked.

This verse is troubling because it presents the righteous rejoicing in the ill fate of the wicked, which goes against the principle of love for enemies that is in both the Hebrew Bible and also the New Testament (Exodus 23:4; Proverbs 24:17; 25:21; Matthew 5; Luke 6; Romans 12). Some have affirmed that the downfall of the wicked is indeed a cause for rejoicing, since the wicked whom God destroyed are no longer wreaking their destructive havoc on the earth and its inhabitants. In my opinion, there is legitimacy to that point. But the Midrash on the Psalms attempts to add a degree of humility to the discussion when it says that only those deemed worthy by God to destroy the wicked can legitimately rejoice in their destruction. The Midrash probably wants us to ask ourselves: Is any of us truly worthy?

¹¹So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

Redemption, Paper Tigers, a Real Man

I have a couple of links to share today:

1. John Shore had an excellent post yesterday entitled From a Christian Woman Who Chose Abortion. My impression is that the point of the post is not that abortion is an acceptable choice for a Christian woman to make. Rather, it’s about humility and treating people with understanding and compassion rather than judging them. The woman who wrote to John once stood in front of her church and boldly proclaimed that she would never have an abortion. Later, however, she found herself is dire straits. She says:

“I had just had a baby; he was four months old when my father died after spending a month on life support. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until about a week after my father’s funeral. I had been given every kind of sedative and tranquilizer medication during that month and after the funeral. I was left with a broken mother, three kids under six years of age, a husband out of work, and a very shaky marriage. I had complications with all my pregnancies, but no one told me my life was at risk. No one said, ‘It’s your life, or your baby.’ I prayed, ‘Dear Lord, I cannot do this. What am I suppose to do? Do I give up my three children, and my mother who needs me desperately right now?’ Because I knew that, in the mental state I was in, I would not make it through another pregnancy. So I quickly made the arrangements and went through the process like a robot.”

On whether or not she made the right decision, I can see both sides. On the one hand, her choice was certainly understandable, since she was in dire straits—-financially, in terms of her health, etc. Pregnancy takes a toll, and raising another child is quite costly, especially when the family is already struggling financially. On the other hand, if abortion is murder, would it not be unacceptable even in dire straits, since we don’t tolerate infanticide regardless of what the situation is? But John did not tell her that her decision was right. He was telling her that she could move on from this—-confident about God’s love for her.

I especially appreciated the following statement that John made:

“You were young when you went before your church to say how you would never have an abortion. That’s such a young thing to do: it’s so immature, so obviously an effort to be praised, to belong, to assert a winning identity. And it’s so informed by one of the primary defining qualities of youth: moral certainty. Young people can only see right and wrong in clear, black-and-white terms; they haven’t yet developed an appreciation for the infinite means by which moral blacks-and-whites become infinite shades of grey. The real failure with your experience lies with the adults who encouraged and allowed you to make such an insipid speech. An actually mature person would have told you to sit down, and be quiet. Who wants to hear a young person bragging about their moral superiority? The only reason they let you make that speech is because it served their own agenda: they essentially used you as propaganda, and no two ways about it. That’s a shame on them—but no shame to you. You’re not guilty of anything there except being young. And that (thank God!) is no crime.”

I like this statement because I hate it when conservative evangelicals act like they’re so morally superior. But, in a sense, this was also a mirror in front of my face. It’s easy for me to make dogmatic moral pronouncements, without taking into consideration the weight of issues: dire straits in which people may find themselves, shades of gray, etc. Hopefully, I’m growing in this area.

2. Bruce Gerenscer has an excellent post, God a Jokester or Do Candidates for President Have a Hearing Problem?

It’s about how candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann talk like they have some divine mandate to run for President. We’ve seen this sort of thing before. William Martin, in With God On Our Side, says that Pat Robertson said that God told him he (Pat Robertson) would become President. And Mike Huckabee in 2008 said that God was blessing his campaign for the Presidency. But we see how these campaigns turned out!

I get sick of conservative evangelicals claiming to have a divine mandate, or some special knowledge about what God wants. What am I to conclude? That opposing them is opposing God? It gratifies me, therefore, when their endeavors fail (at least their endeavors for power, not their attempts to, say, help the poor). It reveals them to be the paper tigers that they are!

3. Susan Wise Bauer reviews Mark Driscoll’s book, Real Marriage. I appreciated some of the following lines:

“His definition of manliness is surprisingly Southern; in the very first chapter, he explains that he came back to the church as a young man because he finally found a congregation with a manly pastor (he had been in the military and bow-hunted) and masculine men (farmers, hunters, and one guy with 13 children). Men are to be tough in business (there will be no questioning of American economic norms in this book) and tender with women and children, who are weak. Wives are ‘crystal goblets,’ beautiful and fragile; men are ‘thermoses,’ strong and protective. Men are to lead, women to submit, although submission is carefully redefined as ‘respect’ and leadership as ‘taking responsibility.’ Men, Driscoll says, are meant to be breadwinners…[Driscoll states:] ‘First, a guy needs to grow up by moving out of his parents’ house, paying his own bills, worshipping his God, and taking care of himself. Second, a man is then able to pursue a noble woman in a noble way.’ Actually, most good Israelite boys tended to stay home until their fathers brought them their brides.”

I seriously doubt that I would fit Driscoll’s definition of a real man. I don’t bow hunt. I’m not the ruthless, assertive type. At this moment, I’m not financially independent. Should I work on some of these things? I think so. I’m on a path towards a career, even if I have not arrived yet. And perhaps I should work on being less timid and at least a little more assertive, although I should also maintain a gentle, friendly quality that can put people at ease. If I can find a way of being that works for me, and that helps me and other people, then why should I worry about whether I fit Driscoll’s definition of a real man? What would be the point of me beating up on myself? In my opinion, not living up to Mark Driscoll’s standards does not equal disappointing God.

A Proselyte Who Wants to Take the Passover...

I started Scot McKnight's A Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period. The topic of this post will be a debate that McKnight discusses on page 81. The sources that McKnight cites are Mishnah Eduyoth 5:2, Mishnah Pesachim 8:8, Tosefta Pisha 7:14, and Babylonian Talmud 92a.

The subject is this: Suppose that a Gentile converted to Judaism on Passover eve. Can he partake of the Passover? The House of Shammai, in a rare display of leniency, says yes, even if that Gentile has not been circumcised. All he has to do is immerse himself and he can eat his Passover offering in the evening. The House of Hillel, however, says that the proselyte must be circumcised to eat of the Passover. And, if he became a proselyte on Passover eve, then he won't be able to partake of it, for a person who is circumcised becomes clean after being sprinkled on the third and the seventh day after the circumcision. That means that the proselyte would become clean (and thus eligible to eat the Passover) a week after the Passover.

There are questions that I have about this. First, how would the House of Shammai address the circumcision requirement for eating the Passover in Exodus 12:44, 48? Second, when does a Gentile become an official proselyte? Apparently, it is not at circumcision, for the Gentile in the discussion appears to be a proselyte before he has even been circumcised, or even immersed. Third, why must the proselyte be sprinkled on the third and the seventh days after circumcision in order to become clean? Numbers 19 prescribes that sort of sprinkling for those who have touched a corpse. Is circumcision a sort of contact with death? And, fourth, would a proselyte who cannot take the Passover be able to eat it the next month, which is what Numbers 9 prescribes for the Israelite and the resident alien who cannot partake of the Passover on Nisan 14 due to corpse impurity or being away on a journey?

David Marshall: "Congratulations, Get Rich"

I have two items for my write-up of Chapter 6 of David Marshall’s True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture. The chapter is entitled “Congratulations, Get Rich”, and it focuses on fu, which is happiness, or prosperity.

1. On page 73, Marshall states: “Only a fraction of traditional Chinese cures have been tested in Western laboratories. How many valuable secrets are hidden on back shelves and in the knapsacks of herb salesmen? Health is an esoteric art in China, and many remarkable drugs are likely to vanish if folk medicine is neglected.”

I love this passage! Why? Part of the reason is that my Grandma and my Mom owned a health food store for many years. Part of it is the notion that perhaps the East has things to teach the West, which means that the West doesn’t have all the answers. And part of it is the sense of mystery that’s there.

2. On page 78, Marshall states: “We don’t need to be ashamed of our animal desires; the mouth was formed to be filled with food, as the dirt was to grow plants. Yet it also implies God must be the foundation of our most basic pleasures. Man does not live by rice alone. We are also made to know God.”

I agree with this balanced approach. But there is a strong tradition of asceticism within Christianity, and at least part of the reason is things that show up in the New Testament. Here are some passages in the KJV. Some of them have been interpreted in the history of Christianity to tend towards asceticism, whereas others perhaps can be interpreted in that direction:

Matthew 6:19-20: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal…”

Matthew 5:28: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Matthew 19:12: “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Luke 12:33: “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.” (The audience here is, not the rich young ruler, but Jesus’ little flock. So Protestants can’t say that Jesus’ command to sell possessions applied only to that one rich man!)

I Corinthians 7:1-9: “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” (Here, Paul appears to tolerate and even encourage sex within marriage, but there has been a long-standing belief that he is presenting celibacy as better.)

Granted, there are New Testament passages that tend in the opposite direction. Jesus came eating and drinking (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). Jesus changed water into wine at a wedding (John 2). Hebrews 13:4 praises the marriage bed. I Timothy 4:3-4 criticizes ascetics who sought to forbid marriage and the consumption of certain meats, which were made to be eaten with thanksgiving. But there also appears to be a tradition that there is something special about voluntary poverty and celibacy, and that tradition seems to be present in rudimentary stages within the New Testament. And this tradition was influential throughout the history of Christianity, which explains monasteries, Origen castrating himself, Christian disdain for sexuality, Christian misogyny, etc. Elaine Pagels talks about this in her book, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.

What’s my point? Marshall’s argument throughout this book has been that China should embrace Christianity, or, more accurately, the Christianity that he believes is of the Bible. For Marshall, Christianity preserves the best of Chinese culture and religion, while also lacking the deficiencies within them. In the case of fu, Marshall maintains that Christianity is all for bodily pleasures and prosperity, but that it wants for us to also worship God—-for God to be the foundation of our pleasures. But my point is this: Christianity has come in so many shapes and sizes that it’s hard to say that “Christianity” will meet China’s desires and needs. Is the tradition of Christian asceticism consistent with China’s regard for fu? Marshall could then say that the Christianity that he’s promoting is the biblical one, but I think that many different forms of Christianity are biblical, in some sense: they just emphasize different passages.

Greenwald, Rozen, and Coulter

I have some political links to share:

1. Glenn Greenwald has a thought-provoking article in Salon, entitled “Progressives and the Ron Paul Fallacies”. I appreciate this article for two reasons. First, it illustrates how the American political process—-especially its polarization of red vs. blue—-gets to be pretty ridiculous. Greenwald astutely remarks:

“Then there’s the full-scale sacrifice of intellectual honesty and political independence at the altar of tongue-wagging partisan loyalty. The very same people who in 2004 wildly cheered John Kerry — husband of the billionaire heiress-widow Teresa Heinz Kerry — spent all of 2008 mocking John McCain’s wealthy life courtesy of his millionaire heiress wife and will spend 2012 depicting Mitt Romney’s wealth as proof of his insularity; conversely, the same people who relentlessly mocked Kerry in 2004 as a kept girly-man and gigolo for living off his wife’s wealth spent 2008 venerating McCain as the Paragon of Manly Honor.”

Second, Greenwald talks about how Ron Paul is addressing important issues, such as the negative effect of the drug war on minorities and the killing of Muslim children in war—-under the current administration. I plan to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries but not in the general election, if he makes it that far, because I find some of his positions to be extreme and harmful. But I appreciate him bringing certain issues to the table and talking boldly about them.

2. Laura Rozen has an article, Rick Santorum’s foreign policy: combative hawk–and, according to Bono, “defender of the vulnerable”. It discusses Santorum’s Catholicism and how that shapes his foreign policy. Essentially, Santorum is a hawk, yet he promotes compassionate policies regarding the vulnerable in the world.

I applaud his support for compassion. I do not, however, agree with his view that the private sector should handle welfare, since I do not think that the private sector has the resources to do so fully (and even someone from a private charity told me this). Both the public and also the private sectors should help the poor.

3. Ann Coulter has a funny line in her latest column: “Newt Gingrich…took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac (his latest excuse is that he got only $35,000 of that money and the rest went to “overhead” — there’s a great fiscal manager)…”

I like this because I find Newt Gingrich to be pompous, even though I admire him for his policy-analysis.