Never Trump. Never Clinton. Never Despair.

Trump and Clintons

You may have noticed I’m not a huge fan of either of the major-party presidential candidates this year. It’s always tempting to shout “Worst ever!” but a strong case could be made that this year’s election really does feature the most toxic combination of options in American history. And you should care about that whether or you are naturally “political,” because the presidency influences the country in a thousand ways, from the policies that are made to the example that is set.

That’s why I created a petition on Saturday in a last-ditch effort to give American voters an option other than Trump v. Clinton. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment, because I really hope you will go sign it and share it with your friends. But first, I want to share why I am not worried about the fate of that petition, nor about the outcome of the presidential election. There is a broader principle here that is helpful when dealing with the setbacks that come with being “in the world, but not of it.”

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‘Book Deserts’ and the Consequences of Ideas

Father and son reading

I just finished reading an intriguing and depressing article on “book deserts” in impoverished urban neighborhoods. The problem is even worse than you might imagine. “In a community of concentrated poverty in the same city, on the other hand, there was only a single age-appropriate book per 300 kids—or about 33 titles total, all of which were coloring books.” All of which were coloring books. Considering the importance of reading for intellectual and spiritual development, it would be hard to exaggerate the degree to which these “book deserts” are stunting their inhabitants.

But where did the books go? The article describes a new study which tallied up the tiny collection of stores which sold children’s books in a few impoverished areas. “Overall, they found just 75 such stores—or about 2 percent of all the businesses in those neighborhoods—selling print resources for children ages 0 through 18; many of them were dollar stores. And especially after breaking down the data by neighborhood and age group, it became clear: Children’s books are a rarity in high-poverty urban communities. The likelihood that a parent could find a book for purchase in these areas, Neuman and Moland write, ‘is very slim.’… The new study adds to a growing body of research demonstrating how income-based housing segregation undermines the prospects of America’s youngest citizens, with the rich leaving ‘the poor and the near poor to scramble for resources that would have otherwise benefited a larger share of the population.'”

But are the poor actually scrambling for these particular resources? The article implies that all would be well if we could just get bookstores into poorer neighborhoods, but one might want to pause to consider why stores in poor neighborhoods do not bother stocking children’s books in the first place. As a rule, stores will sell anything their customers are interested in buying, and a cheap book costs about as much as a pack of cigarettes; it’s not as if we’re talking about luxury goods. And what about totally free books? The article notes in passing that poor families “are far less likely to utilize public libraries,” but does not seem to find that fact suggestive. Perhaps impoverished families do not have books, not because they have no way to get them, but because many poor parents have no interest in getting them.

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On Thinking Small and Changing the World

Pawn on chessboard

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

The world is not what it should be. In just the past few days, we have been inundated with news about jihadist murder in France, racial tensions in America, an attempted coup in Turkey, and starving millions in Venezuela. I think we would all agree that Someone Should Do Something About That, and we probably feel guilty that we aren’t stepping up to be the Someone who does the Something.

But perhaps we are not quite on the mark about the Something we ought to be doing. Several unrelated social trends have worked together to give our era an unbalanced and counterproductive understanding of how renewal comes and what it takes to make the world a better place.

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‘Black Lives Matter’ Undermines Its Own Cause

Black Lives Matter march

It is challenging to critique a movement which has little organization apart from a decentralized band of activists who have gathered beneath a slogan; especially when that slogan itself is true, important, and timely. But—precisely because “black lives matter” is true, important, and timely—we have an obligation to critically consider the movement which has adopted that mantra as its name. Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag following the 2013 Trayvon Martin shooting, and since then the movement has drawn significant media attention, featured in countless protests, and become an influential player in American politics. It has also adopted troubling tactics which undermine its own worthy cause.

With BLM back in the headlines this week, I think it is important to point out several reasons for concern about the movement and its tactics. I do so cautiously and, I hope, humbly; very aware that I observe and speak from the outside. However, it is possible to observe Black Lives Matter and evaluate the movement’s actions in light of universal standards of justice, just as Black Lives Matter asks us to evaluate the experience of African-Americans according to universal standards of justice. If I can judge the shooting of Philando Castile, I can also judge the protests it provoked.

With that in mind, here are three reasons why Black Lives Matter should be rejected or reformed by those who believe black lives matter.

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The Supreme Court Is Not Enough to Justify Voting for Trump

Donald Trump

As far as I can tell, the unofficial slogan of Trump 2016 is “Trump is awful, but SCOTUS.” When I talk with conservative friends who are debating whether they can bring themselves to vote for him—which is most of them—Supreme Court nominations are invariably among the first things they mention. And it is not an insignificant point. The prospect of Hillary Clinton appointing the replacement for Justice Scalia, and perhaps another justice or two, is appalling. If Clinton wins this election she will be in a position to shift the court significantly leftward for a generation, and that prospect is among the most compelling reasons for an “anybody but Hillary” vote, even if that “anybody” is an immature con man with dictatorial instincts.

Because (a) I think this is a compelling argument and (b) I remain firmly in the #NeverTrump camp, I wanted to explain why I don’t believe Supreme Court nominations are a good enough reason to vote for Donald Trump.

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There Are Good, Non-Bigoted Reasons to Support HB2

HB2 protestors in Raleigh

It’s been a few months since HB2 dominated the news cycle and sent “bathroom” trending on social media, but the concerns of the pro-HB2 side continue to be widely misunderstood. I have lost count of how many times I have seen serious, earnest explanations that transgender men (i.e. those who identify as women) are not interested in raping women in bathrooms, as if that prospect was the motivation behind the law. Since the Department of Justice just filed for an injunction that would suspend HB2 as part of their ongoing litigation against the North Carolina law, this seems like a good time to clarify what is at stake.

To begin with, we should be clear about what is not behind the law. I don’t know anyone who is seriously concerned about men who are actually transgender assaulting women in bathrooms. A man who genuinely identifies as a woman is not a likely rapist. The oft-repeated reassurance that transgenders will not be assaulting “other” women en masse is obvious and irrelevant.

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The Place for Patriotism

Mount Rushmore

With 4th of July festivities under way and flags and tri-colored streamers filling the air, it is a good time to consider the much-maligned virtue of patriotism. Along with many other natural affections, patriotism has been staggered by successive blows from modernism, which sees such emotions as irrational and useless, and postmodernism, which sees them as dangerous.

For sterile, scientific modernism, the idea of having particular pride in one’s country is simply absurd. After all, one’s place of birth is mere happenstance. Every nation has its merits and demerits, and comparison between our own country and the rest of the world will never be entirely complementary. As Virginia Woolf wrote grimly of her own land, those tempted to an irrational local enthusiasm should “compare English painting with French painting; English music with German music; English literature with Greek literature… When all these comparisons have been faithfully made by the use of reason, the outsider will find herself in possession of very good reasons for her indifference.”

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Brexit and the Fallacy of ‘Better People’

Brexit newspaper headline

The UK’s “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union has certainly generated much rending of garments among media and political figures on both sides of the Atlantic. I am still unclear how some breathless reporting on Google search trends plus interviews with a few clueless “Leave” supporters proved that all 17.4 million votes to leave the EU were cast by idiots, but I suppose that sort of incisive commentary is why we have media professionals.

I have little to say about the merits of Brexit itself. It will cause some short-term economic pain to Britain and to the global economy, but I am very sympathetic to the desire of the British not to be governed by unaccountable technocrats in Brussels (who celebrated Brexit with sweeping new regulations on electric kettles and toasters across the continent). For the moment, though, I am less interested in the merits of Brexit itself than in why the EU is seen as so essential by so many. Of course, there are plenty of reasons to support the EU, some of them quite sound, but much of the angst over Brexit seems to be driven by a sentimental attachment to the idea that the EU was a step in the direction of wiser, more dispassionate European governance. As such, it is part of a larger tendency, particularly common on the left, to want to solve social problems by putting Better People in charge of them.

“Better” invariably means membership in the intellectual class, with the education, assumptions, and values which go along with it. In the case of the EU, governance by officials who share the elites’ cosmopolitan internationalism (or anti-nationalism?) is supposed to avoid the conflict which has characterized most of the continent’s history, but this same instinct for putting Better People in charge plays out in a million ways in modern politics. In America, it has resulted in everything from the nationalization of health insurance to nanny-state oversight of parenting.

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Reasons for Hope, Part 3: About America

American flag

So far, my “Reasons for Hope” series has taken a narrow perspective, considering God’s promises of sanctification for individual believers, and then a big-picture one, considering God’s promises for the future. In this final article, I’m going to finish up in the middle, with a look at reasons for hope about our country and our place in it.

While patriotism should never shoulder aside the priorities of our faith, we still ought to care deeply about the state of our country. “Love your neighbor” naturally leads to an interest in our society and government, and in fact Paul instructed Timothy to pray for “kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim 2:2). In the Old Testament, God told his exiled people, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer 29:7). God put us in a particular place at a particular time for a particular reason, so we have a degree of responsibility for “the welfare of our city” and ought to pray and act and feel accordingly.

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God Does Not Share His Glory, and That Is a Problem for LDS and JW doctrine

LDS art portraying the Father and Son

The beliefs of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are different in many ways, but they share two significant similarities. They both hold onto the Bible as true Scripture, and they both divide the Trinity so Jesus is separate from and inferior to God. For Mormons, Jesus is another God, a separate being from God the Father. Jehovah’s Witnesses, on the other hand, believe Jesus is a glorified angelic being who is worthy of great honor but not worship. Because these views contradict what the Bible reveals about the nature of the Triune God, they offer Christians an opportunity to highlight the opposition between LDS and JW teachings and those of Scripture.

Talking about the nature of Jesus is a good tactic when you have a chance to engage with a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness for two reasons. First, the nature of God matters! As God’s ambassadors on this earth, we should bear witness to what he has revealed about himself. In particular, like the Bible itself, we should call all people to worship Jesus as God. Secondly, our overall strategy when witnessing to anyone with heretical views should always be to bring their beliefs back to Scripture and show the differences. The nature of Jesus is one significant area where both the Watch Tower Society and the LDS church get it wrong, so it is a fruitful avenue to explore.

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