The Desperate Need for Statesmen

Standard

So a Republican whose major claim to fame is going nude in Cosmo is the new senator from Massachusetts. And conservatives everywhere are rejoicing.

Forgive me if I don’t blow a horn and wear a silly hat.

No, I can’t get pumped about yet another political lightweight who drank the party-line Kool-Aid and talks about real change. Frankly, the Democrats and Republicans are true to one goal only : their own political ambitions.

Can I ask a simple question? Here it is:

Where are the statesmen?

America is in bad shape. Honestly, I think the collective wound is deeper and more threatening than anyone in D.C. cares to admit. And that wound is only going to get deeper if we don’t throw the bums out and put some serious people on Capitol Hill. People who do what is right, not because it is makes the bigwigs happy, but because they fear God.

What we need are statesmen. Folks who don’t go all weak in the knees when the GOP party chairman calls ’em up on the line or Barney Frank blows ’em a kiss. People who remember the point of this country. People who don’t pass laws just because. People of deep convictions that can’t be sold to the highest bidder. Intellectuals with big hearts, who are widely read and understand history. People with a spine, who can stand up to dictators around the globe and not flinch (or bow).

We need guys like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Remember them?

And this terrible lack of statesmen applies to the American Church. The national stage of Christian leaders is littered with lightweights who have the wrong motivations, wrong answers to difficult questions, and no vision.

Jesus called Simon a rock. He said He would build His Church on a rock like that.

But where are those rocks today? Where are those kinds of Church statesmen in America 2010? Seriously, can you name a half dozen Christian players on the national stage today considered to have a brilliant mind and a heart of compassion?

I admit that part of the problem here is that the kind of personality that makes for a genuine Church statesman is the humble one that stays out of the limelight and isn’t listening to himself on Christian radio.

Still, desperate times call for humble, nameless Church statesmen to rise up.

Call them prophets if you will. Call them the mighty heroes of old. But for all our sakes, someone, anyone, please call them! We need Christians like that from every profession and walk of life.

And we need them now.

11 thoughts on “The Desperate Need for Statesmen

  1. Paul Walton

    Sent to me by a friend, if only…
    Congressional Reform Act of 2010

    1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

    A. Two Six year Senate terms
    B. Six Two year House terms
    C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    2. No Tenure / No Pension:

    A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:

    All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, server your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

    8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11 .

    The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

  2. Dave S

    Dan, You apparently do not agree with Scott Brown’s political positions. Fair enough. But to call him a “political lightweight” is more than misleading, as it the statement that his “major claim to fame is going nude in Cosmo.”

    Sen Brown is a graduate of Boston College Law School, a practicing attorney, and a Lt. Colonel in the JAG of the Massachusetts National Guard. He was first elected to the Mass. House in 1998 and to the Mass. Senate in 2004. The people of Massachsetts have now chosen him to represent them in the United States Senate. A man of gravity is would appear to me.

    It also seems to me, that his surprising victory in the recent Mass. senate election far overshadows an appearance that he made in Cosmopolitan magazine 28 years ago. I suppose that depends on one’s focus and we know yours.

    And what is your basis for suggesting that Sen. Brown’s motivation is his own political ambition? Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? Or do you just level the accusation without basis or apology?

    Do we remember Henry Clay? Of course. He helped pass the Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of 1850, including a tougher Fugitive Slave Act. By helping to preserve the institution of slavery in the name of compromise rather than opposing it on principle and in the name of God, Clay arguably helped foster the political conditions that led to the Civil War and loss of over a half a million lives.

    You say that the country and the church needs statesmen as leaders. Men like Henry Clay. Surely, you must realize that you are holding yourself out as a leader of the church in your comments and observations here. If your idea of statesmanship is to level inaccurate, biased, and baseless accusations as you have do here, then please spare the church and our worldly government from your brand of it.
    Sincerely,
    Dave

  3. dewd4jesus

    Dan –

    As a natural born citizen and United States Marine, I’d agree. But as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven not so much. The Founding Fathers understood what the one key was to the continued success of their “experiment”. That the people elect moral leaders, who would then be a moral influence on the people. This overlooks the sin nature of man. And what we see today is exactly what they foresaw if that standard were compromised. They themselves were the first beginnings of that compromise. Of all forms of man’s government I truly believe their ideas were some of if not “the” best. But they all fall as victims of human nature. This particular form with deluded pleasure and rampant desire because of the very liberties that make it great.

    As a member of the Body of Christ though, I do have the responsibility to vote. Very simply because God has placed me in the position to do so and I must therefore do so in a manner which honors Him. But the workings and doings of the government of this kingdom are much less a concern as being an active and healthy citizen of The Kingdom. And as such the influence I can have is much less of any corporate sense but rather lies in the realm of the One Anothers on the individual level as we first live as examples of the Love of God and look then for opportunities to share the gospel by their observation of things in us of Christ, or as we serve them in humility showing them compassion they can receive from nowhere else. By breaking through the barriers created by the enemy, the world, the modern western church and themselves and creating individual disciples knit together with the other members around them and becoming disciple makers themselves. That was His command. Make disciples of all nations. Not make scholars. Nor pastors, teachers. Not merely followers. Nor just converts. It is those who not only listen to the teacher but follow his teachings by making them their manner of life that are his disciples.

    It is only by changing individuals that social change takes place. So I would suggest that rather than a need for statesmen, the need is for men of God who will guide individuals to and through the discipleship program of Jesus Christ as they continue to grow and mature in it themselves. Out of that, and only out of that, is there any hope that statesmen might arise to bring a renewing of conviction to live as a nation of people that honors God. But I don’t hold out much hope for that. All I see and all I read in His Word tells me this is just the natural course of things given man’s fallen condition, regardless of form of government.

    Just one humble pilgrim’s opinion as I struggle to actually love my neighbors as myself.

  4. Oengus

    Dire Dan: “America is in bad shape.”

    What you said reminds me of a very famous, legendary understatement. Coming to the Little Bighorn, General Custer remarked “There sure are a lot of indians here.”

    Anyhow, the country is in bad shape because the Church here is in bad shape (but you already knew that). In fact, it’s a lot like Sardis: having a name that lives but is dead, and what little is left is about to die.

    And some days, I don’t know what’s more disgusting to me. Is it the plethora of religious con-men that have flooded the scene with their bogus “prophesying” for profit, or is it the shrill and vicious “online discernment ministries”?

    The vomitousness of it all makes me want to run and hide far, far away to some desolate wilderness. (I guess I should move to that vast emptiness called Montana.)

  5. Headless Unicorn Guy

    So a Republican whose major claim to fame is going nude in Cosmo is the new senator from Massachusetts. And conservatives everywhere are rejoicing.

    Welcome to South Park.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *