Lael ArringtonCulture Shift/Hot Topics – Lael Arrington

Good Reasons to Vote, even if the choice is hard

admin — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 06:45:06 +0000

Millions of evangelicals and Catholics may decide this very tight election simply by…not voting. Please don’t be one of them.

People long to be well led, and for people of faith, character, morals, and values matter. It’s so demotivating when both choices rankle. As Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “The race is deadlocked with [three] weeks to go and if you’re an undecided, unsure or wavering voter it looks like Awful vs. Empty.” Actually, I would add that Kamala is far more Awful than Trump. But first, on the Empty issue…

In the article, Noonan tried to make sense of Kamala’s decisions not to take many substantive media interviews and to respond to probing questions with “I grew up in a middle-class family” word salads. Noonan asks, “Why does she dodge away from clarity? Why doesn’t she take opportunities to deepen public understanding of her thinking?…

Noonan offers a couple of possibilities (“Because she’ll figure it out later,” “Because she’s just not that into policy”) before landing on the one that makes the most sense to me: “Because she doesn’t want you to understand where she stands. Because she’s more progressive than she admits, and there’s no gain in telling you now.”

Noonan continues, “Failing to speak plainly and deeply now about illegal immigration [or taxing, spending, regulation, or faith-based issues] is political malpractice on a grand scale…She owes us these answers. It is wrong that she can’t or won’t address them. It is disrespectful to the electorate.”

Or is it intentional deception on a very large scale?

Fidelity Month: Lincoln and Schaeffer on Freedom and Sacrifice

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:02:11 +0000

"When freedom destroys order the yearning for order will destroy freedom."

Courtesy StoryBlocks

Two of the most majestic, heart-piercing places to visit in Washington DC are the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. Our images of both, taken during a cherry blossom-time trip, serve as a perfect backdrop to this tribute to Fidelity Month and all those who have given their lives to protect ours.

(In case you are not familiar with Fidelity Month, it is a new movement to celebrate the virtue of faithfulness in June by renewing our commitments to God, our spouses, our country and our communities. Please check it out and perhaps join me in using its promotional headers and memes on social media to focus on a movement that prompts us to draw closer to God, work to strengthen our families and heal divisions in our country.)

Surely one of the greatest inspirations for fidelity to our country is to remember the sacrifices given to protect and nurture America–the theme of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. Back in high school our chorale memorized Lincoln’s address set to beautiful music. I sang it softly as I read the entire address engraved on the south wall of Lincoln’s memorial. I’m so grateful to him for wrapping such beautiful words around the sacrifice of the fallen, calling us to give thanks and take courage as we rise to protect our freedoms in our civil war of worldviews and values. Please join me in remembering…

The Gettysburg Address:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation,

or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

6 Reasons Why This Evangelical Christian is Voting for Nikki Haley

admin — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:22:29 +0000

(My evangelical bonafides: I grew up in a non-denominational evangelical church and married my husband while he was in an evangelical seminary. He has pastored two evangelical churches for a total of almost 30 years. I have authored four books with evangelical publishers, including Harper Collins/Zondervan.)

Haley at her rally in our Columbia, SC suburb last Saturday

This is not a rant against Donald Trump or the people who support him, who include many of my friends. I respect their choices. As with the tensions surrounding our beliefs about where God’s sovereignty ends and free will begins or how God created the earth—young or old earth, theistic evolution or intelligent design—godly people with a high view of Scripture disagree. And we can still treat one another with gentleness and respect in the spirit of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, “…bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

We each give account to God for the stewardship of our citizenship and vote.

With a very heavy heart I would possibly vote for Trump in November, but could only do that in good conscience before God if I did whatever I could now to get someone else on the ballot instead. Here in South Carolina our early primary votes carry extra weight in shaping the presidential race. So we have donated to Nikki Haley’s campaign, have her sign in our yard, and I am writing this post

Why Haley?

Continue Reading…

A Prayer for the Hostages. And for us.

admin — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 04:33:15 +0000

photo courtesy Storyblocks

A nephew of one of the Hamas hostages said his aunt “’had to adjust to the sunlight’ because she had been in darkness for weeks. ‘She was in complete darkness,…completely cut off from the outside world.”

Imagine living in total darkness, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 7 weeks—50 days for the now-released hostages, 105 days and counting for those still in captivity. Think what you were doing on October 7^th. Now think of erasing all you’ve done since then. All that work, vacation, time with family and friends, church fellowship, football, Thanksgiving, Christmas prep–all those moments you’ve held dear.

Imagine instead sitting and sleeping in plastic chairs or benches. In the dark. All that time. In some cases alone. In others, crowded together with strangers and ordered to keep quiet. One meal of rice and bread a day. Knocking on the door when you need to go to the restroom. Waiting hours until you are taken.

Isolation. Darkness. Deprivation.

I think about the hostages often. Grieve for them. Plead to God for their release. And for their spiritual deliverance.

“The people living in darkness have seen a great light.” We can pray for God to shine his light in the hostages’ darkness.

Nancy Pearcey’s New Book Flips the Script on Toxic Masculinity

admin — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:52:22 +0000

This book has the potential to revolutionize our vision of what it means to be a man in today’s culture–how to lift up the beauty of God’s design for men (in pulpits, schools and men’s ministries), how to raise a good man, what to look for in a good husband, and how to heal many of the broken relationships in our families and churches. Read on to see why this could be one of the most family-and-culture transforming books you might ever read.

From my newsfeed recently: “…straight white men are abusive, [they] are serial killers…[they] are the ones shooting up schools, right?” The narrative that masculinity is toxic is pounded into men and boys daily. For such a time as this, Nancy Pearcey’s new book, The Toxic War on Masculinity, flips the script, showing that masculinity is not inherently toxic, but the war on masculinity certainly is.

Yes, Nancy writes, “men are typically larger, stronger, and faster than women. In general, they are also more physical, more competitive, and more risk-taking.” And while it’s true that the American Psychological Association notes that “most mass shooters are male, they overlook the controlled power and aggression used by the heroic men who have stopped mass murderers.” On 9-11 we were proud and grateful to mostly all men who ran into the burning buildings and searched the wreckage for survivors. That is what good men do. They protect and rescue. They show courage and aggression under control. And good moral character.

But Nancy exposes today’s competing script for masculinity: “Men everywhere seem to experience the tension between what they define as the “good man” and the way our culture pressures them to be a “real man”—‘be tough, be strong, never show weakness, win at all costs…get rich, get laid.’”

So how do you expose the falseness of a widely embraced cultural narrative?

Memorial Day–Come with me to Arlington Cemetery

admin — Mon, 30 May 2022 04:58:31 +0000

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Ecclesiastes 7:2

Just weeks ago, as pinkish-white cherry blossoms graced the grayish-white marble headstones of the dead who served our country, we walked and rode through Arlington Cemetery. The delicacy of the blossoms’ beauty and the massive orchestration of rows upon rows of markers belie the horror and chaos of the wars that have sent the bodies of so many men and women to rest in these forested hills overlooking Washington D.C.

A Deep Dive into the New Reality Marching towards Ukraine

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 15:12:25 +0000

What will daily life be like for Ukrainian leaders, Christians, and families? Insight from Alexander Solzhenitsyn and James Michener

To listen to some news reports today, most of our leaders are resigned to the probability that within two weeks Russia will have captured Kyiv and set up a new government in Ukraine, one loyal to Russia. They are hopeful that most of the invading Russian military will withdraw, and things will “calm down.” Any spike in gas or food prices for Americans will return to more normally (inflated) levels, and the stock market will bounce back to pre-invasion numbers.

But the nightmare will only be beginning for the people of Ukraine–loss of Western freedoms and the expansion of Russia’s FSB security service that will surveil and punish any who resist will be the new daily reality. What will this mean for the Ukrainian leaders, Christians and families? How can we pray for them?

What will a new government mean for Ukrainian leaders?

MLK Day: In the time of BLM and critical race theory, how can it be relevant, encouraging, or even fair to be a “chosen race”?

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 04:02:43 +0000

MLK Memorial, ht Flickr

We live in times when the very idea of a “chosen race” is offensive.

And yet, God was not hesitant in the least to tell Moses, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel” (Exodus 19:5-6).

Having just delivered Israel from bondage to the Egyptians, God leads them to Mt. Sinai and, upon arrival, this is the very first thing he tells Moses to tell them. He is giving them a new identity: his chosen people. His treasured possession.

He wants them to know that “all the earth is mine,” and out of “all peoples” Israel will have a special relationship with him and a unique identity. “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant,” you will be a “holy nation.” A “holy” nation is a nation “set apart” from all other nations. You will be a kingdom of priests endowed with royal authority to bring people to me.

This is so foreign to our deeply democratic sensibilities. “We the people” choose our own leaders. We believe in equality. One citizen, one vote. What made Israel so special? And how can being a “chosen race” be a source of deep encouragement and challenge or even fair in today’s world?

Critical Race Theory: Good resources (Part 2)

admin — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 11:45:24 +0000

In my last post I discussed the “definitional mess” that is Critical Race Theory and offered a worldview critique. Job one in our racially charged culture is to seek to understand, What do we really mean by “Critical Race Theory”? And then, seek to understand the longings for justice in the hearts of our Black neighbors and friends.

We can agree with the CRT experts that understanding and pursuing justice for the poor and oppressed should be a high priority for us. The Bible speaks more about that than about freedom from high taxation, forbidding gay marriage or many other conservative political and social goals.

Paul tells us we are called to be ministers of reconciliation between God and man. The Bible, especially Amos and the other prophets, call us to be ministers of reconciliation between man and man, especially unjust practices that trample on the oppressed. So how can we best pursue understanding and justice across the racial divide?

How can we be angry about culture or politics and not sin?

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 11:50:40 +0000

Raise your hand if you feel like you live in a time where people love empty words and seek after lies. Where the honor of seeking to follow Jesus and listen to his Word is turned to shame. That’s exactly how King David felt in Psalm 4. So he gives himself some good advice: “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.”

David urges himself to begin with deep reflection alone on his bed in silence. We can benefit from the same advice. Here’s a prompt for our reflection: What does it mean to be a person of truth and grace in a culture of lies?

The ninth commandment, “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor,” gives us a good place to begin: And the Westminster Catechism offers us a great little test to help us take the measure of our own commitment to truth. After all, we can’t do nearly as much about changing others as we can about changing ourselves:

Are we committed to “preserving and promoting truth between man and man?
Are we committed to “preserving and protecting the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own”? (What if our neighbor is on the other political side? What if we are engaged on social media?)