The marvelous journalistic media assure we shall have our daily presentist mixed doses of shock and surprise, banality and the constant insistence that so much of what we see and hear is entirely new, unprecedented, even revolutionary.

How American!

Need a new way to lambaste a candidate who is too: old, young, verbose, close-mouthed, tall, short, liberal, conservative, inexperienced, connected, religious, irreligious . . . ? Those descriptors immediately call to mind: Reagan, Kennedy, Stevenson, Coolidge, Lincoln, Douglas, Clinton, Goldwater, Obama, Hayes, Wilson, Roosevelt . . . . Why, when RR ran in 1980 one would have thought some people expected a state funeral not long after inauguration — that is, IF the poor old guy lived long enough. (Hear the echoes directed toward McCain). There is always something to make fun of, either just for fun, or with sincere malicious intent.

So, what about the Paris Hilton thing this week? Fun, obviously. But what is so new about celebrities weighing in either to poke fun, or to soberly advocate the merits of their favored candidate? Nothing new there, not in all the history of American politics.

But it’s not fun for John McCain, really. What a challenge is laid before him! Consider the candidates and the varied, sometimes secondary, characteristics that influence voters. Who’s more entertaining? Who’s a better cheerleader? Who exudes youth and virility? Who shows confidence borne of experience?  Who’s the better debater (wouldn’t we like to know . . . )? Who’s more experienced overall (whoops, probably should be in another list)? Who better represents the U.S.A. demographically, attitudinally, and ideologically (are there some great debating points here)? Whom should we expect to work better with our multicultural America (an unfair question, or quite apt?)? Who would work better with the Congress? Who would help our international image and acceptability (don’t even suggest that’s not important!)?

No, John McCain is no rock star, no “celebrity” as we understand the word. But neither is Barack Obama, though I get the feeling many Americans deep down want a celebrity president — at least someone with the substance, respectability, depth, and character to make us feel better about our top leadership. With that celebrity they want some substance, a strong, respectable image, and confidence.

I think the more important features in that list are in reach both for McCain and Obama. I think we should demand those things. We don’t want celebrities, we want statesmen-leaders. We shall see what we get.

Let’s not forget: McCain and Obama are senators. That fact merits more discussion than it has gotten recently. Yes, McCain has been a senator longer, and the quality of that experience, its depth, is something we need to consider. Most Americans will not dwell on it though. One question dominates: how did these men become senators in the first place? Did they just throw their names in the hat? An appreciable electorate made them senators, no doubt trusting (hoping mightily?) that in the short and long terms they would do some good for their constituencies. That’s nothing to disparage.

Let’s remember, too, that the presidency is at best a humble office. At best it requires greatness in (so far) a man, and the American electorate does not long reward someone who makes us look bad (well, there is the Twenty-second Amendment for extra protection in that case, or even for more expressly partisan purposes, if you will). The comedians and humorists, and Paris Hilton, have a point, even as their jokes and poking fun acknowledge the power of celebrity in our culture. Yes, celebrity attracts us. But there is another side to the matter. A presidential candidate should not try to be God’s best gift to humankind.

Yet at the end of the day we want the kind of confidence, the sense of support, that assures us there are strong, principled, constant persons backing up our lifestyles, our dreams, our goals, and our efforts. These are considerations not entirely determined by age and experience, purpose and motivation, attitude and character. But these things are important. They are akin to the support we appreciate from the folk we value in our lives — those we can always count on to encourage us and to help us in times of trouble — like family elders, brothers and sisters, ministers and priests, coaches, teachers. These are the very qualities we expect from our civil servants from the local to national levels. At best we also expect that of ourselves in our civic and community service (we need to remember that!).

What do we need in a president? Paris Hilton cannot tell us, no, not really — that’s a media-commodity-entertainment thing. We need a president who evokes his commonality with us in our common life, who works to assure that security and liberty are maintained, who knows what makes a nation great in the community of nations and seeks to enhance that community, and who listens well.

I wish we had stronger candidates. Honestly, I cannot think of any presidential campaign, ever, when someone would not have said just that. But there is a truism not always fulfilled in American presidential history. The men have generally risen to the demands of the office. Some have fallen short. A few have succeeded beyond all human expectation. I am more sanguine about such prospects for McCain and Obama, but as always we shall have to wait, and see. For example, a key mark of competence and wisdom consists in the qualities of those cabinet, staff, and agency servants whom our presidents choose to help them advance their responsibilities in office. That has not always been well done.

One more thing: shouldn’t we be taking a look at the composition of our Congress for the next few years? Ponder the argument that the Congress actually is more important when we want to get things done. But that’s another discussion.

Any society learns sooner or later whether their own culture works well, or at all, or not at all, though that learning, or recognition, has been known to come, sadly, after the fact. Yet it does not have to be that way.

The example of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century England reminds me that societies have reached “tipping points” where people garnered the influence necessary to change the conditions that were producing societal problems — problems offensive to religious faith, to humanitarian decency, and to human justice. The trans-Atlantic abolitionist movement and the twentieth-century civil rights movement also are good examples.

In a later installment I want to examine that matter of the “tipping point.” Contrary to a line of historical thinking that uses terms like “rise” and “fall” in reference to civilizations, I want to consider the ways that “complex societies” (or civilizations) persist as they rely on their cultural strengths. That sounds like a huge topic, and it is. I don’t want to make it too big right here, but just now I don’t want to ignore it. One point of discussion: in line with a general expectation from Andy Crouch’s new book, Culture Making, what should we be attending to in our own society and communities to create a new, shall I say, renovated, culture?

Allison Krauss sings it well:

Don’t take me because I am faithful,

Don’t take me because I am kind.

If your heart settles on me, I’m for the taking;

Take me for longing or leave me behind.

Along with yet beyond all the reason, the negotiating, the policy statements, and the eventual platform, many American voters settle on a matter of the heart, a voting decision that allows them to leave the polls with hope and satisfaction: “I have made my best choice today.” Though it seems in recent presidential elections there have been no earnestly tantalizing choices, one could argue that few elections since 1800 have met that measure.

A brief word only about the delegate selection process, and I speculate: the Democrats could do worse for themselves than to risk anything like the grindingly close popular and electoral and judicial decisions of 2000 and 2004. Does choosing Barack over Hilary reduce that risk?

Take me for longing, or leave me behind.

Which candidate fits that bill?

. . . a number of them would prefer, it seems, merely to be a channel for the stream of research, a vanishing instant in its ever changing self-awareness. Their misfortune is not to have seen that thought is not the harlot of time . . .

(The Peasant of the Garonne, 1968, page 102)

Some older readers could dismiss him and others like him as careless reactionaries. But would they dare say that to an entire generation of twenty-somethings? Some older readers should recall themselves in the 60s and 70s; I invite the comparison.

But what of the “us vs. them” noted in the AP article — Christians against non-Christians? Not entirely true, I’m sure, but true enough, and often enough. Practices belie professions too facilely made. Some older commentators have helped (and challenged me with their words), so I invite you to read on:

Jacques Maritain (in The Peasant of the Garonne, trans. Cuddihy & Hughes, 1968, pages 79-81), writing as a Catholic, primarily to Catholics. The topic was loyalty to the law of the cross of Christ; he wrote,

The more a Christian . . . gives an absolute primacy in his heart to a fully liberated brotherly love, and in dealing with non-Catholics or non-Christians, sees them as they really are, members of Christ, at least potentially, the more firmly he must maintain his positions in the doctrinal order (I don’t say he should brandish them at every turn), and must make clear the differences which, in the realm of what is true or false, separate him from these men he loves wholeheartedly. In acting thus, he will be honoring them. To do otherwise would be to betray Truth, which is above everything.

Maritain refers to the difficulties, the great discomfort, of practicing “brotherly love and the love of the One who is the Truth.” He continues,

To begin with, it is at the very core of brotherly love that inevitably we suffer in our hearts, because those non-Christians whom we love like members of Christ, of the beloved Saviour, do not know Christ. There can be and certainly is much of truth in their baggage. But they do not know the Truth, the Truth that frees, and it is a great misfortune for them, and one great joy less for heaven and for Jesus. They continue to struggle with many chains, they still collide against many barriers along their road; there are for them still many traps in the shadows. Would we love them truly if we didn’t suffer because of what they lack? The more fraternal love grows, the more this suffering also grows. Clearly, if anyone delights in loving them, and receiving the gift of their friendship in return, but without experiencing any of this suffering, there is something unreal about his love.

Maritain seeks the “natural joy” (Psalm 85:10 is in the background)

to contemplate in quite a few of our Christian brothers, entranced to be able at last to rub their noses, all atremble with enthusiasm, with the noses of all the sons of Adam.

I don’t soon expect to see my denominational brothers, or most American Christians, delighting to exchange a holy kiss or to practice certain other European or Middle Eastern forms of greeting among themselves, let alone with unbelievers. But I think Maritain is suggesting the rightness of just that kind of thing — of so delighting in the non-Christian as a brother or sister that we could all the more delight in him or her as a believer and full member of God’s household. Psalm 85 is about the restoration of a broken relationship — that between the LORD God and his people. So Maritain’s point is potent, poignant: in keeping faith with God, and with his gospel in the cross of Christ, how could the Christian not love thusly?

Maritain is not naive: a breach is possible when a non-Christian may reject doctrine — it could be a barrier. I agree. Perhaps, then, his point about the necessity of brotherhood, of true friendship, is chief. Jesus did say a thing or two, did he not, about friends and friendship? (John 15:13-15) Difficulties? You bet.

Novelist Will D. Campbell, in The Convention, in the novel’s closing scene at the home of Exell and Dorcas Rose McBride, at prayer time with their three mixed-ethnic foster children, including Leanne:

Leanne prayed the way she always did, for everything and everybody: the new kitten that Volene had gotten to replace Doshie: the Dominique rooster in a cardboard box on the back porch, his broken leg having been splinted by Dale Alan and Volene. Then Leanne called the names of everyone in the family and all the neighbors she could remember–especially for “Mister Leland who lives in the tar paper house on the left, just before you cross the river on the way to town who is bad sick and ain’t . . . uh . . . excuse me, God . . . I mean . . . and isn’t expected to live very long.” She thanked God for bringing Mama and Daddy home safely. She prayed for the fireflies in the jar and promised God that she would turn them loose in the morning if they didn’t smother.

When the prayer ended and they were getting to their feet, Denise whispered, “Leanne forgot to pray for the church.”

“No she didn’t,” their mama said.

Woe to us for the lack of holy imagination to envision a more inclusive church; where that statement might be misinterpreted, I say, then, that we must envision the possibility that Jesus is calling more people to his church than we are able to imagine.

More, later, perhaps.

– on troubling changes in the culture of literacy:

The “most troubling crisis is the sea change in the culture of literacy itself, the degree to which our overwhelmingly fast and visually furious culture renders serious reading increasingly irrelevant, hollowing out the habits of attention indispensable for absorbing long-form narrative and the following of sustained argument.”

And literate folk generally will agree with Wasserman that the culture of literacy is crucial to the citizens’ exercise of cogent and coherent civic and political life and the health of society.

Another comment by contrast, from Forty Acres and A Goat, by Will D. Campbell, about himself: (p. 3)

“At first the consolidated country high school seemed big to him. He once counted the books in the library and there were almost two hundred. He wondered how it would be to know everything in all those books. Then one day one of the teachers drew a big circle on the blackboard. She made a tiny dot in the circle. She told them the circle was the world and that if they knew everything in every book in every library in the world, the little dot was how much they would know. He questioned how important books were after that.”

His questioning did not keep him from writing books.

His writing books did not sunder his modesty and humility about the limitations of books and learning — the kinds of limitations that divide people rather than bring them together. Many “Bible-believing Baptists” have shared with other folk the conviction that that Bible was enough. It is interesting, though, how the Bible has prompted so much writing of books.

There is a point worth exploring, one relevant to Wasserman’s concerns, and one he acknowledged in his article. It is that the “print” media have great power. But limited power. Most people do not read books. Or newspapers — certainly not as in times past. “Reading” on the Internet has grown, but it is not the same “literacy” of concern. And all print media influences touch people indirectly and at a distance, though no less certainly.

What is in contention is whether those influences are what we want and need. The quick conclusion? Usage, markets, and the influence of the “democraweb” will provide such diversity of opinion that we may, “have the world” and at yet have little of clear value.

In a new twist on old news, this time from the UK (The Times [London], January 14; and poorly covered or characterized in the American mass media) Tara Brabazon, a British professor (U. of Brighton), weighed in on the dangers of relying too much on Web resources such as Google (”White bread for the mind;” “Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content.”) and Wikipedia. What most media commentators missed was her assertion that students must be taught to distinguish between reliable and less reliable sources on the Internet. Students should learn to work with the library, and books, and the Web, and to be able to discern between sources and make reliable interpretations of them. And that takes me back to the point of value: yes, there are many non-negotiable cultural foundations that should be familiar to students — the stuff of an adequate liberal arts curriculum, for example. Yet the culture always evolves, and much that is new gets attention. What persists because of its value does so because enough people make it part of their lives or recognize it as relevant to start with.

Consider this: the World Wide Web is a triumph of ephemerae. And trivia – collected, or deposited, as by travellers exchanging information and opinion at a rest stop or roadway inn. Most of what you find there won’t last. Interestingly though, for now, the Web provides (increasingly by the day, and from reliable sources) unparalleled access to much that has long been of enduring value in world cultural traditions. It is a tool, or set of tools, to be approached and used wisely, as one would approach a library, whether of 200 volumes like the one in Will Campbell’s high school, or any other.

“This is politics, much as I hate that word. We had an old governor in Mississippi who always said, ‘people don’t come to political rallies to think. They come to holler.’ And he kept getting elected.”

The Baby is Paradox itself, himself: God the Son limiting himself to become a human person, growing up, showing the way to full personhood, all the time relying on the Father, all the time cradling culture’s captives in his arms of truth, mercy, and grace. Sinless. Yet, at the end is the cross, a cruel cradle, and the cradling Sufferer does his work, though with, only with, both arms nailed wide apart as if helpless, and indeed so, but for the moment. It is a work unto death, yet the grave does not cradle Jesus Messiah long; his cross-work paradoxically is not yet his completed work; the Father does not orphan the Child who in resurrection, his work now complete, again takes his rightful place in the Cradle of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And yet a greater Paradox: you and I are invited to the Cradle. Would we embrace the Child? But we need his embrace more: Can we embrace and be embraced? Now is the time to embrace the Paradox and settle your mind, down to the core of your life. Consider the song by Bailey and Larson:

Cradle the Baby, cradle the Child, sing to Him softly and gaze on His smile.

Infant of mercy, envoy of grace, look at His eyes and you’ll see heaven’s face.

Come to the manger, cradle the Light. Jesus is waiting with arms open wide.

Cradle the Savior, fell His embrace. Hold close the gift of God’s infinite grace.

God reached in mercy from heaven above, sending Christ Jesus to hold us with love.

With grace so amazing and love so divine, He merits our praises, devotion, our lives.

So cradle the Baby, worship the King, join with the angels and joyfully sing.

Love Him and serve Him, bring Him your praise. Cradle the Child, Messiah of grace.

Cradle the Messiah of grace.

(Lynn Shaw Bailey and Lloyd Larson, Glory Sound, Nashville, (c) 2007)

We’ll be singing this at Central Baptist Church, Marshall, Texas, on the 16th.

Nothing surprises us anymore. But the advent and more recent recognition of Pentecostal Scientology reminds me of some persistent verities:

(1) People continue to seek help; whatever is therapeutic holds a primary place in past and present;

(2) People in pain and need tend not to discriminate rationally or theologically — what works, sells;

(3) People need to hear and know truth consistent with ultimate truth, which we Christians in our orthodoxy must not only be able to explain but to demonstrate — and that involves the capacity to meet needs. That should help us to focus our prayer and preparation.