the tindog coffeehouse

How’s that for a broad title?

First, a little background. In March, I wrote a blog post in response to a review of the upcoming movie adaptation of Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. In the post I voiced concern over how homosexuality may be portrayed in the movie, worried that (according to the review) the movie was consciously pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda, which I believed was the wrong message to send to both the Christian community and to non-Christians. I made it clear that since I had not seen the movie, I was only responding to the review.

The post generated a few comments, including a response from the movie’s producer, Steve Taylor. And although it wasn’t originally intended to be a political discussion, it more or less evolved into that.

Now the Weekly Standard has published an article attacking Miller for his support of Barack Obama and his apparent disdain for conservatives:

Continue reading…

“Jerry Falwell was a polarizing figure.”

So begins Relevant Magazine’s feature article, the last interview of Jerry Falwell, which was conducted two weeks before his death in May 2007. And I think that one statement pretty well sums up how most Americans, Christian or not, would describe him.

As anyone who has spent time in evangelicalism’s inner orbit knows, there are really two Jerry Falwells. One, of course, is the fundamentalist most Americans have seen on television, the man who once denounced homosexuality as “a vile and satanic system” and the feminist movement as “a satanic attack on the home.” This is the Jerry Falwell who not only blamed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on a long list of domestic minorities (homosexuals, feminists, pagans, abortionists, etc.), but who also tried to cash in on the public outrage over those remarks by telling his supporters in a letter signed by his son Jonathan—that he was being victimized by “a vicious smear campaign” and asking them to send “a special Vote of Confidence gift … of at least $50 or even $100.”

The other Jerry Falwell, the one I’m seeing today, is more akin to a religious Willy Wonka—a whimsical, mercurial figure who delights in unexpected acts of generosity and trickery. This is the Jerry Falwell who gives away college scholarships to kids who hit baseballs over his fence, who plays lighthearted pranks on uptight fundamentalists and speaks adoringly of his grandchildren. This Jerry Falwell has made some unlikely friends over the years, including Senator Ted Kennedy and Penthouse publisher Larry Flynt, both of whom praise Dr. Falwell as a decent human being while condemning his political views.

Continue reading…

National Review’s Jay Nordlinger had a chance to interview President Bush about his presidency and put a whole bunch of quotes from the interview into his column.

Here are a few of the more interesting ones, but it’s worth reading the whole thing.

On the troop surge in Iraq:

“And I can’t remember the moment, but I know full well [National Security Adviser] Steve [Hadley] and I said, ‘We’re going to figure out and get to the bottom of this thing . . .’ And you’ve got to understand: With me, I’m thinking victory the whole time. And I fully understood the consequences of defeat — which are easier to explain, by the way, than the consequences of victory. And so we started to assess, and the different options started bubbling up, I guess, toward the end of the summer [’06] . . .

“The way it should work for a president on a decision this big is to make sure everybody has a chance to express themselves. I guess you could try to hastily make a decision of this magnitude and say, ‘This is the way it is.’ On the other hand, when you’re implementing a decision of this magnitude, where people’s lives would be at stake, it is important to give a lot of different stakeholders a chance to express their opinion. The president says, ‘It’s not working, we must assess, and what is it going to take to win?’

“And there were a lot of opinions during this period of time — a lot. Which is good for the president. You really don’t want homogenized decision-making. And opinions ranged from Get out, to Get out of Baghdad, step back, and hope the violence which will occur as a result of the vacuum doesn’t spill out.” Some people said, “Okay, some troops” — and eventually, “as a result of a lot of interagency working,” there were 30,000 additional troops: the surge. “Why? Because that’s what it would take to win, or to achieve the objective.”

Continue reading…

John C Abell at Wired’s Epicenter blog argues that companies receiving money from the government’s $700 billion bailout rescue plan should be free to use that money to pay for executive bonuses. To come to that conclusion, he looks at the public funding of Planned Parenthood in the 1980s:

In 1984 the Reagan administration denied family planning funds to any overseas group that offered counseling about abortion, and generally opposed public sex education for teens (which works) and supported abstinence education (which doesn’t).

It was willing, in other words, to make a bad investment in order to advance a principle.

The funding decision affected Planned Parenthood, which is under the umbrella of an overseas organization. They made an intriguing case for being able to spend as they saw fit while taking the money: we won’t spend your money on abortion education. We have other money; we’ll use that.

Continue reading…