He Said Shalom

"Lonnie" rolled by and wished me "shalom" today.

I was walking on the bike trail. I do this during work breaks when my reminders remember to remind me that sitting at a computer all day is likely, in the next 40 years, to contribute to my death. I enjoyed immensely that a person would roll by me on the bike trail and wish me shalom. My thoughts were apparently loud enough for him to take an interest in me. He had stopped. I was catching up.

We chatted.

He told me of the love of God and the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He gets an "A" for noting the two most important commandments then stopping short of applying any behavior requirements to my salvation.

I'm Michael I said. I'm Lonnie - I know Gabriel, he said. We laughed.

I found myself overly anticipating the point in the conversation wherein I'd be invited to join a cult. He handed me The Church at the Gate's current "The Word for You Today" booklet. Not a cult. Huh.

Of all the conservative Christian pastors in town that serve in the state legislature, have been The Daily Show's Today's Moment of Zen, sat with me at a table and asked questions during my hour long safe biking pitch, assisted in getting 3' safe passing legislation passed and that have various other efforts that I'm generally sympathetic too (and others that I certainly am not) - the pastor of The Church at the Gate is one of them.

It might as well have been one of his members that found me on the bike trail and wished me shalom.

The Post That Almost Never Was

It was going to be the perfect post. It was going use current campaign finance law to demonstrate how two groups operated in South Dakota, efforting to have the abortion ban pass, without meeting South Dakota law's requirements to file a finance report. I even published it...and then found a problem. It wasn't bulletproof. It needed to be bulletproof. I deleted the post. If you were lucky enough to check this afternoon around 4pm you might have seen it. Here's what I could salvage of it...

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God is going to use this state very strategically to tear down national strongholds… from this place [Pierre, SD] the nation will begin to be legislated. – Bound4LIFE September Newsletter

I spent a lot of my holiday weekend being curious about campaign finance law and how it relates to the South Dakota abortion ban. Specifically I’m as curious as any South Dakotan about the potentially illegal $750,000 donation SD Legislator Roger Hunt’s Promising Future Corporation gave to the VoteYesForLife committee.

Turns out blogger SD Progressive (with Coat Hangers at Dawn’s echoing) got it wrong when they said “Not one disclosed dollar on the Vote Yes committee filing is from Steve Kirby.” Page 22 of the report (PDF) contains Steve Kirby’s name and $1000 donation. I’m not saying that means it’s not his $750,000. I’m just agreeing it’s hard to do research.

Yes, that’s right, I read with interest the Pre-election Campaign Finance Reports this weekend. I suppose if a South Dakotan has the right to know who’s trying to influence them in an election; this South Dakotan might as well exercise that right.

My favorite part of the VoteYesForLife report (PDF) is the un-required pie chart showing 65% of donations were from South Dakota contributors. But wait! Take away the mysterious, anonymous, potentially illegal $750,000 donation and you get 42% of donations from South Dakota contributors. Nice!

I also reviewed the list of South Dakota Ballot Committees to see which groups worked for an outcome on the abortion ban. I see that Bound4LIFE is not on the list. Bound4LIFE didn't submit a campaign finance report.

Here's where I got stuck. I had the laws all lined up. I had the evidence...and then the word election jumped out at me. Election (person) versus ballot question (not a person). So now all I have is some lines from the local daily:

"Disclosure law requires campaigns for statewide candidates and ballot issues to file finance reports that cover activity up to 10 days before a general election..." - Argus Leader (Or so they've been told.)

"The issues involved in the complaints are covered by current laws. If that association did collect and receive money to influence a ballot question, it, too, is covered (by existing law)." - Secretary of State Chris Nelson

If these two statements are true, why couldn't I connect the dots to the law? Because "Campaign finance laws get 'F' in S.D."

"Ballot question committees present more difficulties than candidates...you don't always even know they exist until they're brought to your attention." - Attorney General Larry Long

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Did Bound4LIFE raise money?


Did Bound4LIFE spend money?

"My team and I are packing boxes this week and will be leaving on Monday. It has been an extreme pleasure to live in South Dakota for the last three and half months." - Matt Lockett

Did Bound4LIFE try to influence the outcome of a ballot question?


Maybe by the time the abortion ban bill comes around again Pierre, SD will be ready to legislate something as simple as campaign finance.

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The Christian Gallery News Service was also not on the list. Since they don’t even pretend to be responsible, it doesn’t surprise me that they didn’t file.

Ride Your Bike to the Polls Today

I’m going to vote today.

I might even vote my values. Funny thing that. What does it mean to NOT vote ones values? I suppose the coin flip fits in there. Maybe voting for the beautiful people is another. I can’t understand how any thoughtfully (or prayerfully) placed vote would be a vote against ones values, no matter which way it was cast.

If “vote my values” does mean what Dr Dobson or my pastor thinks it means, I’m going to struggle hard today with how I don’t LIVE my values. I’ve never knowingly ridden a bike with an addicted gambler. I’ve never walked a scared teen and her nervous boyfriend to a clinic for counseling. It doesn’t take me very many fingers to count how many times I’ve dined with a gay man. For the non-South Dakotan, these are related to ballot issues.

I did interact with an “activist” federal judge once. I saw him drop a credit card in the coffee shop parking lot. I picked it up, cut in front of him in line, paid for my coffee with it, and handed it to him as he waited behind me. That was ok though, I served twice as a juror for him so he (kn)ow(e)s me. (Parts of this story are not true.)

In fact, with the exception of the pregnant teen and the boyfriend (I do have a Boy 8 and Boy 4 don’t you know), I’ve sort of arranged my life so that I can avoid these situations. I didn’t arrange things this way intentionally. I just sort of followed the path of least resistance. You know, stayed comfortable.

I will demonstrate at least two of my values today. I will vote and I will ride my bike to do it.

Back To Reality

A nice side effect of having all this off topic stuff to think about the past few weeks is it takes my mind off the awful job I did this week of riding my bike places. Yeah, that’s right. MinusCar Guy was way more Car this week than Minus. It doesn’t even matter that The Owner saw me on a bike in traffic; it was one of a few times I was on a bike. Tomorrow morning I have an investment club meeting, it’s supposed to be rainy and snowy. I have to sit in someone else’s chair. I might not get to ride to that either.

Add this week’s snow to the off topic stuff I’ve been working on (and you may or may not have been reading) and you have a guy not giving a lot of thought to global warming…until today.

It began with a conversation with a friend who just got back from visiting some farm land he stands to inherit. It’s in the most northern and western county in North Dakota. I asked him, in a few years when South Dakota turns to desert, if he’d save me a little piece to put up a pup tent. He laughed.

He didn’t say no.

Then I saw a post on the Mother Jones blog that mentioned a new faith-based campaign against global warming. Yeah, it’s the same one that was new a year ago. But wait, it points to a different article reporting that one of the signers of the ECI has become the head of the Christian Coalition. And he looks “forward to expanding our mission to concern itself with the care of creation, helping society's marginalized, human rights/religious issues and compassion issues.”

Anything is better than a God who legislates the nation from Pierre, SD…an opportunity Jesus declined early on, in my estimation. There’s still the fact that it’s the Christian Coalition which leads me to imagine God legislating the nation from, say, Portland, OR. That wouldn’t be much better.

And then thanks to the Leveller's blog I learned that Common Dreams is reporting that “Climate Change Will Cause Refugee Crisis.”

Ya think?

Well I guess these studies are necessary. Nobody believes me when I say it.

The report claims there are already 25 million environmental refugees. Some of them are Mexican’s coming to the United States. Meaning the current national discussion on immigration is partially related to global warming even if Bill O’Reilly doesn’t realize it. And our answer to the problem is...

Build a wall.

Dear Canadian friends, you’d better get started with yours. You've got a lot more ground to cover.

I wonder how many pup tents my friend's land will hold. Oh and corn, not for eating, for fuel, so we can drive to McDonalds. In Canada.

It was a dark afternoon.

Babies, Dragons, Clarification

Matt Lockett was kind enough to engage me on his blog regarding the comments I took so hard from his Sunday morning presentation to a church in my community.

You can read that exchange here.

Matt Lockett has traveled (is traveling?) around South Dakota rallying state pastors to support the abortion ban legislation. He has hosted at least one conference call between US Senator Sam Brownback (KS) and pastors from this state.

He travels for God, the Justice House Of Prayer and Bound4LIFE.

Previous MinusCar posts on this topic are here and here and less so here.

Babies, Dragons And MinusCars

What does The MinusCar Project have to do with abortion, gay marriage, wiretapping and torture?

Somewhere close to 18 months ago it became clear to me that if I wanted the scenery around me to change (and I desperately needed it to change at that point), it was my responsibility to change it.

A few months after that The Owner passed on to me one of the greatest lessons I may ever learn. He presented me a theory that every group of people has at least one of every kind of person in it. If this is true certain things can be deduced. For example: when I look around a group for a cool person and there isn’t one, I am the cool person in the group.

When something needs to be said, and there is nobody in the group who will say it…

When something needs to be done, and there is nobody in the group who will do it…

18 months ago I discovered that not doing anything and not saying anything was no longer going to work for me. I took a baby step: a blog for saying things, and a commitment to a bicycle for doing things. The MinusCar Project does not exist in a vacuum and some people close to me might be hoping I don’t fall down the stairs.

Doing things and saying things is risky. What if I do the wrong thing? What if I say the wrong thing? I’ll be uncomfortable.

Comfort.

Nothing has devastated the environment more than my need to be comfortable. Nothing has devastated my relationship with the 2/3’s world more than my need to be comfortable. Nothing has allowed my government more free reign than my need to be comfortable. Nothing cheapens my relationships with my wife, my The Boys or my friends more than my need to be comfortable. Nothing has done more damage to my body and my health than my need to be comfortable. Shall I go on?

Nothing has diminished my relationship with my God more than my need to be comfortable.

Tomorrow I will ride to work, possibly in the snow, some people will percieve this as discomfort.

I will not listen to a man in a pulpit in a church in my community encourage adoption as a way to steal babies from homosexuals and not say or do anything.

The scenery is changing.

Being uncomfortable has it's benefits. Sunday morning I talked with a woman who described to me her adventures in riding to work. A few years ago she was run over by a pickup and sustained internal organ damage. She continues to ride to work. She takes encouragement from this blog. I take encouragement from her. Discomfort might be worth it.

Embarrassed Again: I Scooped Tony Campolo (by 5 days)

He’s not on the religious right. But he is an evangelical leader. So let’s celebrate! Woot!

Hey! There’s an evangelical leader who agrees with my sentiments! Yes, the sentiments I expressed in my “Still Not Getting It, But Not Stealing Babies” post. By the way, there is some mildly interesting commenting relating to who said what going on there.

Tony Campolo says in this “Duplicity on the Right” posting:

“If they [religious right] have changed their minds and are ready to refute the golden rule, then it is time for them to say plainly, ‘For the most part we agree with Jesus, but there are special circumstances when we must ignore His teachings.’"

and

“the Religious Right can’t have it both ways. They can’t say that righteousness must never be compromised [abortion], and then add 'except in certain situations—like torturing our enemies in times of war.'”

Now, let’s celebrate!

Offer #1: I am holding in my hand a copy of Tony Campolo’s book “Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel” If you want it I’ll send it to you. Just e-mail me a delivery address. Like the shirts, I’ll only use the address for delivery of the book.



Offer #2: Tony Campolo is featured in this Starving Jesus podcast (mp3) where you can hear him say a bunch of juicy things. If you don’t like him now, you’ll probably like him less after listening to this. But what’s Starving Jesus? Want to read the Starving Jesus book? I'll send it to you. Again, e-mail me an address. Previously expressed address privacy rules apply.

**10/4 for clarity - on offer: Adventures In Missing the Point and the Starving Jesus book. Starving Jesus is travelling to Austrailia.

Still Not Getting It, But Not Stealing Babies

(10/1 - after further review I regret not qualifying evangelical Christians with a some or a lots. To encompass ALL evangelical Christians with this post is a mistake. You can read more explanation in the comments.)

In a world where evangelical Christians are so very close to getting some legislation that will lend support to the legal enforcement of commandment #6 (it’s the murder one).

In a world where evangelical Christians are SO NOISILY in need of a constitutional amendment to define marriage which will help support legal enforcement of…ummm…which commandment is being used to in defense of that one?

In a world where these two things are linked from a Sunday morning church pulpit less than a mile from my home by the simple explanation that gay people are orchestrating an effort to make same sex marriage legal so that they can “sweep in and take the babies” that are no longer going to be aborted.

"We have to steal these babies from the hand of this dragon." - says the man from the pulpit as he describes adoption.

Our congress, comprised of representatives defined as much by evangelical Christianity as anything else, has approved President Bush’s detainee bill. A bill that denies habeas corpus to foreign nationals designated as terrorist suspects. Not only that, the House has approved President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping programs.

We’re told it’s Those Other people we’re wiretapping. We’re told it’s Those Other people we’re detaining. We’re told that it is good for America that we’re wire tapping and detaining them in a figurative and literal “over there” so that we don’t have to do it over here. I concede; it is good for much of America that we’re doing it over there to those other people.

What I want to know is which commandment is the greatest, the one about not killing? What about the one regarding stealing? Then there's the one about idols? That’s way up there on the list, right?

And then there’s that pesky guy who, when asked that very question, would say something crazy like “love those neighbors ‘over there’ as you’d love yourself.” And another time he’d say “do to Those Other’s as you would have Those Other’s do to you.” A guy who talks like that, well, he wouldn’t last long in this world, would he.

I can’t wait to hear the religious right go off on congress for passing those two bills. They’re going to go ballistic when they learn that congress, run by our representatives, has passed a couple bills that go directly against the greatest commandment.

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Readers: please be alert and let me know when this starts to happen. It’s only a few days to Election Day, religious leaders in my state are trying to use congress to outlaw abortions, and I’m having steal difficulty hearing these through the babies noise.