April 15, 2004
Selling the Drama
Live is one of my favorite bands and one of those bands I have been listening to for years. I have been reminded recently of a song from their first album, Mental Jewelry, entitled “The Beauty of Gray”. The lines that keep running through my head are:
this is not a black and white world
to be alive
i say the colors must swirl
and i believe
that maybe today
we will all get to appreciate
the beauty of gray
Great song and great way to get the listener thinking about their own world view, but shows the basic difference between the conservative and the liberal thinker. To the conservative, there are black and white issues; there is a right and a wrong, righteous/unrighteous. To the liberal, a lot is gray; what is right for me may not be right for you; it’s all relative. This relativism is summed up quite well by the secular humanist, who says, this “is a philosophy and world view which centers upon human concerns and employs rational and scientific methods to address the wide range of issues important to us all.” This is in direct contrast to the Biblical drama that reveals a just, a holy and a righteous God whom is concerned with even the hairs of your head (Matthew 10:29-31).
I am not equating conservatives to Christians, but their world views are more closely aligned. For me it is impossible to separate my religion from my politics, so I am both Christian and conservative. First and foremost, my faith is the lens that I look through for all aspects of my life (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Psalm 33:12, John 8:31-32, Psalm 67:1-7).
There is black and white, there is right and wrong, there is:
| FRIEND | FOE |
 |  |
I guess if you were a member of the Iraqui resistance you'd see the opposite relationship. Does that make them wrong? Who are we to judge? I'm not defending Osama here, I'm just suggesting that you are taking a ethnocentric view of friend and foe which is fine for someone who calls themself a conservative. But if we were to take a word view, I doubt that Bush could be called a friend as clearly as you point it out to be, in there somewhere is plenty of gray. As for Osama, I agree completely. He is a foe that we should have gotten a long time ago.
Posted by: rob at April 15, 2004 07:04 PMI thought about adding a few more pictures up there, showing John Kerry as a friend and Kim Jong-il (North Korean dictator) as foe, but admittedly couldn't bring myself to calling Kerry a friend. But I thought about it, does that count?!
Posted by: Jeff Price at April 16, 2004 02:17 PMJeff, i too am a fan of Live, hence where i took the title of my last blog. : )
I agree with rob on the world view of friend and foe regarding Bush. During my travels, inside and outside of the US i have met many individuals who have lived and worked abroad, holding many conversations about politics and humanity, and i can assure there are hundred of thousands of people both in and out of the US who do not see Bush as a friend. While his policies may seem domestic friendly, they are not internationally friendly at all.
Personally, i seem him as the anti-christ (if i believed in such a thang), but only because i am one of those liberals whose life and social conscience is effected negatively by his policies.
Posted by: BaltoBetty at April 17, 2004 04:24 PM