Achuckallen

Instigating Better

Politics

KeyBoard Warriors

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My Pop used to have a good word for folks with a poor mouth. He’d say, “If you haven’t got anything good to say, it’s your fault.” Pop was a wise man, with a guarded tongue.

I’ve noticed how critical and calloused the world has become, haven’t you? It’s as though we have the willpower of a cockroach when it comes to the critique of others. I remember the first time that I heard the terms, “armchair quarterback and backseat driver.” The implication of those phrases are that it is pretty stinking easy to sit in the cheap seats and critique the players on the field. It’s even easier to try and make the right calls from a distance. But hey, we live in a world where keyboards are the weapon of choice.

I’ve been in full time ministry, public speaking and the pastorate long enough to know that the only way to not be criticized is to never do anything, say anything or write anything. I’ve also experienced enough criticism to know that there are times when it is helpful and beneficial for everyone involved.

I’m one of those folks that has never professed to being one of the extraordinarily bright people. If you’ve been reading my posts over the past few years, you already know that. I am however, someone that is making an effort to better the lives of as many people as possible through the work and ministry of Sugar Hill Church, podcasts, teaching, coaching, writing, raising funds and serving wherever possible. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a knucklehead at times. I’m self-centered, sinful and occasionally angry. And yet, the Lord continues to use the foolish, thank the Lord.

I’ve determined that although the world of social media is filled with praise for folks that have a quick wit and a sharp response, that’s not what I choose to do with my keyboard. And, like me, you have a choice of what to do with yours, as well.

I served with a fella, years ago that is really bright, witty and always on the hunt for a post or article to attack. Bless his heart, he’s never enjoyed the freeing feeling of offering up an original thought, but he can slam the door on somebody’s writing and quotes like a champ. I’ll bet that many of you know a person like that. On behalf of all the authors and creators out there, I’m so sorry you have to hear from these small minded, gutless and critical-spirited bullies that only peek out from behind their keyboards when in the friendly confines of like minded people.

Here is my recommendation for you, as you move forward with your creation. Drop these critical spirited folks from your list and block them on your social media platforms. Or you could do the more difficult thing and tolerate their often wicked critique until you are so jaded that you laugh out loud as you read their bully replies and critiques. Come on folks! We are better than that, right?

It’s easy to offer blistering critique from a thousand miles. I doubt that many of these folks would say the same things to you face to face. Keyboard Warriors are like that. Keep on creating and keep efforting to instigate better in this messed up world. Taylor Swift was right. “Haters gonna hate.”

I’m reminded of Dr. Kent Keith’s Paradoxical Commandments. Especially number ten, “Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.”

Thanks for Reading,
AChuck

Pride First then Fall

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Pride First – Then the Fall by AChuckAllen

I’m a political junkie. I enjoy the foolishness of the primary season, the debates and the politics of wooing voters with promises and intentions…regardless of the reality attached to them.

But I must admit, this political season is so wonky that I cannot seem to find firm and solid ground from which to park my passion and influence. I am a conservative in my theology, economy and fundemental beliefs regarding the United States Constitution.

Having said that, I cannot help but wonder what our Founding Fathers would think about our modern political process? From Russian intervention to hanging chads, we are a people in search of a crisis, a challenge and a controversy.

Having had three plus years of President Trump’s bravado and bluster and now with the eye buldging socialist retoric of Senator Sanders, I am left with one thought – STOP IT!

I truly believe that if there were to be one candidate that could speak with a voice of reason and speak to the masses with a firm, yet gracious presence, that candidate could carry the day.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled with our economy. I’m thrilled with the faith community being turned loosed to serve more than ever before. I love the judges that are pro-life and pro-family. I am thrilled with a renewed sense of national pride and the strength of our military. As a conservative, I love all of those things and have been enjoying them over the past few years.

But I must wonder if there is anyone left that is both electable and firm, yet gracious in their life and leadership? Maybe not. My guess is that we live in a society that will never again allow any person, of any party, race, color, faith or liniage to lead this great land without attacking every decision they have ever made, second guessing every policy that is put in place, or destroy their family for the sake of political expediancy.

Maybe the problem isn’t so much with the men and women that place themselves in the race, but rather with us? Maybe we have grown so jaded about anybody that is elevated into leadership, that we automatically charge the hill with pitchforks and flamethrowers. Maybe we enjoy the hunt of destroying another person and their life and leadership so much that we cannot stop anymore than we can stop watching a train wreck.

It’s worth considering this mythical place where we might could rally behind a leader and agree to disagree on the minors, while struggling to serve the greater good on the majors. I fear that we have long past the stage of allowing anybody to help settle what are majors and minors. So, in the meantime, we simply scream, shout, bicker, harass and utter hateful things about those that are at least brave enough to enter the arena.

The Scriptures give us a glimpse into all of our futures and the results of how we go about our politics, “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) It’s been proven true in my life over six decades and will be true long after I am gone. If we could somehow muster up enough humility to recognize our desperate need for Heaven sent wisdom, we might turn the corner and discover the blessings of the Divine once again. But then, it’s easier to keep screaming at each other. Pride first, and then the fall.

“I’m Chuck Allen and I approved these wandering thoughts.”

Seriously,
AChuck

Saturday Share with AChuckAllen

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I enjoy sharing an article that brought a teaching or encouragement to my life and thought Saturday might be a good day to share them with you. Today’s article is from one of favorite authors, Dr. Jim Denison.

Here you go:

President Trump told the nation yesterday that no Americans were hurt by Iran’s missile attack in response to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. He stated that Iran appears to be “standing down” and indicated that American forces would not respond further.

Unsurprisingly, reaction in America to Soleimani’s death has fallen largely along partisan lines. For example, a Fox News commentator stated that “Soleimani was an unparalleled organizer and a pitiless murderer. His death was richly earned.” A CNN commentator, by contrast, called his killing a “reckless gamble.”

This partisan divide is sadly familiar, of course. But I recently read an explanation for it that was both insightful and relevant to more than our politics.

Four ways to do foreign policy

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat views American foreign policy through a prism developed by scholar Walter Russell Mead, who created this famous typology named for four American presidents:

• Hamiltonian: protection of commerce

• Wilsonian: moral principle

• Jeffersonian: maintenance of a democratic system

• Jacksonian: populist values and military strength.

Douthat describes the Hamiltonians as “business-minded internationalists, cold-eyed and stability-oriented and wary of wars that seem idealistic rather than self-interested.” He describes the Wilsonians as “idealists, whether neoconservative or liberal-humanitarian, who regard the United States military as a force for spreading democracy and protecting human rights.” He claims that most foreign policy leaders in Washington “belong to one of these two groups.”

According to Douthat, however, “far more American voters are either Jacksonians or Jeffersonians.” He describes Jeffersonians as “more common on the left than on the right,” an impulse that “regards global hegemony as a corrupting folly and America’s wars as mostly unwise and unjust.” Their defining attitude is “No blood for oil.”

Douthat locates the “Jacksonian tendency” as “more common on the right than on the left” and describes it a “pugilistic nationalism that’s wary of all international entanglements but ready for war whenever threats arise.” Its essential credo is “More rubble, less trouble.”

According to Douthat, President Trump is a Jacksonian working within the Hamiltonian-Wilsonian strategic framework that dominates Washington’s political leadership. As with much of the president’s agenda and actions, the killing of Maj. Gen. Soleimani doesn’t fit within their ideology, which helps explain the polarization and rancor of our political discourse.

Whether you agree or disagree, it’s important to note the formative power of a leader’s worldview in shaping foreign policy in practical ways. How we see the world goes a long way toward determining how we experience it.

Seeing Iran through spiritual eyes

The same is true for us spiritually. For example, a church worker in Iran told CBN News that, forty years after Iran’s Islamic revolution, there’s another spiritual revolution underway in his country.

He states, “More people have come to faith [in Christ] in Iran in the last forty years than in the previous 1,400 years.” Believers there say that persecution in Iran is not hindering the church. In fact, it is growing it.

One missional leader explains: “When the persecution stops, the growth stops. What we want is the Gospel to spread far and wide and deep in Iran.”

Seeing our souls through spiritual eyes

Henri Nouwen made an extended observation that seems especially relevant to this point in history:

“When we lose a family member or friend through death, when we become jobless, when we fail an examination, when we live through a separation or a divorce, when war breaks out, when an earthquake destroys our home or touches us, the question ‘Why?’ spontaneously emerges. ‘Why me?’ ‘Why now?’ ‘Why here?’ It is so arduous to live without an answer to this ‘Why?’ that we are easily seduced into connecting the events over which we have no control with our conscious or unconscious evaluation.

“When we have cursed ourselves or allowed others to curse us, it is very tempting to explain all the brokenness we experience as an expression or confirmation of this curse. Before we fully realize it, we have already said to ourselves, ‘You see, I always thought I was no good. . . . Now I know for sure. The facts of life prove it.’

“The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing. This is not as easy as it sounds. The power of the darkness around us is strong, and our world finds it easier to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people.

“But when we keep listening attentively to the voice calling us the Beloved, it becomes possible to live our brokenness, not as a confirmation of our fear that we are worthless, but as an opportunity to purify and deepen the blessing that rests upon us. Physical, mental, or emotional pain lived under the blessing is experienced in ways radically different from physical, mental, or emotional pain lived under the curse.”

How King David approached conflict

King David was no stranger to war with his enemies and with himself. In a time of intense conflict, he made this simple but profound declaration: “Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord” (Psalm 4:5).

As we work, God works. As we face conflict in our nation and in our souls, the key is to do what only we can do and trust God to do what only he can do.

What “sacrifice” will you offer him today?

What challenge will you trust to him today?

___________________________________________

Pretty good, right?

Have a Great Day, AChuck

The Fight Inside the Fight

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The Fight Inside the Fight by AChuckAllen

I’ve been keeping up with the ongoing congressional battle regarding the attack that President Trump authorized to eliminate Qasem Soleimani. I’ve heard the ongoing chatter from those that oppose this action and from those that are touting it as a great win. Regardless of your personal thoughts on this military action, I think that we would all agree that we do not know what the military intelligence was, or what all of the details were that spurred the President to authorize this attack. We each base our opinions on one or more of these thoughts; What we think about Donald J. Trump, what we believe about the American intelligence community, what we feel about military action in the Middle East or how we feel about targeting individual terrorist leaders.

As for me, based on what little I know, the world is a far safer place without Qasem Soleimani. I do not have any access to the intel, or the logic included in making this decision…BUT, this country elected President Trump to make those decisions. Given the status of the American political landscape, everything done by one side of the aisle is overly criticized and crtiqued by the other. Think about that last sentence. Even in the effort to eliminate a crazed, murderous psychopath, both sides are so busy battling each other, the elimination of Soleimani is buried beneath the infighting of Washington as the lead story!

To all of that, I say, C’MON MAN! We have become a country being led by a bunch of whiners and tattletails. I’m so weary of the jabs and quips from congressional and political leaders that have no other purpose than to either secure their seats or exit someone else’s seat. Again, C’MON MAN!

I know that we have, as a republic, for decades, had political battles regarding the placement of presidents, congressional leaders, senatorial seats and all of the roles that make up the branches of government, but seriously? Could we please find a voice of reason and a voice that allows for political enemies to adopt President and General Dwight Eiesenhour’s mantra, “Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”

Could we not find common ground without the bully stump blusters? Especially when it involves an enemy of our great country and when the topics include our brave men and women serving in military hot spots around the globe, or people in poverty in our country and our communities?

If you think that this is written from a position of either conservative or liberal, you’d be wrong. I write this as a pastor, an American and a concerned grandfather. I long for our leaders to lay down their petty verbal attacks on each other and collaboratively work for the common good of our American people and the threats to democracy across the globe.

In regard to what our part, as citizens and as believers, I would like to see we Christians lay down the pitchforks. In spite of our many political and social disagreements, we are causing great divide in our churches, our faith system and the ability to remain a place of safety, acceptance and hope. Let us lose the rancor and foolish banter that doesn’t bring honor to our Creator. I do not think there is any way that the Lord looks upon our bickering and feels honored and loved by His children. This isn’t limited to political battles, but also to the bickering and foolish tirades from spiritual leaders as well. Let us stop the social media rants about how we believe and find the collective greatness of serving and leading more like Jesus, Himself.

What now shall we do? Speak with grace. Speak only what we know to be true, not what pundits offer for us to think. Let us seek truth in prayer. Let us seek wisdom from on high. Let us ask the Lord for understanding. And, let us find a voice that is pleasing to the Divine.

Go in Peace, AChuck

Who Else Can We Impeach?

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I’ve watched the Impeachment vote and the encircling fall-da-rah that comes with it and I’m left with three thoughts that are clearly an indication of my simplistic mind. Nonetheless, I do indeed have three thoughts that seem to remain in this cycle of political antics in Washington DC.

First, I think we could all agree that President Trump doesn’t need to be the spokesperson for a kinder/gentler nation. He makes it hard for guys like me to like him. I desperately wish to snatch his smartphone away from him and end the Twitter battles. It’s just another antic that I liken to NFL players that strut like peacocks after simply doing their job…Come on Man! Having said that, my church is benefitting greatly from the healthiest economy since, well…ever. My house has increased in value, the markets continue to set all time highs and the trade deals that he bantered about in the election have been reset with healthy guidelines and a path to a better and more stable future. So, there’s that. Oh, yeah. Back to the three things. Just because he is a bully, a flame throwing businessman, a rude and crude spokesman and lacks many of the finer graces, that doesn’t make him a criminal. It doesn’t seem to meet high crimes and misdemeanors. I have heard the evidence. To dislike Donald J. Trump is understandable. To impeach him is silly, middle school theatrics.

Second, I have seen men and women argue and bicker straight down party lines. Is it truly possible to have a viable third party in the 21st century? Is it not possible to have electable people that can think with conviction and not political expediency? This system has taken America in a direction that is not healthy and is possibly unrecoverable. And before you chuckle, thinking it’s whatever the “other party” is to you, it’s both party’s fault. I’m disgusted by both tire-slashing, trash-talking selfish party line tirades. It’s past time for a third party, or at least a handful of outliers that will speak with a voice of reason, rather than a voice of rancor.

Third, nobody is really winning at this game of name calling. If you are a Never Trump person, you might think that “we finally got him.” If you are a MAGA hat wearing Republican, you might be thinking, “we will get the House back and we are definitely winning the 2020 election.” The truth is that America is the loser in all of this. Are we to call for impeachment when our local mayor wins, but the city council wanted somebody else to win? Are we to assume that Presidents in years past have never had a call like the one that President Trump had with the President of Ukraine? Stop it! Just stop it!

Every four years, this great country has the privilege of choosing a President to lead the way. I’ve voted in every presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. I’ve seen a few winning elections and a few losers. Either way, we have an opportunity to change horses every 48 months. At this rate, we will be carrying the results of Major League Baseball games to the Supreme Court because half of America hates the team that won game seven in the bottom half of the 9th.

I realize that the chatter is louder these days as a result of social media and the digital age, but we are better than this foolishness, aren’t we? I pray that we are. I’d hate to think that my grandchildren would have to devalue American leaders so much that we couldn’t agree with the old adage, “sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.”

Just three things I thought about while watching Survivor, I mean Congress today.

Peace, AChuck

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