Thursday, August 28, 2008

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

For the first time, a non-white person has a reasonable chance of becoming the next President of the United States of America. At long last, one of the major political parties in this country has nominated an African-American. Praise God!

Tonight before a capacity crowd at Invesco Field in nearby Denver, Senator Barack Obama will be giving his presidential nomination acceptance speech during the Democratic National Convention.

This morning, I'm sitting at my favorite coffee shop in deep blue Boulder, sipping my favorite blend of green tea, listening to great music from Indelible Grace, enjoying the view of the Flatirons, and reflecting on what's going on in our country.

Why read Obama's book? Because I don't want to be an uninformed voter. I want to be able to answer questions that people in my life (especially my kids) are asking me about the upcoming presidential election. If I'm going to vote for someone (or against someone), I had better be able to give reasons why when asked. So here goes...

What I Like About Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

1) Barack Obama publicly professes faith in Jesus Christ. In the recent Saddleback Civil Forum, he said clearly that he personally believes that Jesus died for his sins.

2) Barack Obama displays a strong commitment to his wife and children. Like me, he has a bright and beautiful wife and two very cute and precocious girls. Any man who can live with three women has earned my respect.

3) Obama is a very good writer! There's no "strategery" in his communication. I find this very refreshing in a presidential candidate. In an age when TV presence is the dominant success factor, it's good to have a man skilled in the literary arts vying for public office. Here is a prime example from the end of his first chapter on Republicans and Democrats:

“We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.

But I don’t think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way - in their own lives, at least - to make peace with their neighbors and themselves.

I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn’t see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won’t give him a loan to expand his business. There’s the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager’s abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse’s assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they’ll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.

I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don’t always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for the Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

This is great writing. And in both his writing and his speaking, Obama often uses a climactic grand style like this to drive home his points with tremendous emotional force.

4) He chose a great title for his book. That title phrase - The Audacity of Hope - is taken from the words of Obama’s own pastor, of all people! Perhaps now more than at any other time in American history, the role of our pastors is often marginalized. That Obama has written publicly with respect for his pastor is a good thing in and of itself (regardless of what you may think about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright).

And that phrase - the audacity of hope - is a great phrase. To Obama, it represents “the best of the American spirit...having the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control - and therefore responsibility - over our own fate. It was that audacity, I thought, that joined us as one people. It was that pervasive spirit of hope that tied my own family’s story to the larger American story, and my own story to those of the voters I sought to represent.”

In such a cynical age, who doesn’t need a greater vision of hope? Who doesn’t want to restore “a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict”? Who doesn’t want to see “a pervasive spirit of hope” join Americans together “as one people”?

5) Obama is right to try to build bridges between people in our divided country. “Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual.” (p.51)

6) Barack Obama has a proven commitment of working to better the lives of the less fortunate. His work as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago is to be admired. His concern for their educational, economic and other needs (including health insurance) is good and right. Obama's attempts to expand the moral issues that evangelicals are concerned about is also good and right. We should be talking about and working for social justice issues as well as life issues and marriage issues. The narrowness of the American Evangelical's political perspective is a big problem which leads to far too much inaction here at home and internationally.

7) Barack Obama wants to end the war in Iraq. Whether or not you think that his proposals to end the Iraq War are responsible, doing one's utmost to end war is good and right. And the fact is that he was one of the few in our congress who spoke against entering the Iraq War, keenly and staunchly questioning the wisdom of invading Iraq based on the evidence that we had at the time. As it turns out, the evidence for Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction was not there as our President George W. Bush and his administration had assured us. Those who believe in just war theory (as I do) must admit that the absence of this evidence seriously calls into question whether the Iraq War is a just war after all. What a mess we have gotten ourselves into. Such is real life our fallen world. As the two ways to live outline says, humankind has failed to rule ourselves or society or the world as God would have us rule the world under His just and good authority.

What I Don't Like About Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

1) Obama does not appear to have a personally held conviction about the inspiration and authority of the Bible. This has led to an apparent stunting of his spiritual growth and his abandoning of a Christian worldview in so many critical moral decisions that he has been making during his relatively short political career. At the end of his chapter on faith in the Audacity of Hope, Obama expressess much more doubt than he does faith on the most important question his daughter will ever ask him (and the most important question that he will ever ask of himself): "What happens after we die?" Furthermore, his dismissive interpretation of the clear message of Romans chapter 1 in The Audacity of Hope shows that Barack Obama thinks his reasoning capacities are a greater authority than the Bible. And apparently the Bible has had no effect on his moral reasoning about abortion, as reflected in his answer to this question in the Saddleback Civil Forum: "At what point does a child get human rights?" Hesitating and avoiding the question by saying that the answer is "above his pay grade" is unacceptable from any Christian who wants to lead this country through our current political divisions rooted the abortion issue. It is clear where Obama is leading on the abortion issue and where he is leading is not headed toward the vision of hope and unity that he speaks so well about.

2) Obama thinks too highly of the ideals of the period of history known as "the enlightenment". In his chapter on values, rather than a clear acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ in any area of life, Obama again overemphasizes our capacities to do right. Without any acknowledgment of the realities of the fall of mankind into sin, Obama has based too much of his hope upon our individual freedom, self-reliance, self-improvement, and faith in free will. There is no such thing as free will. Sure, we do what we want to do. But, if we're honest, we will admit that what we want to do is sin. Until God gives us new hearts, our wills remain enslaved to sin (demanding to be our own god and doing wrong to others and ourselves). When God causes a person to be born again, he sets their will free at last to obey His law and live a holy life by the power of the Holy Spirit. These are basic concepts of the Christian worldview and life that I hear no hint of in Obama's speaking and writing.

3) Obama considers the U.S. Constitution to be a “living document” which must be “read in the context of an ever-changing world.” Obama says it is “unrealistic to believe that a judge, two hundred years later, can somehow discern the original intent of the Founders or ratifiers.” The democracy outlined in the United States Constitution is not so much “a house to be built” as it is “a conversation to be had”, and “what the framework of our constitution can do is organize the way by which we argue about our future.”

“The founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them.”

“I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty -- for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute.”

These ideas turn politics into a nothing more than an exercise of power without any solid moral foundation.

4) Obama's audacious hope is sadly naive. It has blinded him to the effects of the fall of mankind into sin. This has led him to embrace flawed economic policies that naively assume that human government is able to make decisions that actually work well.

“Like Bob Rubin, I am optimistic about the long-term prospects for the U.S. economy and the ability of U.S. workers to compete in a free trade environment - but only if we distribute the costs and benefits of globalization more fairly across the population.”

Who is “we”? On what basis do we determine if the redistribution of wealth is fair?

“I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for the same success.” Agreed, but that doesn't answer my question.

5) Obama is courting evangelical voters and wants them to exchange the issues of life and marriage for issues of social justice. I'm more than willing to have the range of issues that evangelicals are concerned about expand to include education, health care, affirmative action, economic opportunity and ending war. But asking us to forget about the critical ethical issues of life and marriage that we face in our culture is asking too much. It's asking for the impossible for anyone who truly believes in the authority and inspiration of the Bible.

Concluding Assessment of Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

Barack Obama is a great man. Any man who can obtain a presidential nomination is a great man. The first black man to accept his party's presidential nomination is a very great man. He appears to be a Christian (albeit significantly spiritually immature) who loves his wife and kids. I admire him. But in good conscience, I cannot vote for him. How about you?

Obama, Barack, The Audacity of Hope, Crown Publishing/Three Rivers Press, New York, 2006, $14.95

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Isn't She Lovely?

A rare photo of my Megan and our baby boy...Isn't she lovely?

Friday, August 22, 2008

Book Review: Be Prepared

Many thanks to Travis & Juliet for passing along a copy of Be Prepared to me last week. This Eagle Scout enjoyed the "Boy Scout Handbook" theme and the laugh out loud humor. And what's more, this handbook for new dads really does have lots of practical, helpful reminders about babyhood. It has been 10 years since Meg and I first brought home a baby (sweet little Anna is now in 5th grade) and with 6 weeks to go until baby #3 arrives, I feel like I can use all the help I can get.

The authors of Be Prepared approach fatherhood with both the ingenuity of MacGyver and the lightheartedness of a stand-up comedian. This results in helpful sections on:
  • Newborn party tricks. From page 8: "Let's face it: when you're spending time with your newborn, you've got to find ways to make your own fun. Conducting a field test on his reflexes is a perfect way to to just that...Though he looks helpless, your newborn comes pre-programmed with a complete set of reflexes that help him search for and secure food, avoid danger, and extricate himself from sticky situations. Now if you could just get him to change his own diaper."
  • The Joy of Burping: "Burping a baby is a great task for a dad because, unlike most early baby care, it is results-oriented. You perform a specific series of maneuvers and almost always get a pay-off. And when you hear that magical rumble, you can't help but think: 'He's one of mine.'" (Page 22)
  • Germs and the Third Child: "As one dad put it, 'When our first dropped the pacifier, I'd run it under soap and water before giving it back to him. With our second, I'd wipe it off on my shirt. With the third, I just kick it back to him.' Yet these third children seem to turn out just as healthy and robust as their more sanitized siblings." (Page 101)
  • Sections on constipation, effective diaper disposal, and removing foreign objects from the VCR/DVD player are also extremely helpful.
  • My favorite bit of advice was about how to create a decoy drawer full of old wallets, remote controls, and cell phones to throw baby off the scent of your real gear.
Packed with helpful diagrams and detailed instructions, and delivered with a wry sense of humor, Be Prepared is a great guide for sleep-deprived, applesauce-covered fathers everywhere.

Greenberg, Gary and Jeanne Hayden, Be Prepared, (Simon & Schuster: New York), 2004, 229 pages, $14.00

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

LOL with the kids: Wipeout

Need some chuckles?

The Kelly family thinks that sitting down together to watch ABC's Wipeout is a good way to laugh away some stress. Seen it yet?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

I missed it...

...and I'm sorry to disappoint any of you who were hoping to see photos of the obsessive skier nabbing some turns in fresh, August powder in Colorado.

Instead of skiing this weekend, I've been painting Anna's bedroom a nice bright shade of yellow. It's all about priorities...

Friday, August 15, 2008

It's snowing, but not enough to ski yet.


This is what Loveland Pass looked like earlier today. I also just checked the TundraCam. It's snowing up there on Niwot Ridge also, but there's not enough to ski yet. Maybe in the morning...

Thursday, August 14, 2008

If it sounds too good to be true...

...it may not be! The weather people here in Denver are predicting possible SNOW tonight and tomorrow at elevations above 10,500 feet. Of course, that means that the obsessive skier will be checking CDOT webcams and the TundraCam (how cool is that!) and watching the forecast closely. Could tomorrow be the day he finally makes fresh tracks in new Colorado snow that falls IN AUGUST!?! Sounds like a trip up the Mount Evans Road may be in order. Check back here tomorrow night to find out what happens.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

New Deck at Black Mountain Lodge!

Check out the new deck they are building at the Black Mountain Lodge halfway up the mountain at Arapahoe Basin!

On sunny days, that spot will have one of the best views in Colorado, plus it's in the perfect spot to watch wannabe park riders take a spill or two. Imagine saying this to your ski partner while enjoying your cheeseburger: "Sweet Niblets, did you see that guy land on his face!?!"

I predict that it will be less than 2 months until the start of the ski season at Arapahoe Basin.

You heard it here first.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Skiing Just 60 Days From Now?

August 12. That's 2 months from October 12.

On October 12th last year the Kelly family was skiing at Arapahoe Basin. (See picture in left side column for proof!)

Hard to believe that we could be on the slopes again in 60 days. It's hot right now, but hang in there skiers, because winter is coming!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

The View from the Road

This is what we'll be looking at for most of the day today...

...home tonight!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

For the first time, a non-white person has a reasonable chance of becoming the next President of the United States of America. At long last, one of the major political parties in this country has nominated an African-American. Praise God!

Tonight before a capacity crowd at Invesco Field in nearby Denver, Senator Barack Obama will be giving his presidential nomination acceptance speech during the Democratic National Convention.

This morning, I'm sitting at my favorite coffee shop in deep blue Boulder, sipping my favorite blend of green tea, listening to great music from Indelible Grace, enjoying the view of the Flatirons, and reflecting on what's going on in our country.

Why read Obama's book? Because I don't want to be an uninformed voter. I want to be able to answer questions that people in my life (especially my kids) are asking me about the upcoming presidential election. If I'm going to vote for someone (or against someone), I had better be able to give reasons why when asked. So here goes...

What I Like About Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

1) Barack Obama publicly professes faith in Jesus Christ. In the recent Saddleback Civil Forum, he said clearly that he personally believes that Jesus died for his sins.

2) Barack Obama displays a strong commitment to his wife and children. Like me, he has a bright and beautiful wife and two very cute and precocious girls. Any man who can live with three women has earned my respect.

3) Obama is a very good writer! There's no "strategery" in his communication. I find this very refreshing in a presidential candidate. In an age when TV presence is the dominant success factor, it's good to have a man skilled in the literary arts vying for public office. Here is a prime example from the end of his first chapter on Republicans and Democrats:

“We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.

But I don’t think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way - in their own lives, at least - to make peace with their neighbors and themselves.

I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn’t see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won’t give him a loan to expand his business. There’s the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager’s abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse’s assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they’ll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.

I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don’t always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for the Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

This is great writing. And in both his writing and his speaking, Obama often uses a climactic grand style like this to drive home his points with tremendous emotional force.

4) He chose a great title for his book. That title phrase - The Audacity of Hope - is taken from the words of Obama’s own pastor, of all people! Perhaps now more than at any other time in American history, the role of our pastors is often marginalized. That Obama has written publicly with respect for his pastor is a good thing in and of itself (regardless of what you may think about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright).

And that phrase - the audacity of hope - is a great phrase. To Obama, it represents “the best of the American spirit...having the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control - and therefore responsibility - over our own fate. It was that audacity, I thought, that joined us as one people. It was that pervasive spirit of hope that tied my own family’s story to the larger American story, and my own story to those of the voters I sought to represent.”

In such a cynical age, who doesn’t need a greater vision of hope? Who doesn’t want to restore “a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict”? Who doesn’t want to see “a pervasive spirit of hope” join Americans together “as one people”?

5) Obama is right to try to build bridges between people in our divided country. “Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual.” (p.51)

6) Barack Obama has a proven commitment of working to better the lives of the less fortunate. His work as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago is to be admired. His concern for their educational, economic and other needs (including health insurance) is good and right. Obama's attempts to expand the moral issues that evangelicals are concerned about is also good and right. We should be talking about and working for social justice issues as well as life issues and marriage issues. The narrowness of the American Evangelical's political perspective is a big problem which leads to far too much inaction here at home and internationally.

7) Barack Obama wants to end the war in Iraq. Whether or not you think that his proposals to end the Iraq War are responsible, doing one's utmost to end war is good and right. And the fact is that he was one of the few in our congress who spoke against entering the Iraq War, keenly and staunchly questioning the wisdom of invading Iraq based on the evidence that we had at the time. As it turns out, the evidence for Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction was not there as our President George W. Bush and his administration had assured us. Those who believe in just war theory (as I do) must admit that the absence of this evidence seriously calls into question whether the Iraq War is a just war after all. What a mess we have gotten ourselves into. Such is real life our fallen world. As the two ways to live outline says, humankind has failed to rule ourselves or society or the world as God would have us rule the world under His just and good authority.

What I Don't Like About Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

1) Obama does not appear to have a personally held conviction about the inspiration and authority of the Bible. This has led to an apparent stunting of his spiritual growth and his abandoning of a Christian worldview in so many critical moral decisions that he has been making during his relatively short political career. At the end of his chapter on faith in the Audacity of Hope, Obama expressess much more doubt than he does faith on the most important question his daughter will ever ask him (and the most important question that he will ever ask of himself): "What happens after we die?" Furthermore, his dismissive interpretation of the clear message of Romans chapter 1 in The Audacity of Hope shows that Barack Obama thinks his reasoning capacities are a greater authority than the Bible. And apparently the Bible has had no effect on his moral reasoning about abortion, as reflected in his answer to this question in the Saddleback Civil Forum: "At what point does a child get human rights?" Hesitating and avoiding the question by saying that the answer is "above his pay grade" is an unacceptable from any Christian who wants to lead this country through our current political divisions that are rooted the abortion issue. It is clear where Obama will lead on the abortion issue and that is not headed toward the vision of hope and unity that he speaks so well about.

2) Obama thinks too highly of the ideals of the period of history known as "the enlightenment". In his chapter on values, rather than a clear acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ in any area of life, Obama again overemphasizes our capacities to do right. Without any acknowledgment of the realities of the fall of mankind into sin, Obama has based too much of his hope upon our individual freedom, self-reliance, self-improvement, and faith in free will. There is no such thing as free will. Sure, we do what we want to do. But what we want to do is sin. Until God gives us new hearts, our wills remain enslaved to sin (doing wrong to others and ourselves). When God causes a person to be born again, he sets their will free at last to obey His law and live a holy life by the power of the Holy Spirit. These are basic concepts of the Christian worldview and life that I hear no hint of in Obama's speaking and writing.

3) Obama considers the U.S. Constitution to be a “living document” which must be “read in the context of an ever-changing world.” Obama says it is “unrealistic to believe that a judge, two hundred years later, can somehow discern the original intent of the Founders or ratifiers.” The democracy outlined in the United States Constitution is not so much “a house to be built” as it is “a conversation to be had”, and “what the framework of our constitution can do is organize the way by which we argue about our future.”

“The founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them.”

“I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty -- for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute.”

These ideas turn politics into a nothing more than an exercise of power without any solid moral foundation.

4) Obama's hope has blinded him to the effects of the fall and embrace economic policies that assume that government is able to make decisions that work.

“Like Bob Rubin, I am optimistic about the long-term prospects for the U.S. economy and the ability of U.S. workers to compete in a free trade environment - but only if we distribute the costs and benefits of globalization more fairly across the population.”

Who is “we”?

“I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for the same success.” Agreed, but that doesn't answer my question.

5) Obama is courting evangelical voters and wants them to exchange the issues of life and marriage for issues of social justice. I'm more than willing to have the range of issues that evangelicals are concerned about expand to include education, health care, affirmative action, economic opportunity and ending war. But asking us to forget about the critical ethical issues of life and marriage that we face in our culture is asking too much. It's asking for the impossible for anyone who truly believes in the authority and inspiration of the Bible.

Concluding Assessment of Barack Obama and The Audacity of Hope:

Barack Obama is a great man. Any man who can obtain a presidential nomination is a great man. The first black man to accept his party's presidential nomination is a very great man. He appears to be a Christian (albeit significantly spiritually immature) who loves his wife and kids. I admire him. But in good conscience, I cannot vote for him. How about you?

Obama, Barack, The Audacity of Hope, Crown Publishing/Three Rivers Press, New York, 2006, $14.95

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Best Rollercoasters in the Ozarks


Wildfire is the best steel coaster in the Ozarks. After riding 7 different roller coasters today, Anna & Sophie agree. Thank you, Silver Dollar City.

And the best wooden coaster in the Ozarks is the Ozark Wildcat at Celebration City. Wahoo!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Old School Wakeboarding


My shoulders are sore. After a day on the water showing my kids that I can still clear the 2nd wake on my old school Hyperlite Pro Darin Shapiro Wakeboard, it's time to take some Advil and enjoy dinner. Not as hot today as yesterday. Only 95 degrees with 80 percent humidity. Tomorrow should be cooler, but cool around here in August is still sticky. Good times. Good times.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Like a Passion Play on Steroids

Only on a 105 degree day in Branson, Missouri would more than 4,000 people pay $25 to $50 per person to see an overtly evangelistic musical with a Noah's Ark theme. And of course, the Kelly Family was there tonight, enjoying the show from the front row. Lots of singing, a 300 foot stage, live animals, and a pretty solid message of faith and hope in God's faithful promises. It was a big production, like a passion play on steroids. For more info, go to Sight & Sound Theaters website.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Hot Fun in the Summertime

We're headed to Missouri to visit my parents this week. The weather forecast for the next few days shows a heat index of 100 to 110 degrees! By the end of the week it's supposed to cool off into the 80's, so I think we'll survive. Check back for updates from the road.