I'm not a fan of Franklin Graham

I suppose it's hearing the constant refrain that 2016 was the worst year ever that's put me in a bit of a sour mood, but lately it's been hard for me to feel encouraged by a number of social and political leaders. And much of the reason why is because of the election of Donald Trump. Now for context, I didn't go into the sort of serious malaise over Trump's election that other people experienced. I honestly wanted to give President-elect Trump a chance to win me over. He actually probably has the political power to move the country to a single-payer healthcare system, although it's unclear he would do that. And some things honestly felt promising: promises to increase infrastructure spending, pledges of support for small communities, and his post-election remarks that he would be "president for all Americans."

"Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. It's time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people...(laughter)... I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country."

It was a nice sentiment that lasted almost 24 hours. The next day, on November 10, instead of reaching out to groups that opposed him, Trump took to Twitter again:

Since then, he's done more of the same.

I won't lie. The thought of seeing this from our president every week for the next four years does not exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

This is discouraging to me for a few reasons. First, it shows me that Trump couldn't care less about "uniting" the country. He seems to think that it's up to everyone else to rally behind him and he won't bother trying to champion me or my concerns. It makes it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for me to want to support him. In fact, I almost want to speak out against him out of spite, even if he happens to propose something I agree with.

But to an extent, I expected this. Over the last year and half it's been pretty obvious that Trump would not be able to keep himself from 1) Twisting the knife in his opponents and 2) Playing to his base and ONLY his base.

It's his base that confounds me, though. It's expanded substantially since the Republican primaries and I don't see why.

The Christian Right has perplexed me the most, mainly because it's backing a guy that is not a Christian. That's not an insult. I honestly don't see how Trump, who claims to have never sought God's forgiveness, fits the definition of a Christian faith whose basic pillar is the redemption of mankind's sins.

And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it still sucks because, as a Christian liberal, I'd like to think people could tell the difference between being a partisan and being a Christian. But time and again, leaders on the Christian Right have compromised their own views in exchange for gaining influence in a Republican administration. Just look at Billy and Franklin Graham. Once upon a time, they considered Mormonism to be a cult. Then Mitt Romney, a Mormon, won the Republican nomination in 2012. All of a sudden, every reference to the "cult of Mormonism" disappeared from their website and Romney won an endorsement. Let's not pretend that their interpretation of the scripture magically changed when Romney won the nomination. Regardless of whether those beliefs were right or wrong, they were traded for influence.

And just in case you think that, as a pastor, Franklin Graham is non-partisan:

I get really tired of being called a socialist, as if any level of government operation is socialism. But aside from that, you may have noticed Graham offering criticism of such a ruthless dictator. It's sure convenient to criticize Castro because Obama happened to be improving ties with Cuba. But meanwhile, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin gets credit for being more Christ-like than Obama:

Just to be clear, it's doubtful Putin has been "reading his Bible." Putin has imposed more restrictions on religious freedom than at any point since the collapse of the USSR. I'm not talking about being forced to provide health insurance that covers family planning services. What I'm talking about is you can't even discuss faith outside of a church. And unless you're an Eastern Orthodox Christian, you probably don't have a church and you just meet at someone's house. So, sorry, you've just been banned from worshiping. But Trump and Putin are becoming BFFs, so to Franklin Graham, perhaps religious freedom only matters when it concerns bakers in America. And the Russia thing isn't limited to one Facebook post. Graham's actually praised Putin and his government over its stance on homosexuality, usually coupling it with criticism of President Obama.

Graham also seems to think that liberals have allowed some kind of Muslim conspiracy to infiltrate the government and often he comes across sounding an awful lot like Joseph McCarthy:

And later....

He used the spectre of attacks by Islamic extremists to justify opposition to President Obama's plan to resettle 10,000 refugees from the Middle East. Graham's opposition seems contrary to the letter and the spirit of Leviticus 19:33, Luke 3:11, Hebrews 13:2, Ezekiel 16:49, Galatians 5:14, and Matthew 25:35-40.
Last year, he even went so far as to suggest that President Obama himself grew up in an Islamic household and that he must therefore be somehow less Christian:

“My influences growing up, as many in this country, were under the Christian influence and the biblical influence,” he continued. “But our president did not have that, it was Islam and many feel that he’s protecting Islam. I don’t know that, but it certainly seems that way”:

Because of course, how else can you explain a Christian like Obama holding such liberal positions? He must therefore not be a Christian at all.

This is in stark contrast to the words of former president George W. Bush, for whom I've come to have more and more respect over the last several years. In the wake of the largest terror attack ever carried out on American soil, he said:

The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.
The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war.

A sitting president of the United States quoted the Koran on national television. I have a hard time imagining President Obama being allowed to do the same thing. I think there are some lessons to be learned here.

1. It's important to distinguish when a political belief is centered on your faith and when you feel it is simply the best policy option. Strange as it might seem, it's probably okay to have some beliefs that aren't based on scriptural interpretation. The phrases "socialism," "capitalism," and "right to bear arms" do not appear anywhere in the Bible. Seek the Bible for guidance, sure, but then just pray for help the rest of the time.

2. Leaders, even supposedly apolitical Christian leaders, are subject to the trappings of power. I think Franklin Graham proves this more than many. In an effort to curry favor with conservative politicians, you'll find them aligning their views with the powers-that-be in an effort to make even the most petulant official look Christ-like. I think Franklin might do well to heed the lesson of his father Billy, who when asked if he had any regrets, replied: "I ... would have steered clear of politics. I'm grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn't do that now."

No, You Don't Have to Vote for Trump or Hillary

First, let me make a quick disclaimer: I'm a bleeding-heart liberal who will definitely be voting for Hillary Clinton. I have several policy, moral, and religious reasons for doing this but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about a common argument I have heard time and time again regarding this election:

You have to vote for Trump or Hillary.

Here's the thing. You don't.

You don't have to vote for either one of them. If you are convinced through solid, unbiased research that both of these candidates are bad for the country or that neither of them can be a capable president, you DON'T have to vote for either one of them.

It feels like this year, most people seem to agree that both candidates are bad. In fact, most voters are not voting FOR a candidate. They are voting AGAINST the other candidate. They are voting not because they believe their candidate will be good for the country, but because they fear what will happen if the other one wins.

But if you believe your candidate will not be a good president, you have no business voting for them. 

This flies in the face of most of the arguments that I've seen, from blog posts bashing third-party candidates to talk show guests saying that "It's not like staying home from the movies because they all stink. You're going to have to watch a movie whether you like it or not."

I struggle with the argument that you have only two options for president and that you have to pick one of or the other. I hate seeing memes that declare a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary Clinton, or that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump.

You know why I hate that? Because voting against someone else is perhaps the worst reason to be supporting a political candidate, especially for president. You're essentially letting your fears make you legitimize a bad choice. And I keep seeing the exact same tired old arguments come up over and over again.

I suppose the argument I hear the most is "I support my candidate because they will pick the next justices for the supreme court." But this argument comes up EVERY SINGLE ELECTION. When you say that is the reason you vote for a particular person, you are saying your vote is being held hostage by one issue. Almost like you would vote for Hitler if Hitler promised to select justices you agree with. For that matter, you do not know for a certainty what issues will be brought to trial, whether they would make it all the way to the supreme court, whether the court would agree to hear it, or even how the justices will vote once it gets that far. In the meantime, there a host of other issues that the country will definitely be facing over the next four years and you definitely owe it to yourself and your country to select someone who won't screw everything up. In debate, we call this impact calculus. If you have legitimate concerns about a candidate's level-headedness when it comes to using nuclear weapons possibly leading to nuclear war, then your concerns about the supreme court wouldn't matter anymore. Because there wouldn't BE a supreme court anymore...you know, because of the nuke stuff..

I know both major parties are arguing that a vote for another candidate is a vote for the opposition, but I'm particularly irked by Trump supporters who spin the election as a vote that's not for Trump is a vote against Christian values. His running mate probably has a claim to conservative Christian values, but Trump, in my eyes, is not even a Christian. I don't mean that to be an insult. I don't mean that as a slap against his character (because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God). I mean that theologically I don't see how someone who has not asked God's forgiveness can be a Christian, who talks about holy communion as "When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness..." Given this, I get very frustrated when people claim Trump will stand up for religious freedom in this country. First, not only is this the single most ridiculous thing anyone could ever say about him given that he has called for a ban on members of an entire religion numbering 1.6 billion from entering the U.S. (if the government has the right to ban Muslims, it has the right to ban Christians) but it again makes a false equivalency between faith and political parties. God is not a Democrat or a Republican and treating Him like he is one makes God into something way, way, way smaller than he is. Conversely, throwing out all your own values for the sake of supporting someone who merely seems less bad than your alternative proves that you were never voting your faith in the first place. I mean I suppose that's fine to keep your politics and your religious beliefs separate, but let's just be up-front about it.

I think Erik Erickson, founder of the conservative website "The Resurgence" put it best when he was interviewed on NPR recently:

MARTIN: So what do you do? You say that you're not going to vote for Hillary Clinton so that means you're in the end going to vote for Donald Trump - and we only have a couple seconds here.
ERICKSON: No way. I won't be voting for either one. Hopefully someone will step forward that I can vote for, but as someone of faith who takes it very seriously, I'm - I take Charles Spurgeon's position. Between two evils, choose neither. Just because his has an elephant next to it doesn't mean it's worth voting for.

I am definitely not saying you should not vote. There are plenty of candidates further down on the ballot that probably do deserve your attention and support. All politics is local, anyway. And for that matter, I'm not saying you should have to vote for Stein or Johnson. You can select "no choice" or even write in a candidate if your state allows that.

But years from now, someone may ask you why you supported a particular candidate. If you say, "Because I disliked the other candidate more," that may not hold up very well in their eyes. Be proud of your choice and own it. Even if that choice is neither.

'Merson

So we recently passed a fun milestone. Our son Emerson is now 11 months old. I thought I was getting pretty good at this parenting thing until we got a second one. Ellery isn't exactly the calmest soul on the planet but at least there was just one of her.

That said though, there are some definite things I've learned over the last year about kids and myself that I didn't know before we had the second one.

1. The whole nurture over nature thing is limited. It's crazy just how different Emerson and Ellery are from each other. And it's noticeable in a bunch of small ways. Like getting dressed. In general, Ellery seemed to enjoy getting dressed when she was 1. At least she cooperated a bit. Emerson reacts as if we're trying to poke him full of needles. He also enjoys music but not near to the extent that Ellery did/does. She would often stop everything she was doing so that she could listen to a particular song. Like "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers.

2. Sleep is a luxury my wife doesn't get right now. She has always had the insane ability to be able to wake up at the drop of a hat when one of the kids is fussy. She will routinely get up to settle the kids down and I won't even be aware that the kids were even awake. I try. I really do. But Christina has the equivalent of a superpower that I do not possess. I do not know if she considers it a superpower or a curse though.

3. I've been doing more thinking about what kid of lessons I want Emerson to internalize simply because he's a boy. Sometimes these are different lessons from what I give Ellery. There is definitely a prominent person in American politics that I do not want him Emulating. I want him to see the value in being thoughtful, considerate, and wise. There are a lot of people who think male strength lies in being assertive or loud, but I want him to see that true leadership cannot occur without empathy.

And it's not just that I think empathy is important to being a good person. It's a straight-up employable skill. Markiplier has thousands of followers on Youtube not because he's funny, but because he is very good at connecting with his audience and conveying emotion. Donald Trump is in a heap of trouble right now over comments he made 11 years ago because he is really, really bad at SHOWING HE'S SORRY. I imagine he hasn't had much practice doing that.

End of Forensics Season

While it's been, at times, a long grind, I always find myself a bit sad at the end of forensics season.

Over the course of the season, I took kids out to compete 26 times. That's 26 times I was either up early, out late, or both. Twenty 26 times I visited tab rooms to anxiously await results. Twenty-six times I got to inform students that they either medaled or came up disappointingly short.

There just isn't a great way to describe the thrill of getting to see a student succeed in this competition. When you spend as much time as they do perfecting their craft, talking to walls, making a pause in a performance last a heartbeat longer, emphasizing the exact right word in a delivery...well, it all gets a little overwhelming.

But when they can come away with something that recognizes all their hard work, it's extremely satisfying to me as a coach: to see that moment when their eyes light up when I tell them they made it in to finals for the first time ever; to see their smile when they realize they got a "1" on a ballot; to see them tear up when they fail...

Because that's the other side of the coin, isn't it? That there are going to be times when it doesn't work out. That there will be times when they try really, really hard and still fail. That they will realize that there's always someone out there who is just a little bit better than they are.

Even that is a little thrilling. If I see a student shrug off a bad performance like it was not big deal, I actually get a little concerned. Because if losing doesn't matter to them, then perhaps they never really cared at all.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be prepared to move on when we fail. That's the exact skill we're trying to teach, isn't it? But when we fail at achieving something we really, really want, we learn so much more than if we fail at something we DIDN'T really care about. This morning I failed at making my bed before I left the house. Did I learn from my failure? Not really, because at this particular moment in my adult life, I couldn't really care less even if a live raccoon were making a nest in my bed while I was gone during the day.

But when you picture yourself being on the final stage at State all season and find out that someone else beat you there, that's a tough pill to swallow. And at that point, the focus shifts to the intrinsic value of trying your hardest. Because after all, great competitors chase perfection, knowing that they're never going to attain it, but striving anyway. And that's a big deal.

I was lucky to get to take 15 students to State this year. We might not get that many next year, but the journey to achieve something great will still be well worth it.

Embarasing Confessions

There are a number of things that I'm not proud of. Wait, that sentence ended in a preposition. Let me fix that....

There are a number of things of which I am not proud.

Phew.

Anyway, yeah, I'm not proud of several things. I'm not going to confess anything major here. My life is fairly routine and somewhat boring, to be honest. But there's still some deep, dark secrets that I'd like to get off my chest. Here are my top 5 embarasing confessions.

1. I find the TV show Downton Abbey interesting. 

Oh man, this is a big one.

Even when I describe the show to people it sounds boring. A part of me wants to hit myself when I mention all the drama surrounding Lady Grantham's garden party. Something about a bunch of up-tight Brits who can't express their true feelings openly just feels super snooty. Heaven forbid someone establish their dominance in a way other than a well-timed passive aggressive comment.

And yet I've watched it. And I've watched it more than once. And it doesn't make me feel cultured. It doesn't make me feel smart. It makes me feel like kicking myself for actually liking it.

What would the dowager countess say to me if she knew this....

2. I could eat nothing but pizza for days on end

I know I could do this because I've done it before.

If I could go an entire week without using a pot or a pan, and only eating frozen pizza, I would probably do it. And I would do it while sitting on the couch watching TV. Probably Downton Abbey.

After I've done that, I always have the exact same thought: "That was an enormous mistake." My stomach hates me for it. I lose energy. My face will feel greasy. But come the next day, when the option is cooking something or throwing a pizza in the microwave or the toaster oven, the result is always the same.

3. I forget names easily

This one is very difficult for me. I always admire people who have a knack for remembering names quickly and permanently. For me, however, I always struggle to remember people I met five minutes ago. I can remember faces. Faces are fine. But naming that face? Nope. Oftentimes I'll cop-out by calling someone "Buddy" or "Chief" instead of their actual name. Then, 10 minutes later, I remember who they are. And my shame spiral begins....

4. I could play the same video game for days straight if I didn't need to stop and eat food

There was a time when this would not cause me to feel shame at all. But that's changed. Now, as an adult, I'm judged on how productive I am and how organized my life is. If I spend hours playing a video game, that means that I spent hours NOT doing something else. That means that chances are, I wasn't playing with one of my kids. That means that there were dishes that did not get washed, or a yard that did not get raked. The time I spent on a game isn't something I can easily justify anymore. And anyway, I never finish a game feeling better about myself than I did before I started.

5. A tiny part of me still really loves Pokemon, Power Rangers, and all the other dumb things I liked as a kid

This isn't something that will change anytime soon. But I could honestly watch the Pokemon TV show, specifically the episode titled "Bye-bye Butterfree" and tear up again. I could watch an old episode of Power Rangers and still find myself cheering on the Red Ranger (the White Ranger is a poser - the guy literally used to be evil, and they turned around and made him the leader).

I know it's dumb. I know they sold that stuff to kids like me because kids don't know good stuff when they see it and they knew they could make a buck. But they still made me care, gosh darn it. And the logical part of my brain can't stop that from happening.