This month, it’s been four years since my first column appeared on WorldNetDaily. Weeks before then, I had sent in some essays to Joseph Farah with little expectation of a response, much less the prospect of getting published, and even much less gaining a column, but we of course now know how that worked out. It was a thrilling opportunity for me and somewhat of a social experiment, no doubt. What happens when you give a near-13-year-old a column? I didn’t even know myself.

Initially, it was just a week-to-week thing without much of a direction ideologically or creatively. Even now, I’m the most under-qualified and inexperienced columnist on this website. For some reason, people read what I wrote. I received speaking invitations, which, except for the actual speaking part, I enjoyed very much. I received invitations for radio interviews. For the first several times, it’s quite frightening to see an out-of-area number on the caller ID and know that thousands of people are waiting on the other end of the “talk” button.

Several months later, I was given the opportunity to write for WND’s book label. I didn’t truly understand the gravity of the situation at the time. I don’t think I had ever written anything over 3,000 words, but the responsibility to fill 80,000 or so words was laid at my feet. The deadline ominously loomed on the horizon, but I did my duty, and with each challenge I grew to become someone else – hopefully someone better. The book was published in April 2003 and the media tour that ensued was overwhelming: cable television, local news, national and local newspapers, national and local radio, and speaking engagements. It’s a frightening thing to sit in a studio chair at 14 years old as Bill O’Reilly towers over you and cameras capture every moment, but I did the song and dance.

The past two years have been seemingly less eventful, but in many ways just as challenging in my writing and even more so in my personal life. Being given a forum through which to voice opinions is a double-edged sword. There’s much flattery from ideological peers, but there’s also much criticism voiced by everyone else. To be given such accountability at such a young age never stopped me from making mistakes, but it forced me to own up to my statements if only through e-mails and sometimes even in interviews. That sort of responsibility is hard to find anywhere else, but even more so for a teenager.

So, what does happen when you give a young teenager a column? Well, I can tell you from experience. You make a lot of mistakes and you say things you regret, but you also grow and change. Your beliefs evolve and you eventually end up in a place you never expected. More than anything, it’s a fast-paced education. I wouldn’t give up what I’ve experienced these past four years for anything.

Even so, all things eventually come to an end. I’ve given the future of my column much thought over the past several months, and I’ve realized I want to pursue other things beyond the realm of political punditry. So, it is with that desire in mind that my regular political writing will be ending with this column. There are several writing projects I’ve been working on which hopefully will materialize.

I don’t mean to turn this column into an award show speech, but I do want to thank a few people. I couldn’t have done anything without my parents and they firstly deserve thanks. I want to thank Joseph Farah, Tom Ambrose, Ron Strom and everyone else at WorldNetDaily who helped me. Also, thanks to Joel Miller, Bob Keyser, Chris Knight and David Yeagley. More than anything, I want to thank you, the readers, for your consistent patience and dedication. I’ve unfortunately conversed with very few of you and met even less of you, but that maybe makes it even more of an honor to have my words freely read – I have to say there’s nothing else like it in the world.

The CIA leak scandal has finally reached a sort of climax. Lewis Libby has been indicted on five felony charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making a false statement, adding up to a possibility of 30 years in the pokey. The big fish, Karl Rove, has of course not been indicted – at least not yet. Considering their respective positions and name recognition, if Rove escapes indictment altogether the Bush administration will breathe a sigh of relief. Lewis Libby was not, until now, a household name like Karl Rove has been for years.

Dick Cheney said he accepted Libby’s resignation with “deep regret.” I bet so. The association of Lewis Libby with Dick Cheney may get the administration in more hot water. Cheney is closely tied to the entire scandal in Patrick Fitzgerald’s indictment through a series of conversations with Libby regarding Joe and Valerie Wilson. Because of this reality, the intensely pro-war viewpoints of the vice president along with his influential role in this administration will no doubt be dragged out again, and the war scandal will be rehashed. From an administration that has gained much success in controlling the information that is revealed to the press, this is a completely different territory.

So, how do they respond? If the only thing they do is sit and hope and wait, then it will take a miracle to bring Bush out of his depression of approval ratings. His approval ratings are at an all-time low, the Iraqi experiment is suffering from similar reaction, and Bush’s latest Supreme Court nomination turned out to be an absolute disaster. The second term is turning into one blunder after another, and with legal prosecution forthcoming against the vice president’s chief of staff, things look even bleaker.

This president campaigned on his ability to bring professionalism and integrity to the Oval Office. That public image is waning. His political tactics look more like cronyism than integrity; his Texan affect looks more like fatuity than friendliness; and his professionalism looks more like aristocratism than service. And indictments against senior White House officials aren’t helping matters.

If President Bush keeps up his faux pandering for political power, this rough patch will turn to disaster. Something must fundamentally change in the way the Republicans view their relationships. From the very beginning of the first term, they attempted to reach out to everyone and in the process they pleased no one. With the next Supreme Court nominee on deck, Bush has an opportunity to play to his base and solidify its support in the midst of a huge public-relations failure.

The reasons for conservatives to support Bush have, in reality, been non-existent. It’s a strange thing to see an entire demographic of religious conservatives who support George W. Bush for who he is, not for what he does. Bush has sold his image well, but his political tactics seem to have been to hope his supporters don’t read the newspaper – or watch his blundering press conferences.

At this crucial conjuncture in the Bush administration, the risks are high. His entire legacy could be decided by what steps he takes in the next months, and conservatives are hoping Bush will at least throw them a bone with the next nominee. The sad part is that far too many are expecting a conservative nominee like it’s a sure thing, as if there’s a master plan behind the fa?ade. Don’t count on it.

“EU says Internet could fall apart”

You don’t read headlines like that one every day. The story, published recently by the Guardian, testifies to the growing controversy surrounding the issue of Internet governance. While the United States funded the development of the Internet since the 1960s, the Net spread its wings in the 1990s and outgrew its original purpose of government and academic use. Now, in the 2000s, the billion-people international community that connects to the Internet on a daily basis has inspired the question of Internet governance: Who controls the internet? The bottom line is the United States controls the backbone on which digital traffic flows. Now, the European Union and developing countries don’t like it.

When you log on to the Internet, there is an information exchange that occurs before you even receive content from a requested server. Each computer is assigned a unique number called an Internet Protocol, or IP, address for the purpose of routing traffic. The first generation, and most popular, of the IP addresses is in four-part dot-decimal notation. Early on in the Internet’s history, it was deemed better to assign domain names that corresponded to IP addresses because of the simplicity. If not, you would be required to type a ten digit number to access WorldNetDaily’s website. Instead, when you request WorldNetDaily.com, the Domain Name System (DNS) matches the .com name to the server’s IP address and you receive the webpage.

Yet, imagine waking up one morning and instead of logging on to the Internet, every server request left you with a “domain not found” error. And imagine these errors weren’t isolated to your region or even your Internet service provider, but were an international failure. The multi-billion dollar e-commerce market would be at a stand still. Nothing so disastrous has happened thanks to the stable foundation of the Domain Name System and the system of Internet Protocol addresses that allow digital traffic to be routed smoothly across the World Wide Web.

Under contract from the Commerce Department, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, was founded to take over the tasks of DNS, IP and assigned numbers. Since its inception in the late ’90s, the nonprofit corporation headquartered in California has been and still is in charge of top-level domain names such as .com, .net, .biz, .co, etc. While there have been some organizational controversies surrounding ICANN, there have been no major mistakes or failures that could understandably lead to an international revolt. Yet, there is a concerted effort on the part of foreign nations to take control of the role of ICANN.

In Tunisia next month, delegates from around the world will converge for two days for a United Nations summit that will discuss improvements to international connectivity specifically in developing nations. The most important part of this summit is, however, this issue of Internet governance. The European Union has proposed a system where ICANN would be folded into an international body that would oversee the addressing system. Yet, unless there is a major change in U.S. policy between then and now, there’s nothing anyone is going to be able to do about it. The United States physically controls the root servers.

Resolutions introduced in both the House and Senate have emphatically echoed language used by the Bush administration that the U.S. will not relinquish control. This has led to the European Union threatening a possible fragmentation of the Internet where regions around the world would have their own unconnected addressing systems.

It leaves many people asking, why the controversy? It’s not as if the United States has attempted to silence speech on the Internet or create an uneven playing field in e-commerce. The only possible explanation is that nations not in power are attempting to exert power over the Internet not for the purpose of efficiency, but simply for the sake of arrogant control. This is unacceptable to U.S. leaders, and rightly so. Until there is hard evidence that ICANN and the Department of Commerce are sacrificing connectivity for some sort of American power grab, there’s not much justification for a United Nations system.

For now, all we can do is wait until the United Nations summit to see what becomes of this power grab. Here’s hoping the future of the Internet isn’t left in the hands of an international group of tyrants, dictators and a few liberal democracies.

Five major Republican power players inside and outside the Bush administration are either suspected, indicted or being investigated over their respective connections to various ethical breaches.

Karl Rove could be indicted by the end of the month over his connection to Valerie Plame scandal. Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, is suspected of being involved in the incident as well. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is under investigation for possible insider-trading with stock in his family’s hospital chain, and House Majority Leader Tom Delay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for suspected money laundering and conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.

Lastly and perhaps less recognizable, Jack Abramoff, a major Republican lobbyist since 1994, has been indicted for bank fraud, is under investigation for receiving shady lobbying fees from Indian tribes, and is suspected of giving possibly unethical favors to various legislators – a special prosecutor is being called for the investigation. In the wake of these scandals, many “smaller fish” have been caught up in investigations as well, including former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and Rove business partner David Safavian.

There’s some evidence lending to the Republican response that these scandals are suspect, specifically in regard to the Plame “leak.” Yet, even if the scandals are manufactured, the pressure may still crumble the Republican leadership. Truth has never gotten in the way of political fallout.

Beyond the scandals in general, there’s not much for conservatives to be happy about these days. If Republicans fell for the compassionate conservatism line, they’ve been left with rampant fiscal irresponsibility, foreign entanglements, border security in disarray and a series of betrayals over issues like abortion, education policy and civil liberties.

And now, in the final years of a Bush administration, some conservatives are finally waking up to the simple fact that there isn’t a master plan to turn the tables on liberalism. The president has compromised from the very beginning, starting with the Ted Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind Act, but Bush has earned nothing for limited-government advocates. We are left with a soaring deficit, soaring spending and waning embers of conservative principles.

After all, isn’t fiscal responsibility a core tenet of conservatism? Haven’t conservatives been supporters of constitutional civil liberties from the beginning? Traditional conservatism supports limited government, local control of education and national sovereignty. We see little of these ideas being propagated under the current presidency.

As each news week cycles out, the reasons for conservatives to abandon support for this administration mount higher and higher. The irony is that most conservatives still feel the need to make excuses for Bush’s blunders and provide reasons for his betrayals.

It’s easy to understand the hackery of political pundits because they have a readership to maintain – a readership that is interested in repetition rather than truth. Yet, for an individual citizen who has nothing to lose in relinquishing his or her support for a faux-conservative party, it is questionable to continue support. In general, it seems that most conservatives agree about the lack of results, but there are considerable disagreements about how to respond.

The question is, from where does partisanship stem? America’s relationship with politics has always had an aspect of entertainment to it, finding its roots in an early American culture without sports. The way many voters relate to their respective parties is much like undying support for a sports team, but with higher stakes – it is very much social. You also find people remaining loyal to Democrats or Republicans because they feel emotionally compelled. Moreover, they take great offense to any criticism of their party, as if it is a personal insult. Yet, it’s not as if this nation is run by Uncle Bush and Grandpa Cheney who will be disappointed in you if you give up on them. Blind partisanship from the individual voter within the two-party dichotomy is immature at best.

The purpose of politics is, after all, to create change. The Republican Party has done a fine job gaining a clear majority of power, but it has done little to turn the tide back to a limited government. We have power, but little change. The enthralling drone of political power has mesmerized the GOP, and the leadership have earned a patriotic critique of their every move, not an unbridled cover-up of their mistakes.

So, should the conservative response be an exodus to a third party? Some say that’s a wasted vote, but others say it is the only alternative to mediocrity. Should conservatives simply rely upon the hope of reform within the party? Maybe, but we have a leadership who enjoys turning a deaf ear to the grass roots.

There are so many questions, but too few answers.

I remember when I was a young child, my brother and sister and I would gather on the bed with my parents and every night my dad would read us stories like “The Chronicles of Narnia” or “The Hobbit.” When we were younger, he would read “Dr. Seuss” stories or “Winnie the Pooh.”

Unfortunately, being born in 1988 had its own share of disappointments. Paramount of these would be not being exposed the great literary accomplishment of Karen DeBrecht and her new children’s book, “Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!” Looking back on it, I can see I could easily have become a partisan hack by the time I was 5. Apparently, Rush Limbaugh has given her book a rave review and the book has shot up the Amazon.com charts, but I have to ask: Is this a joke or are parents really going to teach their children liberals are monsters?

The author and publisher aren’t to blame nearly as much as the monster they’re feeding. There is a huge market for name-calling, stereotyping partisanship. That demographic on both sides of the aisle is being marketed to in the form of cable news, talk radio, current events titles, blogs, magazines, newspapers and on and on. This is the American dream of the 21st century, where R’s and D’s run thicker than blood. Yet, the only real difference between the parties is their rhetoric used against each other.

It is an ironic time in America when Republicans can generalize about liberals’ socialism, while the GOP’s own president makes Bill Clinton’s presidency look conservative. The Right mocks liberals over welfare, but the Republican Party is building its own fiscally abhorrent welfare state. The GOP is unwilling to act on abortion, they’re all talk on homosexual marriage, and they have yet to prove anything in judicial appointments – the only real issues for which the conservative base remains loyal.

There is no immigration policy. Homeland security has successfully undermined civil rights. Education spending has grown somewhere around 40 percent under this administration, while President Bush’s early win on No Child Left Behind has proven to be an overly centralized bureaucracy. Alas, a rational thought process need not get in the way of partisan loyalty.

Yet, why can’t Americans be more intellectually honest regarding political allegiances? Is it possibly because partisanship appeals to the emotions, requiring sweeping general statements about entire groups of individuals?

On the one end, there are far too many Americans who are filled with unfathomable hatred and fear of this administration. They virtually believe President Bush will any day dispatch federal agents to terrorize their family, while Dick Cheney secretly directs Halliburton to take over the world. Their absurd loathing of this president is purchased only by their blind partisanship. These people will not accept that George W. Bush is a real human being, who has feelings, and is not mentally incompetent. They hold Bush in the same class as Hitler or Stalin and look at the Republican Party as a Westernized version of the Taliban.

Then, you find the naive fools who truly believe the Republican Party is out to help them. They buy the marketed lie that President Bush is merely an altruistic public servant. These types seem incapable of realizing that individualism has vanished because they drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago and now fail to grasp the reality that Americans are divided into easily appeased demographics, catered to with false promises in return for votes. It is true that never has America been more wrapped up in the political and social debate, but it’s all just reiteration. American politics has lost its voice for the individual as it slowly trades a constitutional republic based on the rule of law in exchange for a fiscally irresponsible socialist state ruled by an aristocratic class.

In conclusion, there are many problems to be solved in this country, but neither party is interested in offering a viable solution except when it can secure a victory in November. Thus, to continue to talk as if the “Left vs. Right” mentality solves anything is inexcusable. The name-calling may bring in the paycheck for many political pundits, but it is destructive to our nation, and to pass this feature of America on to our children is reprehensible.

As I write these words and as most of you read them, New Orleans is still under water. Yet, the politics of recovery have dominated the news already – and it is abhorrent.

In the wake of disasters like Katrina, America is always asked the same question: Are we mature enough to resolve this issue without resorting to politics? Time and again, our nation answers with a resounding “No.”

In the gradient of red to blue, every group is a participant in this political blame game. It is not so much the blame game, but the politics that is the problem, because it is obvious there were some serious failures on every level of government. However, the stifling partisanship and inane comments from politicians and celebrities are what destroy reasonable discussion.

Adding tension to irrationality, the news media sets up shop like a flea market, buying and selling what is most controversial and entertaining. The story of Hurricane Katrina is no exception. As a result of all of this, we’re recovering not only from a natural disaster on the Gulf Coast, but also the fallout of a political quarrel.

As I said, there’s a difference between blame and politics. Unfortunately, the American political scene seems to be wholly incapable of recognizing the difference. The politicians do recognize, however, that an honest elected official won’t make it very far in his or her career, and maybe that is the greater truth at play. While people are still being evacuated and families are still torn apart, the politicians are taking potshots at each other with the implications of next November firmly implanted in their peripheral.

A day before DNC Chair Howard Dean called for leadership not partisanship, he was taking his own partisan shots in saying the relief effort is somehow racist and class-warfare driven. Hacks on talk radio are pointing out the implications of Louisiana and New Orleans obviously being Democrat country – Republicans are just better, they say.

Of course, the congressional Democrat leadership is doing their best to make sound bites fit for the evening news, and MoveOn.org has played an incredible game of connect the dots with the hurricane and Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Celebrities are having a heyday in sharing their brilliant political treatises; specifically, Kanye West has proved his genius is not found in statesmanship.

In contrast, you can clearly see people like Franklin Graham and his organization, Samaritan’s Purse, who are in the region providing assistance in countless ways and are already helping in the rebuilding process. I happened to see Graham on cable news this past week and he refused to play the game of dishing out fault, instead simply raising awareness for the cause. People like him are down there for one purpose, and that’s to help. It surely is an example to the rest of us who feel compelled to play the role of a Monday morning quarterback.

Moreover, too many of us feel compelled to take this as an opportunity to campaign for our favorite causes. The conservatives are going after homosexuality in New Orleans. The Israel supporters are going after America’s foreign policy over the Gaza pullout. The environmentalists are on their collective soapbox over global warming. The Democrats are yelling from the rooftops about President Bush’s failure to plan for this over the past five years. And Republicans are upset about the supposed failure of liberalism in New Orleans.

Does America understand the meaning of reverence? Apparently not. I know I’m expecting too much, but I wonder if the selfish ambition of politicians in the wake of this disaster is as repulsive to everyone else as it is to me. Yes, there must be an investigation and there must be a vigilant commission that will look into the exact failures of this situation, but that isn’t what’s going on. The only thing we’ve seen so far is “experts” constructing talking points. That is reprehensible in the face of the great plight of our fellow Americans on the Gulf Coast.

In an age of entertainment and mass communication, a sensation-driven news media rules the airwaves. Although reporters are doing their jobs in covering the devastation of hurricane Katrina, the disaster porn shown endlessly on cable news is no doubt contributing to ratings. And this is the great danger in all hyped news stories – that people with ulterior motives become a part of the story for the purposes of an agenda or personal gain.

Such was the case in the weeks leading up to Hurricane Katrina with Cindy Sheehan and her continual photo-op. Politicians, celebrities and activists all made pilgrimages to Crawford to get in on the media whoredom. Long before that, pro-life leaders and activists made their way down to Florida to get in on the hype of the Terri Schiavo case. Some activists held up signs that read, “Save Terri!” with a website address below – high enough for the cameras to broadcast the advertisement to the world.

This is the temptation of mass broadcasting to which, unfortunately, the news media continually succumbs. It is for these reasons that public-relations firms and publicists live off publishing houses and activist organizations. The business of the news media is a market with open doors to all who fit the mold of being uniquely controversial – the corporations get their ratings and you sell your book. Everybody wins, except for those who want the truth.

In the case of the horrible devastation of the hurricane specifically ripping through New Orleans, some right-wing fundamentalists are piggybacking on the media hype to push their own conservative agendas. This time, they’re saying God took a pre-emptive strike on homosexuals who had planned a large-scale event in New Orleans called “Southern Decadence,” which was set to occur this past week.

Repent America, directed by Michael Marcavage, is an organization known for picketing gay pride events and abortion clinics. While their biblical hermeneutic on Divine judgment could arguably be clouded by their previously established political activities, Repent America sent out a press release Wednesday that was picked up by media outlets and among these, WorldNetDaily.

In the press release, the organization played connect the dots and insinuated God sent the hurricane to stop the gays. “Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Marcavage. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence,’ New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge.” It is still unclear why the organization felt compelled to broadcast their private prayers and conjectures to the rest of the world.

Then you find a guy like J. Grant Swank Jr., who is not nearly as high-profile but every bit of a right-wing hack. In a column on a not-worth-mentioning website, he writes, “Sodom and Gomorrah were to be re-enacted in broad daylight – and into the night haunts as well. It would be one high ol’ time of it in the southern scape. … Then came along Katrina. Now New Orleans is under water, bathing in sewage and devastation rather than providing downtown fountains for homosexual capers aplenty.”

Swank, just like Marcavage, bases his faulty ideology on the unbiblical theology that his arrogance is somehow less offensive than homosexuality. It rains on all and disasters are not prejudice. We’re all in the same boat.

Not nearly as offensive, but in the same vain, WorldNetDaily’s own Craige McMillan takes the opportunity of the New Orleans crisis to give a lesson on the Seventh Commandment.

In his column, he questions, “Do you think New Orleans would be better off right now if its public school system had taught all students the Ten Commandments as part of their secular education? Or would such forthright exposure to religious indoctrination have so traumatized the little darlings that they might – oh, say – loot the city at the very first opportunity?”

He goes on to criticize public schools for not teaching Mosaic Law and their aversion to all things God, but in the same paragraph exalts Judeo-Christian ethics as essentially the only prevention of total moral anarchy. It’s a nice Sunday school lesson, but it comes off as arrogant to those of other traditions, especially in light of such suffering in the wake of Katrina.

Aside from the unjustifiable theology found in the messages of these activists, perhaps most telling is their insensitivity to the plight of their fellow human beings. There are times of reverence in which people of any understanding should keep quiet. At this point, I’m just waiting for Fred Phelps and his friends to show up on a New Orleans’ highway with picket signs saying, “God Hate Fags.” That’s most certainly the love of Christ in action.

Shortly after Nebuchadnezzar assumed the throne in 605 B.C., the Babylonian Empire began attacks on the nation of Judah and overthrew Jerusalem in 597 B.C. In the coming years, they deported the leaders of the nation, destroyed the Temple and initiated the 70-year-long Babylonian Captivity of the Judeans that is detailed in a large chunk of the Bible. The book of Daniel offers an insightful glimpse into the stories of devout Jews who remained faithful to God even within the midst of captivity in a nation rampant with all kinds of foreign gods and laws mandating worship of these gods. The tension of serving the monotheistic God of Abraham while living in a society that does not captures the attention of many of the Major Prophets, and the idolatrous following of foreign religions and cultures is the foremost sin of the Israelites.

In the mythology of the Mesopotamian region, Marduk was supreme god of all the deities. According to myth, this double-headed sun god made his home in Babylon, which was literally referred to as the center of the universe. The son of Marduk was Nabu (or Nebo), who was worshipped as the god of wisdom, of learning and writing, and of science – essentially the Babylonian predecessor to the Greeks’ Hermes. Nabu was extremely popular in Babylon and temples dedicated to him could be found in every major city. Isaiah 46 singles out both these deities, Bel, the title for Marduk, and Nabu, calling them false gods not to be worshipped.

These stories of ancient Israel obviously lay the foundation for the teaching of the New Testament and, I believe, offer a helpful backdrop for those of faith in any age. The gods of pride and arrogance, just like the false gods of Babylon, were condemned by New Testament writers, and Paul declared that searching for knowledge and wisdom outside of God is foolish, that the wisdom of God turns upside down all worldly knowledge. It could be said when we pursue knowledge apart from God or worldly wisdom as the foundation for life, we are worshipping in spirit the same god of Babylon, the false god of wisdom, Nabu.

Still, how does that relate to contemporary Christianity here in 21st century America?

There is a crisis at hand; American Christianity is shallow – and the reality of that is hitting hard. So much so, that mainstream denominations are scrambling for ways to remedy the startling numbers of teenagers who grow up in church but abandon their faith and standards once they enter college. The answer: Worldview training – preparation to defend against secular teaching.

The latest trend to make positive waves in the conservative evangelical community is called “worldview education,” with curriculums such as Worldview Weekend, Charles Colson’s “How Now Shall We Live,” Understanding the Times, Summit Ministries, Worldview Academy, etc. The idea is that universities are destroying faith, so we should school our children, train them with the proper worldview, and then send them out like an army to defend Christian thought. It isn’t just a small ghetto of evangelicals that are doing this. Spurred on by the popularity of books like Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ,” the consensus among the leaders of conservative evangelicalism is that worldview training is the solution.

While it may be misguided to put too much stock in Christianized philosophical education and reasonable apologetics, the pursuit of these things, especially within the cultural context of evangelism, is an education to be encouraged. The predicament occurs when you set apologetics and philosophy up as the response to faithlessness. It was Martin Luther who famously said, “Reason is the devil’s greatest whore.”

The problem with trusting too much in reason, I believe, is twofold: First, Christianity is not reasonable. Paul himself declared the things of God to be foolish. To attempt to make the doctrines of Christianity reasonable from a human perspective and seek to “prove” things like creationism, Adam and Eve, and Christ’s resurrection have more to do with a man-centered ego-trip than piety. Second, the basis for faith is not a vast knowledge of Christianized Western thought, nor talking points from Ray Comfort’s ridiculous televangelism program. Yes, as Peter wrote, Christians must always be prepared to give an answer for their faith, but the grand rhetorical arguments of the greatest apologist shouldn’t be the foundation for our faith.

The point is this: Christian faith is deeper. While by day, one may be winning all the arguments in favor of conservative Christianity, by night, alone in the darkness and quiet of life, what is the reason for hope? It surely isn’t the vast array of enlightened Christian thought, but the supernatural peace and hope of glory in Christ. We should pursue knowledge, apologetics and have a worldview, but that shouldn’t be the basis for faith, lest we worship a false Babylonian god of wisdom. Faith and the Word is all the church has ever had, and it’s all we’ll ever need to fight the tide of unbelief.

I was waiting at the pump the other day and like so many others around the country, I was complaining in my mind about how much money I had to spend just to go from one place to the other. Here in Oklahoma, of course, gas prices aren’t nearly as high as they are on the West Coast, but wherever you are in the world, gas will always cost too much – we can all agree on that.

So, there I was with a bad attitude about gasoline prices, and I started thinking about that for which I was spending all my money. I had a job this summer doing farm work, and I had saved some of that money, but I realized that the summer is just now giving way to school’s beginning and I’ve spent most all the money I made. On what? Well, mostly music, books, sound equipment, video games, clothes, coffee – I realized just how ridiculous it is how much money I spend on coffee. Aside from a few dollars here and there to charity and my church, my budget is dedicated to one person – and that’s me.

Yet, I look around and I know there are families in my community that are having a hard time financially, so back-to-school clothing and supplies are not easy to come by. I know there are homeless men and women in my state. I know by watching the news that there is a famine in West Africa. We all know that Rwanda is in the stages of rebuilding after civil war and the Darfur region is war-torn. Of course, Southeast Asia is still recovering from the disaster of the Tsunami. There are all kinds problems reaching from just down the street to across the world that stand in the way of people living with the basic necessities of life. Yet, I continue to be driven by counterfeit necessities and the lie that my felt needs must be gratified the instant I feel an itch.

This lie is the basis for capitalism, and self-interest is the foundation of our nation. I don’t mean to say that free enterprise is wrong – I truly believe it’s the most evenhanded way to conduct a market – but reality is the great corporate empires of America weren’t driven by altruism. In America, we’ll spend double on a chocolate bar simply because of its brand. We’ll spend triple on clothes from preppy chains just because of the name. We’ll go to bookstores, coffee shops and subscribe to journals so people will think we’re intellectual. Every year, we’ll spend billions on cosmetics, soaps, hairsprays and clothing in an effort to get people to like us and feel more secure. We buy expensive cars that we don’t need and go into debt to purchase outrageously expensive homes that we don’t really want.

We believe the lie because the marketing sells it to us. You can’t walk away from this omnipresent market and culture that is in everybody’s faces with impossible claims, sensational slogans and fear-driven product lines. They instill fears of insecurity, encouraging us to buy a tube of toothpaste that is guaranteed to transform our teeth into the likeness of a celebrity. Corporations make claims that a specific brand of body spray is sure to get you laid by the end of the night, if you just buy it. Cable news channels claim to give you the straight story with no spin, but the only true slogan would be a promise of ratings to advertisers. Political parties claim to look out for us, but they don’t.

It’s all the same, tired cycle of vain hype. It’s the lie that if we simply indulge ourselves, we will find fulfillment. Yet, the truth is, satisfaction is found outside of ourselves, and if we believe the lies of selfishness, we will eventually find ourselves in a pit of self-addiction, surrounded by cheap sensationalism.

There are people in need and hurting. I have to constantly remind myself of this as I walk into the bookstore or a super-center store, to ignore the hype and realize there’s a bigger world outside of my felt-needs.

Following the most recent election cycle, “family values” conservatives like Tony Perkins heralded the supposed return of an America where evangelicals ran the show. These conservatives cited statistics like those published by the Pew Research Center, which reported 44 percent of voters cast their ballots based upon social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. And of course, that November, all 11 states with proposed initiatives passed constitutional amendments that placed a ban on homosexual marriages in their respective states. Moreover, the opposition toward homosexual marriages is staying constant. According to a survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports in July, 66 percent of Americans look unfavorably on homosexual marriages.

However, the way Americans view family, marriage and sexual practices is in no way an endorsement of traditional Christian ideas about life. To claim so might be a calculated political move, but it has nothing to do with orthodox theology or correct statistics.

Some of the very people who vehemently oppose and criticize homosexual marriage are basking in the hypocritical light of a double standard. Their mantra is “save marriage” – from homosexuals presumably – but the practices of the average American have nothing to do with a devotion to chastity. In other words, what is marriage being saved from when Britney Spears, while in a drunken stupor, gets married in Vegas for 55 hours? And aside from social repercussions, there’s very little encouragement from our nation for couples to stay married.

Statistically, somewhere between 40 to 45 percent of marriages end in divorce. According to studies conducted in the early ’90s, more than half of all first marriages begin with cohabitation, and about 40 percent of U.S. children will live with their unmarried mother and her boyfriend before their 16th birthday.

Additionally, a recent survey of wedding planners showed that half of this year’s 2.6 million marriages in America will take place in a house of worship, and only about 20 percent of those marrying will stick to the traditional vows – apparently, the new thing to do is make a vow of commitment “as long as love lasts” or as long as the marriage “serves the common good.” On the premarital end of things, Northern Kentucky University researchers found in 2003 that 61 percent of those who signed abstinence-till-marriage pledges broke their commitments. And, of the other 39 who didn’t, 55 percent said they’d had oral sex and didn’t consider it to be sex.

The devotion to real marriage is truly floundering. It’s not as if we’re on the slippery edge of total moral anarchy, but the values of a stable marriage and family have been lost on the 20th century and even as we begin the 21st century.

The blame for this failure cannot, however, be laid on the feet of homosexuals in this country. While it is much easier to villainize homosexuals as the threat to marriage in American society, as if Rosie O’Donnell was hiding behind a bush waiting to mug it off us, the true source of our family, marriage and sexual problems, as Christians perceive them, is the fact that we do not value monogamy. Yes, homosexuals seeking to redefine traditional marriage are a threat, but not nearly as widespread as the lusts of the heterosexual.

St. Paul taught the first century Corinthians that marriage is to last until death, and St. Augustine taught that marriage is a holy sacrament. Yet, even within many in the contemporary Christian community, such high devotion to the marriage union is not evident. Within the greater popular culture, the command to marry till death is a joke. Conservatives harp about the importance of what we, as a society, endorse, but since we already endorse no-fault divorce, it’s hard to find much virtue in our Americanized marriages.

Serious marriage and chastity is not found in America, and the virtues exhibited by society no doubt have a relationship to this failure. The wrongs of redefining marriage began long ago and are a result of the failures of heterosexuals. These problems will not end at legislation or litigation; rather, this culture war will play out in the hearts and minds of individuals.