As a political operative, its my job to call out issues and movements with which I disagree. While I will call out an individual for delivering what I consider to be a wrong message, I try not to call out people out for their morals. I don’t want to rock the boat too much and I certainly don’t want to be politically incorrect. I’m not the most important person in the world, or even on my neighborhood block, but things I say have a tendency to end up in the news. My political mentor once told me “its not your job to be in the news. It’s your job to get your clients in the news.”  He’s right. And lets be honest, the majority of times I ended up in the news, it wasn’t for the most positive actions. 

That’s why I try not to insult, but I have discovered over the past few years while watching the moral decline of our nation that political correctness is killing our nation.  Too many of us stay quiet. We don’t want to be labeled haters. Or judgmental.  Or maybe we don’t want our own sins uncovered. We don’t want to feel, or even worse, be publicly labeled, as hypocrites.

I’ve written about this before. I said that as Christians, we shouldn’t be pointing out others sins while full of sins ourselves.  I still believe that. But I also believe we should address our own sins AND start calling out those who are ruining our nation.

Read this exchange between myself and SC Democratic Executive Director Amanda Loveday.

I have always liked Amanda and besides the one time when out of frustration I told her to wear a muzzle, I have tried to treat her with respect. She’s smart and motivated, but here she shows the problem we are facing. As soon as we start calling people out for their actions, liberals start labeling us judgemental. They love throwing Matthew 7:1 in our face “do not judge, or you too will be judged.” 

Like I wrote last week, that one snippet of Jesus’ words don’t tell the full story.

Jesus did not say to not judge. He went on to say in verses 7:2 – 5 “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Jesus was saying that when measuring others, make sure that you are also measuring yourself by the same standard. Make sure you are addressing your own sins.  Anything else is hypocritical.

I am a sinner. I curse too much. I probably drink a little too much. My heart often fills with anger and I have a terrible time with jealousy. And if you have read my past rants, you will know that I see jealousy as the worse of all sins:

“Jealousy is the reason for all other sins, giving its creator pride the title of “the greatest sin.” As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity “it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice.” Very true.

I work on my sins everyday, but just because I sin does not mean that I do not have the right to call out the sins that are sending our nation on a downward spiral.
 
Absolute rights and absolute wrongs do exist.  And with rising rates of abortion, teenage pregnancy and divorce, we know that it is not an opinion that our morals are sliding.  It is fact.

Screw political correctness. I’m done watching our nation’s moral decline while staying quiet. I will address the issue with love and not the hate we all too often see, but I will talk more about our morals. If you don’t like it, just label me judgmental…because I am. You should be too.

- Wesley Donehue

PS – PLEASE leave your thoughts in the comments sections. If you agree, say you agree. Feel free to give me your rant. If you disagree, let’s talk about it.

‘It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David.”

– 2 Chronicles 33:30

The story of King Hezekiah can be found in the books of Isaiah, 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. He is not a fictional character. We know he existed. Science and archaeology prove he existed. Proof can be found all across Jerusalem.

We all see the fight between science and religion and nowhere is it more defined than in creationism. I often find myself in debates with others, and often in debates with myself, about the creation of our world. My brain is programmed to accept scientific facts. Perhaps that is the way God wired me or perhaps I programmed myself as a child. I do not know where it happened, but it happened and it creates within me an internal struggle that is very hard to reconcile.

I want to believe the Bible, but hearing Bible stories as a child often makes me believe that they are just that – stories, or fiction. I need to touch something. I need to see something. My brain demands proof.

Matthew 14:22-36 tells us the story of Jesus walking on water. Peter asks Jesus “tell me to come to you on the water.” Jesus replies “come” and Peter steps out onto the Sea of Galilee. But after a few steps, Peter begins to sink and we are told “immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’”

Elizabeth recently asked me “who is your favorite disciple?” It’s Peter. He is a man who doubted, a man who even denied Jesus three times, yet he became the foundation of the church and was even martyred for Christ.

I am no Peter, but it does make me feel better that even Jesus proclaimed Peter’s lack of faith, yet Peter became so faithful that he allowed himself to be crucified upside down.

This week I was baptized in the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. I stood in the tomb in which Jesus was resurrected. Elizabeth and I read Psalms of Accession to my church group while ascending the steps of Jerusalem. I prayed for my family in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus wept and prayed for his people. I forged eternal memories but it was in the tunnel of Hezekiah that my faith was strengthened.

The 2000-year-old 1,700 foot tunnel connecting the Gihon spring to the western side of the City of David lies far underground. There is no reason to even believe the tunnel was there aside from the Bible telling us so. In 1838 the tunnel was found exactly where the Bible told us it was dug through solid rock.

I felt like Indiana Jones walking beneath the Israeli ground and it was while humming John Williams’ theme to Indiana Jones and talking to our guide, Ronny Simon (more on him later), that it hit me – I was walking through a tunnel, I was touching it, I was seeing it, a tunnel described by the Bible, uncovered and definitively labeled by science. This was not fiction. This was a Biblical truth.

That demands a question – if Hezekiah’s tunnel is fact, why would the rest of the Holy Scriptures not also be fact?

The Bible is not fiction. The Bible is a historical document describing the history and saving of our world. You may be one of little faith and if so, I recommend a journey to the Holy Land. This is too important of a subject to doubt. And if you are one of strong faith and little doubt, a trip to Israel will be even more meaningful.

- Wesley Donehue

ps – read more about our trip at www.wesleydonehue.tumblr.com.