Faith: November 2006 Archives

"Edwards, Spurgeon, Ryle and Friends," an excellent blog devoted to excerpts from Puritan and Reformed devotional literature, has not only been deleted but has been hijacked by spammers. Its former location was jonathanedwards.blogspot.com. I've had to delete it from my blogroll, along with thenewvintage.blogspot.com, another abandoned Blogger site. (The New Vintage's blogger has resurfaced, anonymously, elsewhere.)

I wrote about the zombie blog harvester phenomenon last year, but here's a reminder -- and if you're a blogger reading this, please spread the word: If you must take your Blogger blog down, please, please don't delete the blog! Backup the content and then delete all the entries, but keep control of the blog as a placeholder. There are unscrupulous spammers (I repeat myself) who will grab the URLs of highly-linked blogs and use that high page rank to promote whatever it is they're trying to promote. When you delete the blog, anyone can claim that URL, and websurfers looking for your content will find whatever these cyberspace cowbirds have posted in its place.

One blogger who deleted his blog learned that his old URL had been claimed by a porn spammer, much to the surprise of his wife's grandmother who went to read his site. (To make matters worse, the pornographic story coincidentally used his wife's name as one of the protagonists of the story.)

Protect your reputation; keep hold of your blog's URL.

Chuck Colson responds to the conclusion of Tempting Faith, by David Kuo, the disillusioned former staffer in President Bush's office of faith-based initiatives.

But Kuo is dead wrong to suggest that that Christians ought to enter into a time of "fasting" from politics. These words, which I wrote in 1987, that so influenced David are true today: "Christians need to influence politics for justice and righteousness." But we must do so "with eyes open, aware of the snares . . . Today Christians may find themselves suspect -- I have experienced this myself -- to the very people on whose side they are fighting. But that is the price they must pay to preserve their independence and not be beholden to any political ideological alignment." That's what I wrote in 1987; that's what I mean today.

Fasting from politics is the exact opposite of what I taught David Kuo, however. Only by continuing to fight for our beliefs, regardless of the temptations, compromises, or being called "nuts," can we achieve the kind of moral reform and protection of human rights that Christians throughout the centuries and in every culture work for.

This is why Christians must never "fast" from politics. And it's why Christians, of all citizens, ought to be lining up to vote on Tuesday. Do your civic duty because you'll do your duty to God in the process.

And to abandon the battle on behalf of the sick and the suffering, the prisoner and the unborn: That would be a true sin.

RELATED: Democrats are making a strong pitch for the support of Values Voters, particularly in the South. Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. is calling himself pro-life, but Kathryn Jean Lopez says that as a congressman he hasn't voted that way:

According to the National Right to Life Committee, Ford's claim to be pro-life "is radically at odds with Ford's 10-year voting record in the U.S. House. Overall, Ford has voted against the pro-life side 87 percent of the time." Among his most notable votes cast on this front, Ford voted against "Laci and Conner's Law," which recognizes an unborn child who is injured or killed in the commission of a federal crime as a child and crime victim. Even though the bill was not explicitly about abortion, abortion groups considered its implications and thought long term -- if we give in here, will it hurt us later? They knew it could very well, and so they opposed the bill, despite Conner Peterson. And so did Harold Ford, even though all but one member of the Tennessee congressional delegation voted for it.