Easy Hate, Hard Love, Cornel West, and Barack Obama

Two points:

1. His name is JARROD, not Jared.

2. Perhaps in your haste to advance your agenda, you paid about as much attention to his name as you did to the point of his article?

Sadly, posts like the one above seek to ignore the point of this piece-that we are called to act out of love, not anger, not hatred. There is a lot to debate about climate change as well as many other issues facing our world...but we will never find a way to address them unless we learn to engage in civilized, loving discourse. So much of what is posted and read in today's world is said from the anonymity of the Internet, where folks who purport to be Christians resort to all sorts of shameless and sinful actions.

Christ challenged us to love all those around us, especially our enemies, and to offer our love freely and without condition. If we can't engage in simple debate without ignorance and hatred dricing our words, can we REALLY believe that we will be called home by Him?

I struggle every day to restrain my words and thoughts when I see ignorance, hatred and violence, when I encounter attitudes I don't understand, when I hear words which hurt, and are meant to...but Jesus didn't offer us excuses. He offers us hope that we can learn to speak kindly to those whose actions and attitudes are completely repugnant to us.

Please pray for all of us that we can learn to embrace the art of peaceful, thoughtful communication.

Pray For Peace and Dare To Act!

Pray For Peace and Dare To Act!

Here's what I don't get, why is the federal gov't responsible for the "poor and working people?" I argue that that is not the role of a centralized gov't. The Stimulus has proven to create few long-term jobs, according to Sen. Bayh. Why not reform our current entitlements who are nearly bankrupt, instead of creating new and inventive ways of legislating generational theft? How about noting the limitations to power granted to the federal gov't by the Constitution? Why do people want to give more power to few people in Washington? The current administrations polices wishes to expand middle class welfare. The middle class is not "the least of these."

Respectfully, here's what I don't get: why do so many of those who profess to be Christian, and profess to be acting out of their commitment to Jesus Christ, so frequently resort to lying, distortion, demonizing, ridicule, and dehumanization in attempting to bring about their desired results? Why are so many "Christians" content to deliberately employ the tools of Satan in order to "win"? Why do so many "Christians" seem to place their political/philosophical/national identification ahead of their Christian identification?

I think what Jarrod is saying is that Jesus Christ holds us to a different standard in advancing any agenda, and that standard is both TRUTH and LOVE. We can disagree, we can advance actions and agendas, but as Christians, we are bound to do so as Christ would have us do. Christ would not have us lie. Christ would not have us distort. Christ would not have us demonize or dehumanize another created in God's own image. Christ would have us follow him to the cross rather than do so.

We are all fallen, and we are all sinful, and we all fail to measure up. But we are called to stand back away from the brink, to witness and admit our own sinfulness, and try diligently to do better. I think it's a message we all need to heed.

I think it is good that Cornel West recognizes Obama's policies are not working to help the poor and unemployed and is willing to speak out about it. We definitely need to address these issues.

I am very interested in hearing what comes from this climate justice meeting with (or engagment of) leaders in the coal industry. I am also interested in hearing what the green jobs will be and what is the cost effective alternative to coal generated power (that can support manufacturing in this country) you will be proposing to the coal industry leaders.

Jarrod, can you let us know the date and location of this engagement with the coal industry leaders? Also, keep us informed of the what comes out of the engagement in loving truth at the meeting this week.

I think West, along with many Americans, is expecting too much from the President, or any President, when it comes to the economy. Yes, the unemployment level is high. There are people suffering. Yes, the administration is way too cozy with big business and special interest groups. But the government doesn't have some magic policy it can pass to get rid of unemployment. If it did, why wouldn't it do it? Short of the federal government actually employing everyone who's out of work directly, there is little it can do to "create jobs". This recession needs to work itself out. It'll take time. Until it does, the government should continue to provide support in the form of unemployment assistance, food stamps, housing vouchers, etc to the poor that need them to get them through.

Brother Jarrod: My prayers you shall have. Remember the promises in Scripture:

Matthew 21:21 (New International Version)

21Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done

Look at the meeting as the mountain.

Well, I think I can follow Jesus and still be a fiscal conservative.

I agree.

Like they do on Fox, right?

If you follow Jesus, you will lose yourself

I find it so entertaining when folks like you call for civility and like to tell me how to follow Jesus, and then make snide remarks in reply to another post. Remove the plank from your eye before you take a look at my speck.

Me 2

Jones is still in the minority of researchers who overwhelmingly acknowledge global warming.

Here's more truth...there still is officially a Flat Earth Society but it currently is lacking a leader...

"If it is not true, it is not loving. If it is not loving, it is not true." May I apply that to my feelings, personal, political, theological!

This is not the forum to bring up climate change, this is about using love instead of hate and trying to get hate out of our lives. This is not the place to try to derail the topic of the post.

It is so hard to walk that line between standing a firm line and holding respect for those who may disagree with us. It seems that society has lost interest in this practice. If it doesn't enrage us then it's uninteresting. I admire people who can walk this line. They have true emotional intelligence and can control their reactions to situations. It is a skill that I'm am practicing at.

Since you insist on going off topic, here are a few facts.

"Twenty years ago we were going to be literal "toast" by the year 2004 because of global warming. The hoax and the fraud has been exposed."

2009 was the second warmest year on record, second only to 1998. The decade from 2000-09 was the warmest decade on record.: "January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Throughout the last three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade." http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-...

No hoax. No fraud. You are bearing false witness.

"Professor Phil Jones at the Hadley research unit at the University of East Anglia, which is in the UK, has finally admitted there has not been any warming since 1995."

He said that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. There has been warming. But, as he puts it, "Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods." In other words, it's the long-term trend that is important. And if you read his answer to the previous question, that trend is statistically significant, and it's going up: "...the warming rates for all 4 periods [1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998, and 1975-2009] are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other."

Again, you bear false witness by taking Jones' comments out of context.

"Professor Jones also admitted that it was warmer in medieval times which suggests that any warming is not man made."

He most certainly did not "admit" that it was warmer during the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP). He said, first of all, that it's questionable whether the MWP was global in extent. The evidence so far collected suggests it might have been limited to parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Data for the Southern Hemisphere during the same period are scant, so it may not be determinable whether the MWP was global in extent. He then said that if it could be demonstrated that the MWP was global in extent AND if it could be demonstrated that it was warmer then than it is today (note the two qualifications!), then we could conclude that the current warming is not unprecedented. He did NOT say it WAS warmer then; not at all.

Once again, you take him out of context and bear false witness.

Here is the complete transcript of the interview with Dr. Jones. I suggest that you read all the way through, and pay special attention to his answers to Questions C, E and F, before you tell anyone else that "the earth is not warming."

Patricia is right: you speak dishonestly and you mock both Prof. Jones and Jarrod McKenna.

Shame!

Respectfully, here's what I don't get: why do so many of those who profess to be Christian, and profess to be acting out of their commitment to Jesus Christ, so frequently resort to lying, distortion, demonizing, ridicule, and dehumanization in attempting to bring about their desired results? Why are so many "Christians" content to deliberately employ the tools of Satan in order to "win"? Why do so many "Christians" seem to place their political/philosophical/national identification ahead of their Christian identification?

I think what Jarrod is saying is that Jesus Christ holds us to a different standard in advancing any agenda, and that standard is both TRUTH and LOVE. We can disagree, we can advance actions and agendas, but as Christians, we are bound to do so as Christ would have us do. Christ would not have us lie. Christ would not have us distort. Christ would not have us demonize or dehumanize another created in God's own image. Christ would have us follow him to the cross rather than do so.

We are all fallen, and we are all sinful, and we all fail to measure up. But we are called to stand back away from the brink, to witness and admit our own sinfulness, and try diligently to do better. I think it's a message we all need to heed.

My Dear Brother, the authorities can do whatever God leads and directs them towards. Why? God is "I AM!" The Beginning and the End. He allows war and peace, help for the poor and supression of the poor. Donot let your heart be troubled. Remember, to be in Christ Jesus, you must accept being in this world but not of it. Brother Jarrod has decided to pickup his cross daily following Jesus. Now, can you and I do the same?

I agree. jobs started leaving this country long time ago. Greed cannot be stopped via political action. Their actions can be not different that closing drug operation on one cornor and the next day they are around the cornor. We must remember, Obama walked into an unpresidented crisis of Global maginitude. The US was heading towards a depression, just as the coal industry is heading towards collaps. Help to the coal industry with change is better than no help at all?

Well if that was Jarrod's point, he didn't express it very well. I think he would be better served expressing his thoughts about living as Christ would want us to, if he left out his political bias.

The majority of Jarrod's article - 4 out of 5 paragraphs - actually, everything except the very last sentence, clearly spoke to the point of the title. I believe he expressed the point quite well.

Oh well, if Donald Trump calls for it...