Good Stuff From latest Christian Century and wisdom on the 2 Party system

So you can judge for yourselves instead of listening to what everyone else says about the new revision of the TNIV, Christian Century has an article comparing verses between the NIV and TNIV.
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David Kuo, a former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives says President Bush has failed to support the program as he had promised.
Here is part of the article, reprinted below. He has been a loyal Republican and realizes the difficulties Christian groups have when speaking to those in power.

"From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants," Kuo wrote in an essay for the Internet site Beliefnet. "It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.'"
When Bush ran for president in 2000, he promised $6 billion in charity tax incentives; $1.7 billion for groups that cared for drug addicts, at-risk youth and teen moms; and $200 million for a "Compassion Capital Fund," wrote Kuo, now a contributing editor for Beliefnet. "When he became the president, there was every reason to believe he'd be not only pro-life and pro-family, as conservatives tended to be, but also pro-poor, which was daringly radical," said Kuo.
But in June 2001, the tax incentives were dropped from Bush's tax cut to "make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy," according to Kuo. The White House allocated $600 million to other programs, which is billions of dollars short of what was promised, he said.
"Who was going to hold them accountable? Drug addicts, alcoholics, poor moms, struggling urban social service organizations and pastors aren't quite the NRA [National Rifle Association]," Kuo said. "Charities haven't quite figured out the lobbying thing yet."
link to the full article

And finally, A ProLife Critique of President Bush and his policies by Glenn Stassen, whom partisan prolifers enjoy dismissing because some of those prolifers seem to be more loyal to this administration than to the full prolife cause. The article looks at social conditions and economic conditions which have caused an increase in abortions during the Bush years.
Link

Finally, though not part of the Christian Century package, I read something in my PRISM weekly E-pistle. It is an article by Tony Campolo (which I am sure is marginalizing the truth of the statement) which quotes Bill Clinton (which marginalizes the truth even more) from his speech at his presidential library, with 3 ex-presidents and 30,000 in attendance.

Bill Clinton told us that a couple of weeks before the election, he asked his secretary if he was the only person in America who liked both George Bush and John Kerry. He went on to say to the assembled 30,000 people that he believed both of them were good men who wanted to do what was best for America. He admitted that as candidates each had different worldviews and different political philosophies, but that both were sincere and good people. It is time for all of us to realize that. Among the most insightful things that were said that day was the statement made by Clinton when he told us that America needs both conservatives and liberals in politics. "Conservatives," he contended, "maintain lines that should never be crossed. And liberals have destroyed lines that should have never existed."

I pondered the truth of that statement during the days that followed. Indeed, we all should be grateful that there are conservatives who promote strict adherence to constitutional law and insure that no lines be crossed that would endanger the stability of our government. And all of us should be grateful to those liberals who have challenged those lines that have existed in the past, and often still exist, of discrimination against minorities. Clinton was right. We do need each other. The two-party system is essential if we are to have both the stability and progress our society requires.

It is time for all of us to live out what I saw modeled by our presidents as they recognized that they could be politically opposed to one another while demonstrating what it means to be ?the loyal opposition.? Jesus prayed that we might be one. He meant it for His disciples, but I know he would pray it today for our nation.

I know that many of my partisan friends (yes, on both sides of the aisle) would like to see their party in power with no opposition (definitely the Republicans who complain about Democrats even though they control everything), but this constitution and republic would not survive such a fracture. I know we can get so blinded into thinking that everything we believe politically and philosophically is right and everything the other side says is wrong (see Baptist Press, SBC's Ethics Committee, Move On, Fox News and Air America for examples) but we are all lucky that there is another side keeping our ideas in check and keeping this country stable.