WNQ Radio

Here's a new endeavor. WNQ Radio is now live as of today, with our first episode being an interview with Barack Obama.
(note: I'm not actually interviewing Obama. I used a bunch of clips from the audiobook of 'Dreams From My Father' and rearranged them, etc. [***WARNING: there's a couple of pretty bad words in here.***] Bear in mind that the stuff that he's saying may or may not actually be quotes of himself saying things. Before you leave any comments about how I'm evil, please consider that this is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at amusement and nothing more, although I'd like to think that I make a couple of good points here and there.)

Justify My Thug

I ain't never been smacked; a nigga better keep his hands
to himself or get clapped for what's under that man's belt
I never asked for nothin I don't demand of myself
Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Death before dishonor and I tell you what else
I tighten my belt 'fore I beg for help
Foolish pride is what held me together through the years
I wasn't felt which is why I ain't never played myself
I just play the hand I'm dealt, I can't say I've never knelt
before God and asked for better cards at times to no avail
But I never sat back feelin sorry for myself
If you don't give me heaven I'll raise hell
'Til it's heaven

Justify my thug!
My thug.. (hoping..)
My thug.. (praying..) for you
to justify my thug...
-"Justify My Thug," on The Black Album by Jay-Z

So I was listening to this song the other day and it got me thinking. Hova's basically asking God to understand that he hustled and sold drugs on the street back in the day because it was the only thing he could do... right?
And what's all this talk of justification? In my concordance, the word "justify" is defined as "declare guiltless." It's used a lot in Romans 8 in the context of "being justified by faith in Christ" (v.16) which falls into the broader context of being dead to sin and alive in Christ. Is Jay-Z asking God to wipe out his 'thug'? Or is he asking for another definition of "justify," which is "show or prove to be right or reasonable"? In other words, does he want God to look at his past and not judge him for it, because it was that which was right and reasonable at the time? The first sense is a matter of faith; the second is a plea for a system without standards. And he can't have both.
God's justification isn't just a shrug of the shoulders with an "it's okay." Sin isn't okay, which is why God provides justification in the first place. But I really want to focus on the second sense. What are the thugs in our lives, and how often do we ask God to justify them? Instead of asking for justification qua midnight-hour pardoning, should we be asking for sanctification?
Hopefully I'm not making a mountain out of a molehill here. I just found it interesting is all. Feel free to lambaste me for my chronic overthinking.

Obama: the Christian right has hijacked faith

“But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together,” Mr. Obama said. “Faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked.”

He attributed this partly to “the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.” Yet he said that in traveling around the country he had sensed an “awakening” of an interfaith movement of “progressives.”

There are those on the Christian Right who have blurred the line between faith and politics, to be sure. But "an interfaith movement of progressives" is the same exact thing as that which Obama decries. Anything "progressive" is not Christian in nature, period.
The divisions between us exist because there is a right and there is a wrong. Abortion is wrong. Gay marriage is wrong. Anyone who takes a side contrary to this is wrong, and that's simply how it works due to the nature of final morality. Faith and secular politics can never intermingle because morality ultimately loses (to say nothing of orthodox faith). I simply do not understand how aberrations like this are allowed to continue.

Politicians and spiritual leaders on both sides have used faith as a vehicle for politics and vice versa. But it's a straw man to say that the Right is to blame. Both sides are. But I'd almost rather have my pastor tell me that it's my Christian duty to vote conservatively than for him to tell me to vote for whoever supports abortion and gay marriage, because at least in the first instance he'd probably be right.