My seven years of being away from the inner circles of church life has been a time that has brought seismic changes in my perspective. I joke about being an adversary to my former self, but it is true. A few years ago, I would have locked horns with the likes of my current self.  Maybe, I am just getting crotchety in my old age.  Here are a few of my changed perspectives in the political and social arenas.

I am a cynic concerning political matters because I believe politicians typically get more concerned about re-election and jockeying for power within the political system and within their political party than they do about serving their constituents.

I am not impressed by those who characterize the American President or any other public figure as the Messiah of the Antichrist, i.e., someone who will make or break the country. I have heard it all many times before and it has never proven true. This opinion belies a weak view of our form of government. Think of all it has withstood through the years.

I hate party politics because it never seems to help us arrive at the best solutions, just more partisan wrangling, finger pointing and polarization. The idea of the party with the most power winning out on legislation is rather scary, meaning that our laws about who was in power at the time. I believe that better solutions would be obtained through listening than accusing.

I think our news media is stupid. Sound bites and pretty models who can read copy and keep us caught up with the latest on our celebs do not prepare the electorate to make informed decisions. I have found NPR and PBS to be a wonderful alternative to this kind of nonsense. I reserve a special disdain for the media types whose sole purpose is to rile people up (and boost their ratings) , whether they have the facts or not. We need less heat and more light.

I don’t like Democrats or Republicans because throwing massive sums of borrowed money at problems and expanding the government bureaucracy has never been very efficient, neither has ignoring those problems and wishfully believing that somehow a greed-driven free market economy will magically fix everything. Solutions aren’t that simple to these complex issues and each side would have something to contribute if the other side would listen.

I don’t believe that everyone has equal opportunity in America. They never will because it will continue to be too hard for some and other people simply will not care. That’s not an American problem; it’s a human problem. I believe in providing opportunities and inspiration to lift people to up so they have a more equal opportunity.

I am a proponent of not swallowing a party line and not trusting someone else to develop our opinions for us.