Pete Wehner is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His latest column from Commentary Magazine is reposted below:

Perhaps the best indication of how choppy the waters have become for President Obama can be observed in the behavior of his supporters in the media. I specifically have in mind CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who last night, in the immediate aftermath of the Judd Gregg withdrawal, seemed to want to move away from that uncomfortable topic as quickly as possible to focus on what he deemed to be the “larger question”: the GOP’s “war against Obama” and whether the Gregg incident is more evidence that Republicans have “no desire for real bi-partisanship.” When even David Gergen said there was no “war against the White House,” Cooper seemed exasperated; his thesis was just so obvious, don’t you know. Pete Sessions, after all, had said the GOP had learned from the Taliban how to run an insurgent operation. So there.

There was not a single mention of how Obama and Democrats froze out the GOP from the so-called stimulus bill, and how Nancy Pelosi has delighted in making that point. There was no mention of why John McCain, who seems to want nothing more in life than to work across the aisle, considers the legislation to be an abomination. Nor was there any mention of Obama’s gratuitous jabs at Republicans in his appearance before Democrats last week. And there was hardly a critical word about the unprecedented effort to move the Census (which among other things oversees redistricting around the country) into the White House and place it under control of a partisan (Rahm Emanuel) who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 election. Let’s just say that if a Republican administration had tried such a thing, it would have garnered a good deal more attention and outrage among the media.

But there was a piece by CNN’s Tom Foreman which helpfully informed us that Americans clearly still “love” Obama and that while it is “debatable” that there is pork in his almost $800 billion economic legislation, the “accusation” of waste does, alas, have resonance.

Oh, and Anderson Cooper did make clear his disdain for Senator Gregg; he was clearly unhappy that “this guy” held a press conference that upstaged an Obama speech on Lincoln, of all things.

The fact that members of the fourth estate are enraptured by America’s 44th President isn’t news to anyone. But watching these incidents play out is still slightly embarrassing. It’s clear that Cooper and many of his colleagues have a deep, enormous, and emotional investment in Obama. And so when things begin to go badly for their Prince, it’s only predictable that his courtiers rally ’round him.

We’ve heard the details of all the ‘pork’ in the so-called ‘economic stimulus’ bill. What we are not hearing about is at least two specific provisions in the bill which specifically target people of faith for discrimination.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) calls our attention to 

a provision that bans any university or college receiving funds to renovate buildings, from allowing “sectarian instruction” or “religious worship” within the facility. This would in effect bar use of campus buildings for groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Campus Crusade for Christ, Catholic Student Ministries, Hillel, and other religious organizations.

And former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.” 

Animal Collective is a band that has always failed to excite me, and I was ready to dismiss their new album Merriweather Post Pavilion as another excuse for indie hipsters to freak out over nothing. That feeling only increased when indie music websites Pitchfork and Stereogum hailed this album the best of 2009… five days into January.

But then I listened to the thing. And I was pleasantly surprised that it’s actually quite addicting. This is Animal Collective more accesible than they’ve ever been, and it’s not uncommon for you to find yourself dancing throughout the whole album. I doubt it’ll be my favorite album of the year, but it’s a solid A- album in my view.

Here’s the music video for “My Girls”, one of the standout tracks on Merriweather Post Pavilion:

watch?v=zol2MJf6XNE

From John Mark Reynold’s Twitter feed:

Versus Game: If Obama fought Godzilla, Tokyo would be destroyed, but the Post would blame Bush for leaving us vulnerable to monsters.

This excerpt from a chapter titled “God, My Heart, and Media” by Craig Cabaniss in C. J. Mahaney’s Worldliness got me to thinking about how my son and I watch movies:

All too often, we think about neither what we watch nor how much.  Our watching is just inevitable. We watch by habit. We watch because we’re bored. We unwatchingly watch as the TV stays on for background noise. We watch alone or with others. We gather with friends on Friday night and rent a DVD because there’s nothing else to do…

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying it’s wrong to watch television, rent a DVD, surf the Internet, or spend an evening at the cinema. The hazard is thoughtless watching. Glorifying God is an intentional pursuit. We don’t accidentally drift into holiness; rather, we mature gradually and purposefully, one choice at a time. 

Is it possible to glorify God by watching movies and television shows that really have no overt references to God? I think so. But I haven’t always thought so.

My thought process on movie-watching has evolved thanks to my son, Joel. He’s taught me to think about what the movie is before we see it, so rarely are we seeing a movie merely for entertainment purposes only (but certainly we are entertained). Immediately after we see a movie there is often a debriefing about the philosophical/theological implications of the message we have just received.

We’ve had these kinds of engaging discussions after seeing There Will Be Blood, I’m Not There, Synecdoche, New York, Doubt, The Dark Knight, and most every movie we see. They aren’t long discussions. Normally they take place in the car as we drive home from the theatre. But because most movies we see would be labeled by some Christians as “inappropriate” (not because of nudity or profanity, but because there is no overt presentation of the gospel vis-a-vis the name of Jesus being mentioned throughout), they are thoughtful discussions. We are digging together to find truth. Sometimes we don’t agree on what we’ve seen. But we seem to always agree that we are glad we saw whatever movie we saw even if we take different things away from it. 

Cabaniss says above, “Glorifying God is an intentional pursuit.” I would also add, in keeping with the thought he is expressing, that glorifying God is an intellectual pursuit. Loving God with our minds is something I have had to work at intentionally. The heart part (emotion) is often the default part of our worship. Critically thinking about art (movies, music, et al) is how we sanctify the ordinary as we offer it back to the God who gives us every good gift. This is the head part (intellect) of worship, which is more rarely used by Christians in their adoration of God.

When God’s word is used to sift through what we are seeing, movie-going becomes an act of worship as our hearts are moved and our heads are engaged to think critically rather than merely being moved emotionally. 

HT: Stephen Altrogge