It is deeply flawed in its statements and (for lack of a better word) arguments.  Juvenile is a good descriptive of it.  But I will concede that despite  its problems, God may use it (that the devil might also use it is another, less cheerful, possibility).  God can use flawed people preaching flawed messages in a flawed medium.  That’s the premise of the video (unless the creator of it is so arrogant as to deny that there could be any flaws in the areas enumerated).  But if that’s true, then the entire case against religion collapses.  If Jesus makes use of flawed people, preaching, organizations. etc… why would we hate religion as somehow too impure for Christians to sully themselves with?  Wouldn’t we rather consider it the medium through which the gospel is preached and Christian community and doctrine preserved and protected?

Answering a question about health care Monday morning, Mr. Romney said he would allow individuals to have their own insurance because it would provide the insurance company with an incentive to keep its clients healthy.  “It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them,” Mr. Romney said. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”  He added: “You know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say, ‘You know, I’m going to get someone else to provide that service to me.’”

Still, this context may need a snappier response.  My suggestion, in the event that the Democrats go all in on this line of attack, would be ads along these lines.

“Hi, I’m Nathanael Blake and when our insurance agent wasn’t doing a good job, my wife and I got a new one.  When a person or company treats us badly we don’t have to continue to give them our money, but can take our business elsewhere.  This freedom is so basic that as Americans we don’t even think about it most of the time, we just do it.  Why then is Barack Obama attacking Mitt Romney  for praising this freedom and saying he likes being able to take his business to those who give him good service?”

The reality is that only three shots from two officers is remarkable restraint in this sort of situation.  This isn’t TV, where it’s easy to incapacitate someone with a gun.  In the real world, someone who’s wounded may return fire and bullets can miss.  Training for this sort of situation doesn’t teach a magic leg shot that gets the perp to drop his gun and surrender, it focuses on ending the threat, which means shooting to kill.  If I were in the cops’ shoes, I would have probably entered the clip, center mass.  That’s certainly my plan if I ever have to pull a gun to defend myself, because in that sort of situation I will have made the calculation that it’s me or them, and I don’t want to be the one who dies.  The goal in a situation where one is threatened with potentially lethal force is involved is not to win with the minimal amount of force required, but to remove the threat as quickly and safely as possible, and that means shooting to kill.  All that to say that only three shots is remarkable restraint, not overkill.

Notre Dame lost the Maybe Next Year Bowl on (what else?) an interception thrown into double coverage in the end zone.  Surely somewhere there’s a booster who can pay Heisman winner RGIII to take his last year of eligibility to Notre Dame…  But seriously, the QB situation this year was the difference between 8-5 this year and a BCS bowl, and next year will be the same.  Yes, there will be other areas to address (the secondary, who will replace the best receiver in school history) but the Irish will live or die based on whether Brian Kelly can put the position in good hands.

Meanwhile in Iowa the results were surprisingly good.  Romney and Santorum in a dead heat, with Ron Paul following.  I think Romney will be the nominee (and he should have it wrapped up by the time I get to vote in the VA primary), but I agree with Ross Douthat that Santorum and Paul will sharpen him better than the other candidates.

It’s not just a matter of loosening morals.  The temptation to sexual sin is always with us, and there was never a golden age of Christian sexual purity.  Rather, wealth and technology have taken much of the sting out of the natural consequences of casual promiscuity and family breakup.  Abortion, antibiotics, latex and the pill have made sexual sin, if not worry-free, at least less likely to destroy one’s own life (the lives of humans in utero aren’t considered in the calculation).  The wealth of our nation ameliorates some of the most obvious natural consequences of divorce, as does the fact that the household has gone from being economically productive to a consumer of production that is located elsewhere.  In short, the penalties for breaking Christian sexual morality are much reduced.

On the other side, the incentives to break it are greater than ever.  This includes sexual pleasure, not because the biochemistry that makes sex enjoyable has changed, but because one is told by the church to forgo longer.  The small-c catholic church has had almost no response to the dramatic rise in the age of marriage.  The pressure is not simply cultural (considered as pop culture) but educational and (above all) economic.  The message is simple: if you want to succeed, delay marriage and procreation (an additional point is: if you want to succeed, separate your family and your career).  And American Christians largely buy into this.  Rather than resisting this system, they preach it as sound advice, little realizing the contradiction.

Hence my delight in Mead’s post, for it is encouraging to see that there are others who have considered these problems and are bringing them to the attention of American Christians.