All Posts Tagged With: "Christian"

Satire can be a very powerful tool that can help reveal sobering truths, like this Onion column by Janet Cosgrove, Christian:

Everybody has this image of “crazy Christians” based on what they hear in the media, but it’s just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don’t all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I’m trying to say is, don’t let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.

Like me. I may be a Christian, but it’s not like I’m one of those wacko “love your neighbor as yourself ” types.

God forbid!

I’m here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren’t anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We’re not all into “turning the other cheek.” We don’t spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn’t mean we’re all obsessed with extremist notions like “righteousness” and “justice.”

My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That’s all. Just the core beliefs. You won’t see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.

I’m a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.

But that doesn’t mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.

We’re not all “Jesus Freaks” who run around screaming about how everyone should “Judge not lest ye be judged,” whine “Blessed are the meek” all the time, or drone on and on about how we’re all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God’s love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She’s way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!

But believe me, we’re not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.

We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we’re against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.

When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!

I hope I’ve helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you!

…nor is he a Democrat. He cannot be boxed in, or appropriately represented, by any political party — especially in the American political system. But that doesn’t stop some Christianist pastors from projecting divine partisan preferences upon the Almighty.

Evangelical pastor’s opening prayer at a McCain-Palin rally in Bethlehem, PA, last week —

“O God, we are in a battle that is raging for the soul of this nation. You, O God, have raised up Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for such a time as this … Help them, O God, to strengthen our economy, to keep our taxes and spending low … and grant them the privilege of being elected the next president and vice president.”

Pastor Arnold Conrad at John McCain’s rally in Davenport, IA, last week —

“I would also add, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day.”

If God’s reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, was it not involved in everything between now and January 2001? Was His reputation honored and guarded with an unjust war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children — His created beings? Was His reputation honored and guarded when our country abandoned its fundamental principles by suspending basic human rights — including habeas corpus — and engaging in torture (and blatantly lying about it with legalistic euphemisms)? Was His reputation honored and guarded during one of the most dishonest and secretive administrations of my lifetime?

I agree with the pastor on one thing: “God, I pray that You will step forward and honor Your own name with all that happens between now and election day.” It just might not be the same results this pastor is expecting. I just don’t presume to know what preference God actually has, if any. Both men and both parties fall woefully short of His plan, His desire and His reputation.

It’s very dangerous to inject partisanship into the Christian faith. God is not partisan. God is holy and just. God’s agenda is far bigger than any election or any political party. I don’t believe that God has chosen sides in this election. And pastors should be careful in doing so; to do so unwisely in the name of God is unwise and foolhardy indeed.

I echo what Abraham Lincoln said,

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

That is chiefly why I am no longer Republican… and I am assuredly not a Democrat. In my humble opinion, it’s unwise for God-fearing and Bible-believing churches to do otherwise. Partisan loyalty can divide allegiances. And as Christians, we are to have but one allegiance. Tony Campolo summed it up best:

“Evangelicalism getting wedded to any political party is like ice cream mixing with horse manure. It’s not going to hurt the horse manure, but it sure will mess up the ice cream.”

“The answer — upon even a moment’s reflection — is unequivocally yes.”

So says Douglas Kmiec. He holds the endowed chair in Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University. Prior to that, he was dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He also served as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Here’s more from a letter he authored for a ProLife - ProObama website recently created by the Mathew 25 Network.

Barack Obama’s life has been one dedicated in service to the needs of others.

We are all called to build a culture of life - but there’s more to it than just hoping that the next Supreme Court justice somehow deals with Roe v. Wade. A bad economy is threatening to human life. Women facing the moral tragedy of abortion - are facing it, now, today - and they need a supportive community and tangible help, not condemnation.

As Ronald Reagan’s legal counsel and as a dean and professor at Catholic University and Notre Dame, I have worked to put the law on the side of life where it belongs.

But after 35 years, a new approach is needed. Too many unborn lives are being lost as we wait for judges to get it right. Barack Obama’s strengthening of support for prenatal care, health care, maternity leave, and adoption will make the difference. Studies confirm it.

We are but a few weeks away from a new beginning in America.

I am inspired by what Senator Obama calls “the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation in the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper. That’s the promise we need to keep.”

It is because of the hope of this promise, that I have written Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama. While especially aimed at Catholic citizens, the book and the material here are devoted to opening every heart and mind to the prospect of transcending the partisanship on these difficult issues.

That is the change we need right now. And it is within our grasp.

Fellow Okie blogger Dr. Bruce Prescott examines the Christian response to the campaign slogan ‘country first.”

I have been waiting for the significance of that statement to dawn on someone in the conservative evangelical community, but to date they seem to be blissfully unaware of the idolatrous overtones of their politics.

Christians are warned not to divide their loyalties. We put “God first” or else God is not God in our lives. Nothing in scripture authorizes God’s people to equate their loyalty to God with loyalty to their nation. There is much that forbids it. Jesus commands us to be singlemindedly devoted to God and his kingdom (Matt. 6:24-34). His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).

Christians should read this post. It reflects the distaste I’ve had for the blind nationalism — deceptively described as “true patriotism” — that we’ve seen so pervasive within the American Church, clouding its judgment and dividing its loyalties, whether its members what to admit it or not.

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This just plain irritates me. Jesus is not a Republican (or a Democrat). I believe with all my heart that He cares about more than just the abortion issue and the gay marriage issue.

Indeed, Jesus is pro-life, but pro-life is more than just about pregnancy and birth; pro-life extends beyond the womb and encompasses all the life issues each and every individual all around the world faces, including extreme poverty and obscene disparity of wealth, famine and hunger, genocide and war.

Jesus certainly cares about the sanctity of marriage, but that extends beyond the issue of a union between homosexual couples and encompasses the union and marriages of heterosexual couples, including fidelity and marriage “until death do us part.” Why do the divorce rates within the Christian Church so closely mirror that of divorce rates outside the Church? If fundamentalist Christians, like the gentleman in the video, care so much about the sanctity of marriage, why doesn’t he focus on the truest threat to the “traditional marriage” — rampant divorce rates among heterosexual couples who even occupy our church pews?

Do I condemn those who have been divorced? Absolutely not. I simply want the same standard of “sanctity” to apply to heterosexual couples as these Christianists want it to apply to non-heterosexual couples. I do not oppose civil unions between two adults, heterosexual or homosexual. Marriage is an institution that should remain within the religious context, and it can be defined by the respective religious institution.

What irritates and frustrates me most are that Christianists like this gentleman continue to reduce every election down to these two issues. And how successful has that proven to be. They’ve had eight years of a pro-Christianist presidency with control of at least two branches of government for the first six years. Look at where it has gotten us.

Has there been significant improvement in our nation and in the world with these two issues? Has the Christianist agenda really worked?

There are more issues than just these two that devoted followers of Christ should consider when voting this November. Failing to consider the other bigger issues — poverty, hunger, war, the Gospel message of faith, hope and agape love — is ignoring the larger messages of Jesus and the Bible.

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[Stepping down from my soapbox now.]

Josh Marshall, who publishes the popular progressive blog Talking Points Memo, asks:

Do I just have issues, or does this ad (which Google is currently running on some of our pages) contain an element of cognitive dissonance?

I think it’s a fair question.

There’s certainly no preclusion from Christians being (very) attractive. Yet, based on biblical principles, is “sexyness” supposed to be the primary draw for a Christian looking for a companion, especially in light of the very public condemnations in recent years by Christian organizations and leaders about the moral decay of this country with all the sex in advertising, in television shows and in movies?

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Okie blogger Dr. Bruce Prescott takes issue with an essay by Cal Thomas posted by Baptist Press, in which Thomas writes:

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called “false prophets.”

Dr. Prescott counters:

Somebody needs to tell Cal Thomas and Baptist Press that Barak Obama is running for President, not prophet. … Someone also needs to remind Cal Thomas and the editors at Baptist Press to reread Matthew 7:1-5 and Matthew 7:15-27.

… Constitutionally, there’s no religious test for holding public office in this country. Obama’s running for President, not pastor or prophet.

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It would seem to me that Cal Thomas and like-minded others are usurping the role of the ultimate Judge. I wouldn’t think that is the wisest position to be put oneself in. Fortunately for me and for Barack Obama, there is only One opinion that really matters.

P.S. Talking about “false prophets,” wouldn’t usurping the role of the ultimate Judge make that person a “false judge”?

The Onion* reports on the “benevolence” of a Christian charity that helps to feed the non-gay hungry — a cause that “esteemed” Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern could support.

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The following story comes from a pastor’s blog and it was touching enough that even Andrew Sullivan picked it up on his blog.

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Is this for real? I can’t tell.

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