John Shore

Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

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Thanksgiving Day, 2008, 6:33 p.m.

In Family, Religion on November 28, 2008 at 9:47 pm

Warm, Still

 

I am too much aware of death

and of its fanged bastard cousin

suffering

whose knowledge of me is, after all, intimate

and who has ever taken pains

to counsel me

But today is Thanksgiving

And so away you

ghosts and goblins

endlessly chewing at my walls

Away, please.

For my wife

sleeps on the couch before me

having eaten her fill

of what on this day God

saw fit

to bequeth us

Outside our door

the weakened light retreats and

the nerveless cold marches forth

sure to catch us

sure to chill us

and she will awaken

and seek my warmth

and

delight

will be ours

still

“Can You Help My (Non-Gay) Husband Feel Like a Bride of Christ?”

In Christianity, God, Jesus, Religion on November 21, 2008 at 7:46 am

Yesterday a young woman sent me an e-mail in which she wrote:

I have a question that I’ve been researching for quite a few days now, with not much success. Recently, my husband tearfully confided to me that he trusts fully in Jesus (since age 6) for his salvation, but he finds it hard to feel the love for God that Christians often speak about. He is a man of integrity—he is kind, compassionate, and generous. He is knowledgeable in the Bible and believes that it is the true word of God.

Is it possible for someone to be a Christian and be reverent to God, but not feel love for him? Is it just more difficult for men to connect emotionally with God?  I have never heard this topic touched on or talked about in any capacity. 

My husband is a highly intellectual individual—a thinker. I want to be able to understand his feelings, but I can’t relate and haven’t heard this issue addressed.  I would be truly thankful if you have any ideas or know of any resources that may expound on these things. 

Here’s the short version of my answer to this earnest, good-hearted wife:

Tell your husband not to worry. His is a problem of language, not soul. Christians use the same language as everyone around them, but oftentimes what they mean by the words they use is so different from what the rest of the culture would mean if they used those same words that a kind of disconnect in the Christian’s mind can result. And nowhere is there a bigger difference between the way Christians and everybody else uses the language than in the way Christians talk about their “love” of Jesus.

Not long after becoming Christian I read about how a believer is meant to be the bride of Christ. My first thought was, “Oh no. I look awful in taffeta.” Then I tried to picture Jesus and me feeding each other cake at our wedding reception, and me getting it all over my veil, and everyone laughing and laughing until we all remembered that it’s wrong to be gay.

See? It’s a problem of language. I’m not a bride; I’m never going to be a bride. Jesus never got down on one knee and proposed to me. I would have loved to see his line of groomsmen, but … no. (I’m voting that his best man would be Isaiah.)

I think Christians feel stress over the way their emotions don’t fully accord with the language they use when they talk about God. I can say I love Jesus, but the relationship I’ve then connected with that word is so radically unlike any other relationship with which I ever connect that word that I’ve automatically set myself in uncharted territory. As much and as readily as we talk about Jesus as if he were an actual, living, corporeal being, he’s not. We can’t actually, literally walk with Jesus. We can’t hold his hand. We can’t get into anything like a normal conversation with him. We can’t send him a letter, phone him, hug him, tousle his hair, or buy him a tie he has to pretend to like for Christmas. The relationship we have with Jesus isn’t anything like any other relationship we ever have with anyone—and yet we talk about it using the exact same words we use to talk about all of our other earthly, loving relationships.

I think this perpetual linguistic dichotomy causes Christians stress and even doubt. I think Christians hear other Christians rhapsodizing about Jesus as if he really were their husband or lover or friend, and then they, following suit, say the same things about their relationship with Jesus—and then secretly feel weird because of the disconnect between the language they’ve used and the reality of the relationship they’ve used that language to describe. I think they fear that disconnect they’ve sensed is an indication that they’re in some way disconnected from God. I that’s what happened with this woman’s husband. I think it speaks volumes about the quality of his relationship with Christ (not to mention of his marriage) that he would be honest enough that perceived disconnection to bring it to his wife.

Young man: Fear not! You’re not suffering from anything more serious than a language issue. You love Jesus, and Jesus loves you. Your problem is that you’re stuck, as are we all, using the only language you have to describe the one relationship in your life for which there is, in fact, no language at all.

 

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Sarah Palin vs Paul’s Directive for Women to be Silent and Submissive

In Religion on November 19, 2008 at 10:28 am

I spend five or six hours every day exploring Christianity with non-Christians. Doing that—being someone whom non-Christians trust enough to do that with—necessarily means being consistently honest about those aspects or practice of my faith that I have every reason to understand will be difficult for non-Christians to accept.

One thing I never do when talking to non-Christians about Christianity is employ as final proof that something is true the fact that it’s in the Bible. Christian theology desrves better than that; Christianity is, if nothing else, absolutely rationally supportable. Believing in the reality of Christ does not mean checking one’s brain at the sanctuary door. Newton, Erasmus, Descartes, Bacon, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Faraday … it’s just not reasonable to claim that the endless number of such people were Christian in spite of their intellectual prowess.

As Galileo said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

Bottom line being: We’re not idiots.

And not being idiots means we can’t shy away from manifest, obvious incongruities about our faith or the way it’s practiced. Doing that would be dishonorable to God; it would mean acquiescing to the idea that Jesus has bequeathed us something of which we need to hide or be ashamed. And of course that’s unacceptable to us Christians; surely each of us holds as our own Paul’s proclamation (at Romans 1:16), “I am not ashamed of the gospel.”

It is in this spirit of honest, forthright engagement with God and his word that I’d like to ask a question that couldn’t help but come to me as I was reading the Bible this morning. I was in 1 Timothy 2, when I read this: “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes …. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.“

Now how in this world could I read that and not think of Sarah Palin? I didn’t want to think of Sarah Palin. I didn’t want to think of anything besides the glory of God’s word. I hardly waded into my Bible this morning looking for trouble. But (alas) there it was.

So I’m honestly and truly asking, simply because I don’t understand and want to: How do Christians who embraced and supported Sarah Palin in particular for her adherence to “traditional” Biblical values reconcile how utterly she violated Paul’s injunctions to women to not wear expensive clothes, to stay quiet, to remain submissive, and to have no authority over men? If vigorously campaigning for Vice President of the United States (while, as we all know, wearing expensive clothes) isn’t in direct, overt, purposeful, and sustained opposition to all four of those things, then … then King Kong was a leprechaun. I would think evangelicals and Biblical fundamentalists would reject Ms. Palin for … well, for one, so ambitiously seeking authority over men.

What do I say to non-Christians when they assert that Christians are being blatantly hypocritical and even opportunistically bigoted when they use Paul’s words as justification for the condemnation of homosexuality, and at the same time ignore Paul’s very explicit words when doing so suits their own personal desires and ambitions? How do we use Paul to argue for California’s Proposition 8, but not use Paul to argue against Sarah Palin?

As a believer in the gospel who is constantly engaging with non-Christians about Christ, I’m sincerely asking my fellow believers: What should my answer to that fair question be? I’m pretty good at logic, and at a single thought can be filled with the liberating, redemptive power of the Holy Spirit. But for the answer to this one question I’m afraid I have to rely upon the wisdom of others. Please help out a brother if you can.

(Oh, and please don’t say that 1 Timothy 2 was meant by Paul only as instructions on worship. I know that many of our Bibles say “Instructions on Worship” right before 1 Timothy 2. But that’s an utterly people-inserted title. There is virtually nothing in the text itself to indicate that Paul isn’t prescribing proper behavior for all Christen women at all times.)

 

Extremely pertinent post o’ mine: Ecclesia Reformatat Semper Reformanda.

 

 

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What? Me, Critical?

In Christianity, God, Jesus, Religion on November 13, 2008 at 10:03 am

In response to yesterday’s piece, Sunday School: What a Drag. Literally!, I got a note from a reader that had the reprehensible quality of compelling me to cogitate. I am anti-cogitation! Cogitation is an abomination of an irritation that brings procrastination if not consternation to the creation and assimilation of my situation.

The thrust of Mr. Communication’s question to me was, “Why are you so negative? First you wrote about how badly Christians treated your wife, then about how your church insisted that you sign an anti-gay statement, and then the thing about the Sunday school teacher. For someone who’s a Christian, you sure do spend a lot of time criticizing Christians.”

So that made me think. Though it’s true that blogging some 25,000 words a month means almost necessarily writing about everything (and if you’re a regular reader of mine, you know I do), a preponderance of the evidence suggests that at least lately I have been about the business of, shall we say, gently rebuking my fellow Christians. So I thought I might think about that fact.

And you know what I concluded? Good for me! (Um … if I do say so myself.) I should be criticizing Christians. I should be doing more of it. If Christians don’t criticize the way Christianity is practiced and presented to the world, then who will? To whom else would we listen? To whom else do we ever listen? (Oh, sure, my book I’m OK–You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop launched a whole rash of books about how Christians look to non-Christians—but to whom else were we listening before that, I mean?)

And just for the record, or whatever, I don’t actually “criticize” anyone. All I do is relay stuff that Actually Happened. I was dragged out of that Sunday school class. I was rejected by my church for declining to sign that No Gays Here document. People at that same church did treat my wife poorly. The evangelist in the orange cap did violate the Great Commandment by screaming at my wife and me. Those aren’t guesses, exaggerations, or fabrications. They’re truths.

I take Jesus’ revelation that the truth will set us free as seriously as I take anything in my life. I think we all do. I think we all understand that lies and pretense are the lifeblood of hypocrisy and corruption. It follows that I’m naturally and viscerally repelled by any form of lie, hatred, or ignorance perpetrated in the name of the Prince of Peace. It makes me isane. It makes me … well, write.

I love and absolutely believe the story of Christ as we have it in the Bible. If I didn’t feel as strongly as I do about Christianity, I couldn’t have poured into the book Being Christian so much of … well, everything I have. I couldn’t have written my apologetic, Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do The Things I Do, by God. I’m OK would have remained a formless idea. It’s true enough that I’m often not thrilled with Christians who dishonor their professed religion by acting boorish, arrogant, and hypocritical. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with them, as, together, we all learn to better and more faithfully follow Christ. (And it definitely doesn’t mean that I’m unaware of when I, too, have acted like a boorish, arrogant hypocrite. Which I pretty much only don’t do when I’m asleep.)

I see every Christian as my brother, my sister, my mother, my father.

I know we’re all in this together—whether, at any given time, we like it or not.

 

 

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Sunday School: What a Drag. Literally!

In Christianity, God, Jesus, Religion on November 12, 2008 at 9:26 am

I waved my hand in the air. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” I said. “If God is love, I don’t understand why there’s hell.” What my Sunday school teacher wasn’t understanding, though, was why the new kid in class wouldn’t be quiet.

I’d never been in Sunday school before. Irrefutably proving once and for all that Christians were bonkers was the fact that they apparently couldn’t get enough school in their lives. But we were new to our neighborhood, and my dad, a salesman, had decided we should all attend church. And right off the bat I had learned that adults went to church, while their kids got shoveled off to some place that I was rapidly discovering was modeled on Actual School, but wasn’t.

For sure my new Sunday school teacher, Miss Quinn, hadn’t liked my latest question. She hadn’t liked any of my questions. I had asked them by way of participating, by showing that I understood that I was now in a school that was all about God.

Plus, I had gotten pretty immediately into it. Who doesn’t want to know all they can about the absolute ruler of the entire universe?

“The reason there is hell,” answered Miss Quinn with a studied patience “—although that is a bad word, class, that we must never, ever use—is because that is where people who do bad and evil things end up as their punishment for disobeying God.”

I shot my arm back in the air. It was obvious that somehow my relationship with my latest teacher had gotten off on the wrong foot—but I was confident she’d get back to her natural state of liking me if I asked a really good question that demonstrated with what care I was paying attention. Plus, I was genuinely curious.

I saw Miss Quin’s neck tense a bit as she looked at me. “Yes?”

“If God is all-powerful and all-knowing,” I said, “then before a person is even born, God must know if that person is going to hell or not, right?” Miss Quinn’s expression made clear she had not yet been moved to cuddle me. “But why would God make anyone just so they could spend eternity in hell?” There. I’d delivered the coup de’ cuddle.

“What did I just say about cursing?”

“You said not to,” offered a shiny-faced boy I instantly hated.

“That’s right, Bobby. I said not to curse.” To me Miss Quinn said, “And yet you chose to curse anyway, didn’t you? Why do you think that is?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just … I was just asking a question about … I mean … how do I talk about … that place, without actually calling it hell?”

The class gasped.

“What is the matter with you?” said Miss Quinn.

“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. I swear. I mean, I don’t swear. I mean, I try not to swear if I can help it. I only wanted to ask a question about … that place. That’s all.”

“Well, you’ve asked enough questions for today. Why don’t you just sit there quietly and not ask any more questions, okay? That will be fine.” Having properly dispatched of me, Miss Quin turned back to her chalkboard.

Having apparently been born without the Shut-Up gene, I was talking before I could stop it.

“That’s not fair. I asked a real question. This is supposed to be Sunday school, right? You’re supposed to learn stuff in school, not be told you can’t use the words you have to use to ask the questions you need to ask to learn the stuff you’re supposed to learn. What kind of crazy trap is that?”

“Young man!” yelled Miss Quinn. “Sit down!”

“And that’s not even the point! The point is that I asked a real question. If God is all-knowing—if he knows everything that’s going to happen before it happens—and someone ends up … down there, then God must have known all along that that person was going to end up down there. If he let that happen to that person, then how can God be as loving as you said he was? If God didn’t know that was gonna happen to that person, then how can he be all-knowing? And if he knew the person was going down there, and wanted to change it, but couldn’t, then how can God be all-powerful? Now aren’t those good questions?”

Miss Quinn came charging down the row of desks directly at me. “Oh,” I said, and waited for her arrival. She grabbed my arm, and with it yanked me so violently forward that it knocked me off my feet.

“I can’t believe you’re actually dragging me out of class!” I cried. I called out to my classmates. “Those were good questions! Good questions!” With my arm wrenched painfully over my head I then fell silent, and watched the ceiling of the classroom going by.

 

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We’re All Trying; I’m All Crying

In Christianity, Politics, Religion on November 4, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Hey, all. First of all, thanks to those deluded kind people who joined my Facebook fan page. As (I think?) I’ve said, it’s good for me that people do that, insofar as just now a Considerable Media Entity is deciding whether or not they want to partner up with me, and thereby help turn my little writing career into a larger one.  I am of course hoping these guys Vote for Me. Being able to show this company an Actual Fan Base would help them do that, for sure.

So tell your friends to join! Let’s get out the vote, people! All anyone has to do is know my stuff, like it, go to my fan page, hit the “Become a Fan” link in the box beside my mug, and presto-hey: one more body with which to impress the not-entirely-easy-to-impress people I’m trying to impress.

With my writing.

Well, I’ll just have to pray they don’t actually read this.

Hey, I cried today—which, for me, is like a vulture saying, “Hey, I tried tofu today.” I use my tear ducts so rarely I wasn’t even sure I still have them. But there I was, standing in my little voting booth this morning, staring at the words, “Barak Obama and Joe Biden.” And suddenly I was seeing through water.

The constant, overwhelming emotions I feel about this election have virtually nothing to do with politics. They have instead everything to do with sheer fact that, in the year of our Lord 2008, a black man might very well be elected president of the United States of America.

I never thought such a thing could happen in my lifetime. And whether or not Obama actually wins the election isn’t even almost the point. The point is that he’s gotten as close as he has.

Again: Not about politics. About history. About the final triumph of right.

I tell you, I am feeling the joy of God’s own light tonight.

 

(Related pieces o’ mine: Praise God: A Politician Finally Said Something Real About Racism and Top 5 Things Modern Racists Say. Also, for some entirely serviceable humor—featuring funny animal pics!—search “barack obama” in the search box down the right-hand column of my blog.)

Godly Lessons I Learned From a Dog

In Christianity, God, Humor, Religion on October 22, 2008 at 5:02 am

As I promised in my recent post I’ve Finally Gone to the Dogs, here are the Godly Lessons I learned from a white poodle I called Munch over the two weeks (which ended yesterday) in which she was in my care:

Just like Munch loved chasing me, running from me, barking at me, and biting my toes as she and I maniacally chased each other up and down the stairs of our three-story townhouse, God, while granting me endless hours of joyous interactive fun, could also, at a moment’s notice, cause me to flip head over heels onto my living room floor and die.

Just like Much totally surprised me by being able to fit through our front gate, so must I be encouraged by remembering that the inner me is considerably thinner than the outer me.

Just like Munch can’t see another dog without desperately desiring to play with it, so I must yearn and even strain to be with God, only not in such a way that I whine, choke myself, and cause others to hope I don’t become physically unrestrained.

Just like when Munch returns from a walk and then spends 15 minutes furiously throttling the dishrag I tied into knots so she could pretend it was one of the many birds she just spent 20 minutes being thwarted from attacking, so I must always be sure to resolutely take between my teeth my own knotty issues, and to keep chewing them over until I forget all about them because I suddenly remember that I’m starving to death.

Just like Munch can’t go five steps on her walks outside without stopping to sniff and intensely concentrate on something, so I must remember with gratitude that God has seen fit to make it so that I don’t go out of my mind with joy every time I see a little pile of dog You Know What on the sidewalk.

Just like over the course of a week Munch so determinedly scratched at a spot on her upper front shoulder that it became bald, red and raw, so I must remember how I, too, can take a relatively minor discomfort and, through obsessive diligence, turn it into something that ultimately causes people to take me to a doctor.

Just like if I so much as think about going into the kitchen Munch appears at my feet wondering what meal we’re going to share together, so I must remember that, sooner or later, God rewards the vigilant.

Just as Munch decided straight away that her greatest nemesis was the apparently evil beagle who lives a few doors down from us, so must I remember that just because someone is cute doesn’t mean I can’t wish they’d explode.

Just like it’s impossible for Munch not to instantly entangle herself in her leash if for a moment while walking her you sit down for a moment to enjoy the view, so I must remember that while God has me on the leash that is my love and devotion to him, I could still manage, through sheer stupidity, to choke myself to death.

Just like Munch habitually gnawed on herself in places I wish she didn’t even have, so I must remember to thank God that, in his wisdom, he limited the limberness of humans.

Just like her owner returned and took Munch away, I must never forget that, no matter how much fun I’m having, all good things must come to an end.

If you would like to see Actual Footage of Munch the poodle, please feel free to suffer through at least some of the video in which she makes a cameo appearance here.


Beyond the Christianization of Abortion

In Christianity, God, Politics, Religion on October 20, 2008 at 1:34 pm

(This is a follow-up to my last post, Will God Forgive Me if I Don’t Vote for McCain?.)

With all of my heart, I wish everyone was Christian. I wish divorce, drug abuse, alcoholism, premarital sex, spousal abuse, racism, and every sort of the exploitation and moral degradation amidst which we all live everyday was gone forever, burned away in the bright light of God’s infinite, immediate love for each and every one of us.

I don’t live in that place, though. I live in this one. This world. This place. This country.

Many in America are, as I am, Christian. Many ain’t. But all we Americans live under the same form of government, one mandated by its defining documents to forever endeavor to balance itself, and by so doing us, on the thin line between Doing the Right Thing and Doing Whatever You Want.

You can drive whatever car you want—as long as it’s licensed, and you don’t drive it too fast.

You can make all the money you want—as long as you give the government the percentage it requests.

You can have all the sexual congress you want—as long as the act isn’t contingent upon you or your partner getting paid for it. And so on.

I’m against abortion. I’m not against it because I’m a Christian (although a deeper knowledge and love of God can’t help but give me a deeper knowledge and love of people). The primary reason I’m against abortion is because I’m human. Everyone thinks abortion is horrible. Everyone wishes no one ever felt the need to get one. Nobody gets or agrees to an abortion cavalierly; no one thinks of it as just another form of birth control.

Everyone loves babies. Everyone thinks babies are cute. No one wants anyone else to murder babies.

All people love babies. Okay? So could we Christians please stop talking about anyone—especially anyone who’s actually been nominated for the office of President of the United States—as if they “support” the murder of babies? That’s beneath us. We’re better than that. And so are the “baby murderers” at whom we keep pointing fingers, waving signs, and screaming.

I think that when it comes to abortion, we Christians have got to agree that virtually everyone agrees on the end we all desire, which is no one ever wanting an abortion, ever. Christians, atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, car salesmen, budget analysts, movie stars, my insane next door neighbor with the rabid rottweiler—it’s a certainty that 99.99% of people alive on the planet right now would agree that in a perfect world every baby would be welcomed and loved and cherished and fed and dressed in the coolest little baby clothes ever.

That relative to abortion everyone wants the exact same end—no abortions, ever—isn’t in question. It’s only the means by which we attain that end about which we have varying ideas. But agreeing on the end of our desire for a matter should make for a very definite cooling of the rhetoric of the conversation about the means by which we might most effectively achieve that end.

Which brings me to the point of how I can be a Christian, against abortion, and for Obama.

Obama doesn’t support the murder of babies. I think it’s safe to say that he’s against the murder of babies, given that literally all sane humans are. Obama simply feels that ultimately, when a woman is struggling to make a decision about whether or not she should have an abortion, it’s beyond the purview of its function for the government to step in and make that decision for her.

That’s it. That’s the entirety of his equation. The man is a Christian; he loves babies (he had babies, after all); he wishes no woman ever wanted an abortion; he doesn’t think that ultimately it’s the government’s job to invade so deeply into the lives of its citizens that it essentially robs from them the power to make up their own minds about such an exceeding difficult, deeply personal matter.

That’s a dense enough calculation to make—but it’s not an immoral one. It has as much to do with an analysis of history as it does morality. It’s about process, not purpose. Obama thinks the best way to avoid abortions is to dedicate all possible resources to minimizing the conditions most likely to result in a young pregnant woman deciding, for any of the terrible reasons people make such decisions, that she simply can’t have her baby. He thinks the most effective way—I daresay he believes the most moral way—to eradicate abortion isn’t through laws, but through education.

I can respect that approach. I get it. I’m not in any particular hurry to give the government any more power than it’s already given itself (especially in the last few years) to invade peoples’ personal lives. And I know what education does for people. It changes everything about them and their lives. It opens up to them vast ranges of possibilities. It gives them the power not to get into the kinds of situations that force desperate, life-denigrating actions and decisions in the first place.

I like Obama’s approach to this problem. I think it’s realistic, morally sound, and demands a deeper comittment that’s more likely to actually stop abortions than would simply passing laws against them. All that tends to happen when you criminalize abortion is that people travel further to get them, get them in deplorable underground “clinics,” or do it themselves. (Rich people, of course, continue to get them as they always have.)

What I think is important overall, especially right now, is that we Christians remember that being Christian gives us no uniquely deep claim on abhorrence to abortion. Abortion is as much a “secular” concern as it is a Christian one. When I was a teenager a Muslim friend of mine got an abortion, and the tears her father cried about it were as real as any that ever fell to earth.

I’m a Christian; I wish no one ever wanted an abortion; I wish our economy wasn’t in such harrowing tatters; I wish we could gracefully exit the two wars we’ve now been fighting for a year longer than we fought in World War II; I’m voting for the guy whom I think offers America its best chance to gain back its power and dignity.

And you, of course, will vote for whichever team you think best prepared and qualified to do that.

We’re both moral people. We both love our families, our parents, our babies. We both want what’s best for everyone.

Most importantly, we’re all of us—no matter our convictions or lack thereof about God—brothers and sisters.

 

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Will God Forgive Me if I Don’t Vote for McCain?

In Christianity, Politics, Religion on October 19, 2008 at 11:42 am

Yesterday a visitor to my blog left this comment for me (on, weirdly, my “My YouTube Videos” page): “How could any ‘christian’ [sic] even consider voting for anyone other than Senator McCain!”

In that challenge there’s much implied and assumed—but I doubt its author was looking for an in-depth conversation about, say, the differences between a democracy and a theocracy. She was being personal.

So, speaking personally: I like John McCain. I’m not thrilled with the way he’s handled this presidential campaign, but I believe that once in office he’d settle down and do a good enough job. I’m afraid I have to say, however, that what got me waving adiós to Mr. McCain was his choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. There was no way I personally could avoid thinking that choice had a good deal more to do with McCain’s immediate need to get elected than it did with any long-term vision of his for getting America back on track.

When he first picked Palin, I thought, “Wow! Excellent way for Our Man John to snag disaffected Clinton women and the right-wing Christian vote he’s so thoroughly alienated. Sweet!”

Then I saw her interviewed, and realized that half the women who shop at my Albertsons (which, since I’m a house-husband, is about the only place I ever see anyone at all) are as prepared as Sarah Palin is to be vice-president of the United States—let alone president. (And I know that’s not true—or fair. It’s probably only a third. Kidding! It’s a fourth.)

I could be wrong about that. Yesterday I thought sautéing onions and mushrooms in canola oil instead of olive wouldn’t compromise the flavor of my spaghetti sauce–and I sure was wrong about that. But whaddaya gonna do? Life is a series of judgment calls. You gather your information; you decide; you execute; you hope you did the right thing; if you didn’t you try to fix it.

In matters of consequence we Christians, of course, add to that first step, “Ask God.”

If, when you ask God for whom he wants you to vote, the answer you receive is, “Vote McCain!” then you can tune out the media, because you’re definitely decided.

I personally won’t be voting for McCain, because I fear the lack of judgment I believe he’s too often shown during his current campaign. But if God does tell me to change my vote, you can trust I’ll have a “McCain/Palin” sign in my front yard faster than you can say, “This way to heaven!”

Until then, all I can do is all any of us can do, which is make my best call according to my best lights. I’ve got good friends—real friends, people of God whose judgment I’ve come to respect and rely upon—who are voting for McCain. I’ve got dear friends who think Obama is the bomb. We sometimes get together, all of us, and we talk, and exclaim, and expound. And after a long, heartfelt prayer, we all return to our homes and loved ones. And all along the way each of us hopes and prays that this country, which we so passionately love, is going to be all right.

(Postscript: After I wrote the above, I clicked on to the website of The New York Times. And there I saw today’s headline story [Powell Backs Obama and Criticizes McCain Tactics] about how, on this morning’s Meet the Press, Republican Colin Powell had endorsed Obama. A bit from the article: “Mr. Powell told Tom Brokaw, the host of Meet the Press, that he had been disturbed in recent weeks by the negative tone of Mr. McCain’s campaign …. Mr. Powell, who was secretary of state in the first term of President Bush, also said that he was concerned about Mr. McCain’s selection of Ms. Palin as his running mate and had come to the conclusion that she was the wrong choice. ‘She’s a very distinguished woman [said Powell], and she’s to be admired, but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.’”)

 

Follow-up to this post: Beyond The Christianization of Abortion.

 

Related post o’ mine: Does the Holy Spirit Vote Republican?

I’ve Finally Gone to the Dogs

In Christianity, Humor, Religion on October 11, 2008 at 8:37 am

A while back I told some Christian publishing and writing muck-a-mucks with whom I was having lunch that Crosswalk.com had engaged me to write a blog for them (everything I post here on “Suddenly Christian” also runs on Crosswalk and Christianity.com).

“Oh, no,” said one of my lunch-mates, an author of “Christian Living”-type books. “I’ve done work like that before. It drives you crazy. You have to turn everything that happens to you into a little story lesson about God.”

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I pretty much never do that. But that guy’s statement created in my head a kind of ongoing comedy routine, where I always imagine having to turn something I’m seeing or experiencing into one of those little pat Christian Life Lessons About God that pastors and Christian authors are always boring you to death with. Like, if I’m waiting in line at a Starbucks for a cup of coffee, I’ll think … “Waiting for God is just like waiting for a cup of coffee. You want that rich, full, warm, galvanizing experience—but you don’t quite have it yet. To get it you have to wait until the time is right—and only God knows when that is. Like Matthew said before he quit his day job as a tax collector and started following Jesus, “C’mon already! Fork it over!” Poor Matthew. He clearly drank too much coffee. But like that oft-chagrined disciple, we, too, must wait around in a cramped little space with people who have morning breath that could knock out a Rottweiler. For God is the sweet mint that so many of us fail to ingest before we venture outside …” and so on, until my coffee’s ready, or the light’s changed, or the debris from the accident’s been cleared away, or whatever.

It’s stupid, but … whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway, two days ago a woman who works with my wife Cat dropped off her dog for us to take care of for ten days while she goes to visit her family of, apparently, dog haters. (Kidding! I have no idea why she didn’t take her dog with her. I know she’s flying some place far away. Where, apparently, there’s no oxygen. Kidding! But, seriously: God is like travel plans you don’t really understand. You know that after a long journey you’ll end up somewhere, and chances are that place will be delightful. But you’re not sure how to pack for the trip, are you? Does God give provide dental floss? Should you bring your favorite bulky slippers, or pack the little flat ones your niece basically stole from the hospital where she works? For it is not just our souls that we care about, but, let’s face it, our soles.)

Anyway … right.

Dogs. Dogs are huge in publishing right now. People love stories about dogs. I think it’s because dogs are irresistibly cute, emotionally needy, and very easy to please. That is one catnip of a combo. But what do I know about dogs? I’ve always had cats. I’ve had more cats than Old Yeller had fleas. I love dogs—but we’ve never had one, because we’ve always lived in apartments. For some unfathomable reason, apartment owners seem to think cats are less damaging to their surroundings than dogs are. And that’s true—as long as you don’t count the air in it as part of a place’s surroundings.

Anyway, since I’ve been walking, playing, and napping with this dog we’re watching, my brain’s been veritably bombarded with poignant, heartfelt, “What My Dog Taught Me About God” type stuff. Some of which I was going to share with you here. Except now this post is way too long for that. So next time.