Hey folks — I know, I know, I kinda dropped off the face of the internets. I even got an inquiring email or two asking after my welfare and I’m touched by that.

I don’t have much to say right at the moment, but I really wanted to post a segment that aired on The Current on CBC Radio this morning. It’s called “For God and Country,” and it’s a documentary about a soldier who was stationed at Abu Ghraib (after the scandal) as an interrogator. He was a non-denominational evangelical Christian, and after a period of time interrogating jihadis at Abu Ghraib he applied for and received conscientious objector status. He’s very articulate in telling his story as he talks about the moment he realized that all of his Christian role models - Paul, Bonhoeffer, etc. - were prisoners and that given that he would actually be more comfortable in the place of the orange-jumpsuit-wearing jihadi.

It’s not an “America sucks” kind of piece. It’s about the nature of warfare and how incompatible it is with Biblical Christianity.

Go here and click on “part three” at the bottom to listen.

The Billy Grahams have never been good at scandal. It’s just not their forte. In recent weeks they’ve cooked up their own family-style dust-up but it’s remarkable how tame the whole thing is, especially in a year where evangelicals have done far more spectacular things.

The Washington Post revealed that Franklin Graham, he of the Iraq-war-supporting and father-succeeding, wants his parents to be buried on the grounds of the ministry campus he’s building. Well, specifically, he wants Ruth Graham there since it seems like she’s the closer of the two to the pearly gates. Ruth wants nothing of the sort — according to the article, she has a spot picked out in the mountains and she has no interest in being an attraction at Franklin’s theme park. OK, it’s a library, but still — it’s being created as a tourist attraction, and can you imagine all the Protestant pilgrims dutifully parading down the garden path to prostrate at the graves of dead evangelists. (This is where people in my family would say something like, “That’s so Catholic!”)

A lot of progressive evangelicals (for real, sometimes you can put those two words together!) are withdrawing from Franklin Graham and this is likely to only hasten that process.

Democracy Now! had a segment this morning featuring Michelle Goldberg who has just written a book called Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. It looks like her book is about all the typical dominionism stuff, but I thought she had some very interesting observations in the interview. She talked about the way the megachurch phenomenon interacts with the suburban/exurban phenomenon, and how brand new, non-urban areas have no built-in social infrastructure (central coffee shops, community organizations) like older urban environments do, and how megachurches nicely fill that void (with gyms, after-school programs, and often coffee shops as well!). When the megachurch becomes the foundation of the community, it provides the ideal environment to foster the kinds of nationalism and dominionism we’ve seen take hold of the United States.

What brings this all to the headlines is, of course, the Memphis church who has erected a copy of the Statue of Liberty who hoists a wooden cross instead of a torch.

You can listen to or watch today’s Democracy Now! at their website; there are various download/streaming options.

Very seldom to politicans capture my heart the way Barack Obama has. And it’s not just because he’s Really Really Good-looking. No, it’s because he’s charismatic and cool, two other relatively superficial aspects but perhaps slightly more important than physical attractiveness. Two years ago when I was enjoying the theatrical spectacle that was Indecision 2004 and its accompanying partisan conventions (I am continually awed and entertained by the coordinated signage in the crowds, and had to even give the Republicans credit for creating a visual read of their prime accusation against John Kerry by waving thong sandals above their heads and chanting “Flip-Flop!”) Obama’s address to said Democratic gathering was quite enthralling. Finally, a Democrat you can look at and say, “That man could be president.” Indeed, I’d put serious money on him becoming president someday. He’ll beat Hillary to it, at any rate.

Anyway, he’s in the news today saying that Democrats should work harder to “reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans.”

Though I relish any opportunity for a glimpse of Sen. Obama, this is not a particularly newsworthy statement. It is, in fact, common sense, but the Democrats have not been particularly familiar with those two words over the past seven years. Not that the Republicans have, either, but at least they know how to capitalize on people’s church-sponsored fear (of hell, of homosexuals, of anyone in and around the vicinity of the Arab world).

In America, there is no separating religion and politics. If the Democrats want to win, they have to enter the religious arena, which is what Obama is saying here. Here in Canada we don’t have the same dichotomy where anyone who is a “real” Christian automatically votes Republican. Of course, there have been and still are political movements that are girded by a framework of social conservatism and appeals to certain conservative religious communities, mostly here in western Canada, but nothing that approaches the divisiveness in the United States. Even charismatic, totally rad Obama can’t win over the evangelical, conservative Republicans — the Falwell and Robertson crowd, as it were.

But the question is, can the Democrats capture the imaginations of the so-called “religious left?” Does such a movement even exist? The Sojourners crowd is trying to convince people that it does. Or even more importantly, is there centre-of-the-spectrum religious contingent that could be won over, who, when shown that the Republicans appeal to a twisted imperial version of Christianity, would vote Democrat? There has to be, otherwise Christianity is in more trouble than anyone ever thought.

I’m very skeptical. After all, there’s only one Barack Obama and tons of other Democrats who keep on dropping the ball. It’s like Jon Stewart continually asks — “How will the Democrats mess this one up?” It’s not a matter of “if.” I fully expect the Democrats to lose in 2008, especially if they keep up this Hillary Clinton nonsense. I don’t have as much of a problem with Hillary as some, but America is nowhere near ready to elect a woman president, network television dramas notwithstanding. Black men have traditionally achieved rights before women in the US, and there’s no reason to believe the presidency will be any different (another reason why Barack will be president before Hillary). As Ariana Huffington said, if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, it’ll basically be a giant party suicide.

By the same token, if more moderate American Christians don’t stand up to the illogical and unethical tactics of the religious leaders associated with Republican politics, it will only prove to the rest of the world (non-believers, infidels, Canadians) that Christianity is more effed up than we already thought. This kind of bullshit doesn’t serve the Kingdom of God, folks.

technorati tags: barack obama, america, religion, politics, christianity

Eddie(F) at Edge of Faith has a great post up about Bush’s proposed amendment to ban gay marriage.

For some reason, I’ve tried to avoid talking about things overtly political, even though this is ostensibly a religion blog and religion and politics are attached at the hip so often, especially in that country to the south of me — you know, the one founded by people who fled another country where the marriage of religion and politics had turned deathly oppressive.

I guess we all turn into our parents eventually, which is why the United States of America has, two centuries later, followed suit.

Laws passed on what one of the many deities seemingly would want is not only insane, but exactly what the forefathers were against when they crafted the constitution to protect all minorities.

Handing out $5 Starbucks gift certificates to gay people to show the “kindness of Jesus with no strings attached” is an affront to them, especially when many of the same people giving out these cards are the ones supporting Bush to pass this amendment. If you want do to something Christlike for gay people, then lobby your congressperson to oppose this amendment. I don’t see Jesus walking around influencing Rome to establish his kingdom which he said is not from this world to begin with.

Of course, for American Dominionists, the “kingdom” will be brought about by the sweat, tears and force of good Christians.

It’s been said many times and many ways, but I’ll say it again: if Dominionist Christians are so concerned with legislating marriage according to Biblical principles, why aren’t they trying to outlaw divorce?

Then there’s also the fact that this amendment is clearly pre-election pandering to so-called middle America. I agree with Peter David: if I were a conservative American, I’d be insulted.

technorati tags: america, george bush, homosexuality, religion, dominionism

Sometimes when you’re in the majority and attempt to curtail the minority’s rights to the things you enjoy, the minority gets all uppity about it. The minority might refuse to be ashamed of their “deviance” and declare that they are proud to be who they are.

As a card-carrying member of the majority, what do you do?

This.
Often in feminist circles when women are discussing how oppressive the patriarchy is, a man will show up to declare that he too is oppressed! And maybe he is. But not for being male.

This isn’t the same thing, of course, but it’s just as obnoxious.

Visit their about page for more info on the heterosexual agenda. Basically, these folks are ferverent in their defense of heteronormativity. Girls must behave as girls, and therefore must be taught how to behave girlishly by women. Boys must behave as boys, and therefore must be taught how to behave boyishly by men.

Lesser_gods on the Dark Christianity LJ community said:

I would like to see someone pointing out to them that, by their logic, it would still be okay for lesbian couples to raise girls, and gay male couples to raise boys.

But as usafpa says, they’d have an answer for that, too:

Oh no. that means they would teach teh boy to wash dishes and make beds. That will never do. The lesbians might make the little girl change the oil in the car.

Part of the conservative Christian fight against the queer community has to do with the verses in the Bible that ostensibly condemn a man lying with a man and so forth, but the other part has to do with gender and the belief that God intends for us to adhere to a strictly binary, firmly defined set of gender expression. My favourite and yours, Crazy Jim Dobson is big on this. That’s why Focus on the Family has two magazines for teenagers, one for girls which talks about preparing yourself for your future husband and one for boys which talks about how masturbating is bad for you. Not to mention the books about raising boys to be boys so they don’t turn out gay.

On a lighter note, I found it very amusing that the image on the frontpage they’ve got this image — two women, side by side, with one wearing a rainbow vest.

One other point of hilarity and/or terror: check out the similarity between one of their t-shirt designs and a Nazi logo.

technorati tags: homosexuality, religion, christianity, heteronormativity, focus on the family, gender

So I think I’m gonna quit church again. This week really managed to rub me the wrong way. Does the worship leader have to announce that “One thing we all have in common is that we believe Jesus is _______” (fill in the blanks). Look, I know evangelicals have a distaste for all things pomo, but can’t we at least acknowledge that everyone in the service might not accept the same doctrinal points? Forget disagreements between Christians, because individual churches do tend to be communities of like-minded people as an obvious result. But aren’t you alienating any of those precious “seekers” who might be in the crowd, let alone semi-re-lapsed Christians like me?

To quote Gob Bluth (I’ve been on an Arrested Development bender lately), come on!

Then the sermon was all about how people who are believing in Jesus are going to heaven and those who don’t are going to hell. Yawn. Actually, it might have been more interesting but I got thirsty in the first five minutes of the sermon and had to take a water break, then I got sidetracked in the lobby by various things like two-month-old babies named Tobias (coincidence? I think not!).

I’d like to take this opportunity to shout out to Eddie(F) at Edge of Faith who, after much deliberation and study, is leaving the Christian faith for good. Now he gets to enjoy the patronizing remarks of still-Christians who comment that this is all part of his “journey.” In my experience, there is nothing more obnoxious than that, because the implication in the word “journey” is that journeys are OK as long as you end up with Jesus in the end. Stephen Colbert put it well last week at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

“And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion - be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

It’s funny because it’s terrifying because it’s true.

technorati tags: stephen colbert, christianity, religion, politics, church, jesus