Health Care Reform: Keep It Separate From Religion

Thank you for respecting a woman's right to choose, Congressman Schauer, and for also having the courage to say what many women think - "The government doesn't belong in the room when these very personal, private decisions are being made." And neither does the religious right, Council of Catholic Bishops and Bart Stupak. They certainly don't speak for all people of faith.

From the United Church of Christ:

UCC Minister and Co-Team Leader for the Cleveland-based Team, the Rev. Loey Powell, reiterated the UCC's 40-year history of support for reproductive health care and said of the amendment, "We join [partner faith] groups in expressing our disappointment that the House bowed to pressure exerted at the last minute from anti-abortion lobbyists ... Once again women's health and well-being have been compromised in the halls of Congress."

United Methodist Church:

The United Methodist Church’s official positions on abortion and immigration stand in opposition, however, to restrictions placed in the bill that limit coverage for all of God’s children living in the United States. H.R. 3962 excludes immigrants and women whose circumstances indicate need for an abortion. These restrictions even include persons who now have such insurance.

The bill establishes a two-tiered system of health delivery. It essentially penalizes women and immigrants with fewer economic resources.

National Council of Jewish Women:

"This Stupak-Pitts amendment is an egregious assault on the rights of women and an enormous step backward for those who believe in the separation of religion and state. It enshrines one religious view of abortion into law and enlists the federal government to enforce it.

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:

We call on the Senate to ensure that health care reform is freed of religious ideology and restrictions that will prevent women from making their own reproductive health care choices.

Ideally, I think our leaders should heed JFK's words:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. . . . That is the kind of America in which I believe. . . . Whatever issue may come before me as president - on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject - I will make my decision in accordance with . . . what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.

Along with 40 other Democrats, Stupak is threatening there will be hell to pay if his amendment is removed, and the Council of Catholic Bishops is threatening to withdraw their support for reform too. Their religion may condone turning their backs on the uninsured, but mine believes health care is a matter of social justice.

There are hundreds of religions in this world and we'll never find common ground acceptable to everyone. However, as this blogger so eloquently put it...

Freedom of religion in our nation means, first and foremost, the right of individuals to live their lives in accord with their most cherished religious beliefs, and free of government interference. [...]

At the same time, though, the reciprocal of that freedom is an equally fundamental responsibility. This is the responsibility not to use the authority of the government to compel individuals to live their lives in accord with our "religious dictates" that they do not share. Muslims have the right not to consume pork, but they should not use the power of the government to forbid others to eat pork. Jews have the right not to work on Saturday, but they should not use the power of the government to prohibit others from working on Saturday. And Catholics have the right not to marry people of the same sex, but they should not use the power of the government to forbid others from marrying the person they love.

And religion should not use the power of government to block health care reform.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

The Bible Has a Liberal Bias

Just when I thought conservatives couldn't get any crazier, I read about some men who think the Bible needs editing, not just for accuracy, but because it's too liberal. They're the inspiration behind the Conservative Bible Project:

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. [...] Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.

Here's an example of the liberal bias they find problematic:

Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.

For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times.

Social justice=socialism? No wonder this Catholic writer said about their project: "Right wing dementia marches on apace." And conservative BeliefNet writer Rod Dreher had this opinion:

More seriously, the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology.

Sorry, Conservapedia guys, but Jesus was the ultimate liberal progressive revolutionary of all history. You can't change that - no matter how hard you try to rewrite the Bible into your own image.

Health Care Debate Takes Compassionate Turn

What two words have been missing from the health care debate on the right? Compassion and religion. The party of compassionate conservatism has always been quick to use religion when it served their purpose in the past, but curiously, neither word has been mentioned often in relation to health care reform. There have been a few exceptions though. While conducting a town hall in Lebanon, PA, Sen. Arlen Specter was threatened with God's wrath by one protester.

"One day, God's gonna stand before you," he said. "And he's gonna judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill, and then you can get your just desserts."

I wonder if that person was referring to the lies being told by some critics? As Jim Wallis of Sojourners recently said, "one important moral principle for the health-care debate is truth-telling."

The religious right may be keeping quiet about this issue, but a coalition of interfaith religious groups is backing health care reform. They've launched a 40 day campaign targeting 100 member of Congress and they'll participate in a telephone call-in event with President Obama on Aug 19.

Members of the group said Monday that they intend to fight back against what they say are lies being told about health reform.

“All of God’s children [have] got to be covered now,” said Rev. Jim Wallis, the CEO of Sojourners. “This is not a partisan political move. You are going to hear the moral drumbeat throughout this debate.”

The campaign is sponsored and organized by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Catholics in Alliance believe "health care is a basic human right, not a privilege," and Faithful America is letting Congress know people of faith support health care reform in a national TV ad.

Christians aren't alone in this effort. The coalition also includes Jewish and Muslim leaders. In fact, the National Democratic Jewish Council launched a "Rabbis for Health Insurance Reform" webpage urging Congress to get legislation passed for "Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Muslims, and Jews."

"Our tradition teaches us to pursue justice," the site reads. "Yet it is not a just society when families are forced to choose between paying their mortgages or paying for prescription drugs. It is not a just society when small businesses must choose between being profitable or providing coverage to their employees. It is not a just society when people are denied health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition for which they need medical care. Equal access to safe and affordable health care is an essential social justice issue of our time.

If ever there was a time to bring religion and compassion into the discussion, this is it. As one Indianapolis pastor who is part of the coalition said, this "effort addresses the suffering parishioners they [clergy] see each week who can’t afford treatments until their ailments reach emergency room levels. ... This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of health care.”


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Republicans Turn to Newt for Salvation

Michigan Republicans are stuck in the past, Saul Anuzis is stuck in the past, and so is Saul's new boss - Newt Gingrich. I'll let Matt Yglesias explain:

Somehow or other the conservative movement has gotten so intellectually bankrupt that the lunatics running the asylum think that Newt Gingrich is an intelligent and canny man. Consequently, he’s snagged himself a situation where he’s in the news constantly offering aperçus like “The Democratic Party has been the active instrument of breaking down traditional marriage.”

Far be it from me to say that Newt Gingrich’s 1981 decision to ask his first wife for a divorce while she was in the hospital recuperating from cancer should bar him from commenting on the value of traditional marriage. But six months after the divorce was finalized, he married a new woman, Marianne Ginther, which suggests there was some infidelity involved. Then in 2000 he divorced Ginther and married a third woman with whom it turns out he’d been having an affair. That, I think, is a bit much. Then after that, he became a Catholic!

Seriously, does Newt really want to go down that road? Several high-profile Republicans have histories of being maritally challenged. Talk about hypocrisy.

As for Newt's recent conversion to Catholicism:

At a moment when the role of religious fundamentalism in the party is a central question for reformers, Gingrich, rather than making any kind of case for a new enlightenment, has in fact gone to great lengths to placate Christian conservatives. The family-values crowd has never completely embraced Newt, probably because he has been married three times, most recently to a former Hill staff member, Callista Bisek.

The religious right didn't embrace Newt, so now he'll try to kiss up to Catholics. He recently tweeted, "It is sad to see notre dame invite president obama to give the commencement address Since his policies are so anti catholic values."

He was also recently interviewed by Christianity Today magazine. Their article started off by saying, "As the Republican Party searches for a future leader, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pops up on the short lists."

Newt can't manage to stir up controversy with the religious right anymore, so he's aligning himself with right-wing Catholics.

But the growing movement to stop Obama's visit isn't your ho-hum sort of Catholic League media dust-up, where Bill Donohue harumphs on television and then goes away. It's part of a well-funded lobbying effort by a group of right-wing Catholics to run liberal Catholics, and dissenting doctrine, out of the church, and to recruit the remainder of the faithful for the GOP.

Newt's alliances may be new, but the tactics are the same and still out of touch with mainstream Americans. Someone should tell him and other old school Republicans that 59 percent of Catholics still think Obama is doing a good job, and a recent Gallup poll finds Catholics are actually more liberal than other Americans on the so-called moral issues.

Pay attention, Republicans!

McCain only sees evil in extremism

I wanted to touch on something the candidates discussed at the Saddleback Church forum last Saturday - besides the claims that McCain apparently cheated and was not in "the cone of silence" or the suspicion that McCain plagiarized his "cross in the dirt" story from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I wanted to talk about their answers to Rev. Rick Warren's question on evil.

Here's the transcript from that section of the forum with the candidates answer. Obama first, then McCain.

WARREN: OK, we’ve got one last time — I’ve got a bunch more, but let me ask you one about evil. Does evil exist? And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?

OBAMA: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely, and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, now, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task, but we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront it when we see it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for to us have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because a lot of evil’s been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

REV. RICK WARREN, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: In the name of good.

OBAMA: In the name of good, and I think, you know, one thing that’s very important is having some humility in recognizing that just because we think that our intentions are good, doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.

WARREN: How about the issue of evil. I asked this of your rival, in the previous debate. Does evil exist and, if so, should ignore it, negotiate it with it, contain it or defeat it?

MCCAIN: Defeat it. A couple of points. One, if I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that. And I know how to do that. I will get that done. (APPLAUSE). No one, no one should be allowed to take thousands of American — innocent American lives.

Of course, evil must be defeated. My friends, we are facing the transcended challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism. [...]

And we have — and we face this threat throughout the world. It’s not just in Iraq. It’s not just in Afghanistan. Our intelligence people tell us al Qaeda continues to try to establish cells here in the United States of America. My friends, we must face this challenge. We can face this challenge. And we must totally defeat it, and we’re in a long struggle. But when I’m around, the young men and women who are serving this nation in uniform, I have no doubt, none.

I think those answers highlight a major difference between McCain and Obama. In McCain's black and white world, evil revolves around what he calls the "challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism." In Obama's more nuanced world, he sees evil all around us - in Darfur, our cities, in our abused children.

I believe Obama gave the more mature answer. Sure, al Qaeda's form of terrorism is evil and makes a big splash in the news, but that doesn't make it worse than other forms of evil like poverty, abuse, and the destruction of our environment. McCain never mentioned those. What does he suggest we do about the evil of poverty? Should we ignore it, contain it or defeat it? How about children without health care because their parents make too much money? How do we defeat the greed that puts money over the health of innocent children?

McCain may have scored points with the Saddleback audience, but he left me convinced he's the wrong person to lead our country and the millions of people affected by evil in small and large ways everyday.

Proverbs 14:29 He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Will the real frauds please stand up?

Republican efforts to suppress minority votes worked according to plan in the Indiana primary.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote. [...]

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Who do you think is more likely to commit voter fraud? Nuns or pious-sounding Republicans?

Indiana has the strictest photo ID law in the country thanks to Republican-led efforts designed to combat ballot fraud, not that fraud has every been found to be a problem. In fact, no one has ever been prosecuted for impersonating a voter at the polls in Indiana.

On the other hand, I know many Republicans who could be accused of impersonating compassionate Christians.

The GOP Loves Reverend Wright

According to this post at Politico, the GOP thinks they've finally found an antidote to Obamamania.

In their view, the inflammatory sermons by Obama’s pastor offer the party a pathway to victory if Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee. Not only will the video clips enable some elements of the party to define him as unpatriotic, they will also serve as a powerful motivating force for the conservative base.

Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis was quoted too:

“I usually get three or four emails a week on Obama,” said Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis Monday. “Today I received more than 10, all of them on his minister.”

You can almost hearing them licking their chops. The GOP believes they now have the ammunition to bring Obama down.

Just as with John F. Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, Republican strategists view the Wright flap as deeply damaging to Obama because it strikes at the message, or set of principles, at the heart of his candidacy.

In Obama’s case, the core of his appeal has been that he transcends race and is more inclined toward conciliation than combat.

“He wants the authentic black image but he also wants to keep all his safe, suburban Obamacans in line,” said Rick Wilson. “Well, you can’t have both. They’re mutually exclusive.”

“This is a guy who associates with some real haters,” he added.

What a double standard the Republicans have, or maybe I should call it what it is - a white preacher double standard. Did they forget about these preacher/politician associations?

Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

And don't forget Rev. John Hagee who called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore" or the Rev. Rod Parsley who believes America was founded to destroy Islam (he's also John McCain's spiritual guide). Why aren't people outraged over their outlandish statements? Is it because they're white? Or maybe it's because they approve of their discriminating messages against gay Americans and Muslims.

If the way the Republicans and the media handled this isn't racist, then what is it? Maybe it's simply that those rich, white men who run the Republican Party and the media can't handle the truth.

Elite Evangelicals Members Only Club

The evangelical rich are different from the rest of their peers in how and where they worship according to this sociology professor.

President Bush is Public Evangelical No. 1. His presidency is the capstone of evangelicals' 30-year rise from the margins of society to the halls of power. But while the president has gone to great lengths to testify publicly to his faith, he often doesn't do the one thing that defines most evangelicals — go to church. He attends chapel at Camp David and other special services, but the president rarely can be found in a congregation on Sunday morning. (In contrast, Presidents Carter and Clinton both attended services in Washington during their tenures.)

Surprised? When most of us think of devout evangelicals, we think of people who attend church regularly and are active in their local congregations. Yet many of the most prominent evangelicals do neither. They regularly attend Bible studies and religious gatherings, including last week's National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, but many can't be found in the pews on Sunday. [...]

I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country's top leaders — two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half — 60% — had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.

Why the disconnect? Many of them said they couldn't stand the way churches are run - inefficient, unproductive and focused on the wrong things - so this led many evangelical leaders into fellowship groups that exist outside the church called "parachurch" organizations (like the Billy Graham Association). They feel these groups have a broader reach and more impact.

I can understand some of their criticism. Churches are run by people with various ideas and levels of commitment and the results are often dysfunctional, but ALL members of the congregation are encouraged to participate in the church community regardless of gender, race, income, etc. No one is left behind. That's not the case with these elite evangelicals.

In an effort to evangelize among the nation's elite, evangelicals have launched hundreds of invitation-only programs and organizations. Business leaders in Manhattan conduct Bible studies that meet in private clubs. Fellowship groups in Washington are reserved for diplomats and members of Congress. The CEO Forum, an invitation-only group for CEOs of large corporations, has been extremely important to the religious formation of many business executives. And, ironically, meetings designed to spur Christian philanthropy are held at fancy hotels and resorts. Indeed, the evangelical advance into the nation's higher circles has entailed an extension of, instead of a departure from, the privileged and powerful worlds these leaders regularly inhabit. Yet how does an exclusive religious fellowship square with Christian teaching? [Emphasis added]

How indeed. Jesus hung out among the poor, homeless and sick, and He often scolded the rich for throwing fancy banquets that excluded the poor. In fact, He told them to invite them in and seat them at the best tables and give them the best food. I'm pretty sure Jesus wouldn't approve of "invitation-only" worship and fellowship. I'm not the only one appalled. Their actions aren't going over too well with church leaders either.

Pastors and religious leaders — not just among evangelicals, but also among liberal and mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews — are concerned about these developments. Churches lose out on talented, bright volunteer leaders. Wealthy believers lose out on spiritual fellowship. And most important, the people in the pews lose out because, while evangelicals have political power as never before, those who wield it have lost touch with the kind of people they used to see every Sunday.

They've also lost touch with the lessons they learned in church - or maybe they weren't really important to them in the first place.

Jesus: The illegal immigrant

I read something Libby posted at the Impolitic yesterday that I can't get out of my head: What if Jesus is an illegal immigrant?

Mainstream Christianity pretty much teaches that Jesus will return in "glory" from a cloud or the sky with trumpets and singing, but Libby asks, "What if He shows up announced?" Or what if He comes back as a hated minority, as Jesus Manuel Cordova?

PHOENIX - A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said. [...]

The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, [Sheriff] Estrada said.

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.

The woman died a short time later.

"He stayed with him, told him that everything was going to be all right," Estrada said.

As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said. The boy was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson as a precaution but appeared unhurt. [...]

"For a 9-year-old it has to be completely traumatic, being out there alone with his mother dead," Estrada said. "Fortunately for the kid, (Cordova) was there. That was his angel."

Angel indeed. The boy's father died just two months ago and now he loses his mother. I can't begin to imagine the pain and fear he felt alone in the desert, and then along came Cordova to comfort him and stay with him until help arrived. I call that divine intervention.

I'll let Libby speak for me from this point on:

Think about that. Jesus was entering the US illegally and had to know he would be arrested. He could have just kept walking. Or he could have built a fire and walked away. He could have fled at any time to avoid facing the authorities but he stayed to comfort and protect a child until help came. Which is more than we can say for the hunters who were presumably legal residents.

For his humanitarian efforts, he's now in jail awaiting deportation. What a sad commentary on the politics of hate that has so poisoned America, that we would penalize another human being for such a selfless act of kindness. Surely in this case, an exception to the rules could and should be made.

Amen. We could use more role models like Cordova in this country. He put the needs of that small boy ahead of his own. Imagine that.

Poll reveals health care is top issue

Here are some interesting statistics from a recent Catholic Health Association poll [pdf]:

Providing quality and affordable health care tops concerns of likely voters

• 29% of likely voters believe “providing affordable quality health care” should receive the “greatest attention from the government at the present time.”
• 22% said “ensuring homeland security in the United States”
• 19% said “reducing government spending and taxes”
• 13% said “improving public education

39% of likely voters ranked “making health care more affordable” as the “most important goal for the country and should receive the greatest attention in reforming our health care system.”

Uninsured

82% of likely voters believe “there are moral and ethical reasons for making sure everyone in the U.S. has health care. Access to health care is a matter of human dignity.”

71% of likely voters believe “the federal government should take financial responsibility to cover uninsured children,” and 51% “would be willing to pay more in taxes to help pay for health insurance for children.”

It appears health care is very much a "values" issue with voters.

Republican speakers not wanted

Republicans haven't felt too welcomed on the speaking circuit lately. Last week, V.P. Cheney faced protests when he delivered the commencement speech at BYU, and locally many of us have been voicing our complaints about Cleary University's decision to pay controversial Anne Coulter $30,000 to speak at the school's Economic Speakers Luncheon Series this fall.

(I side with those who oppose her appearance, but after a multitude of letters, calls and posts to blogs asking the school's president to reconsider, Cleary President Tom Sullivan decided to stick with Coulter. He claims the goal of the series is to: "enrich the community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of business, social, political, intellectual, and cultural experiences." I'll leave it up to you to decide if Coulter "enriches" anyone but herself.)

Moving along, President Bush is scheduled to give the commencement address at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA next week and the decision is drawing disapproval from a most unlikely source - the college's former president, Maynard Brennan - who gives very principled reasons why the president is unsuitable:

Mr. President: This place is not your place
St. Vincent College should not host a leader who has exhibited values antithetical to its mission

Wednesday, May 02, 2007
By Maynard Brennan

On Friday, May 11, President Bush is scheduled to give the commencement address at St. Vincent College in Latrobe. To honor the leader of this country would seem a unique opportunity. However, President Bush and his administration have so often violated Christian, Catholic and Benedictine teaching and tradition that I firmly oppose this distinction. Let me explain.

For 35 years I was educated and lived the venerable Benedictine life. I maintain the Benedictine spirit as essential and defining for my life journey.

Four years ago, I was heartsick when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. At that time I endorsed the words of Pope John Paul II as he opposed this ill-fated, immoral adventure. I was pleased that in 2005 the leadership of Benedictine men and women, 2,357 strong, issued the Benedictine Peace Statement: "We believe that violence does not yield peace. We are concerned about the military and political ethos of our own country where justice is defined on the basis of our self-interest rather than on a consciousness that we are part of a common humanity."

I am disturbed that my alma mater will place before graduating seniors one whose leadership and administration have violated and ignored this exhortation. Recently, during his Easter greetings, Pope Benedict XVI continued the criticism: "Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees."

In addition, while Mr. Bush served as governor of Texas, 152 people were executed. On at least five occasions Pope John Paul II wrote to Gov. Bush requesting clemency for individuals on death row. Mr. Bush rejected these requests, as well as one made to him during his presidency. This shows Mr. Bush's outright disregard for contemporary Catholic moral teaching.

Mr. Bush calls himself a born-again Christian; he quotes the Bible; conservative Christians form his political base. Yet, in Matthew 25 we read that Jesus identifies with the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the imprisoned. This gospel further challenges us: If we do not care for the least and the lowest, we cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Has Mr. Bush led us to care for the powerless and the marginalized? The numbers of poor, homeless and imprisoned people in this country continue to rise. The gap between the rich and poor grows exponentially: According to the most recent figures, the top 1 percent of Americans -- whose average income was $1.1 million a year -- received 21.8 percent of the nation's income. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 37 million Americans, or 12.6 percent of our population, were living in poverty in 2005. I cannot forget the many pictures of American poor struggling for survival after Katrina. Many continue to suffer so many years later.

Certainly our country needed to respond to the horror of Sept. 11, 2001. Subsequently, we broke the back of al-Qaida and took military action to eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan. Imagine what would have happened if the United States had then focused on building hospitals and training Afghans to heal their own people. Imagine what humane gospel values would have been seen if we had improved the irrigation system, thus bringing clean water to isolated villages. Those pictures would have been broadcast throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

Instead we invaded Iraq, a country with many revered Muslim holy sites, making us seem to many as the latest incarnation of Western domination or even crusade. Extreme fundamentalists in Afghanistan are making a fearsome return. Our actions have become the best recruiting tool for terrorists.

When I was president of St. Vincent College, I was proud to stand before the graduates and encourage them to engage the world with wholesome gospel values. A commencement speaker is a living example of such virtue, sending graduates forth with vision and hope. I have serious misgivings that President Bush can fulfill this exalted role. How can a man whose administration has been so tainted by incompetence and corruption be a worthwhile role model for young people?

Note to Cleary University: Book Maynard Brennan in the future and I'll buy a ticket to hear him speak.

Two Views From Canada

Canada's equivalent of Donald Rumseld and Dick Cheney all rolled into one has the solution for our energy woes:

[Former deputy prime minister] Hellyer wants to use alien technology to eliminate burning fossil fuels. He pointed out to the Ottawa Citizen ... that alien spacecraft have to travel vast distances to reach Earth. So they must have extremely advanced propulsion systems that don't rely on sweaty little green guys shoveling coal into a flying saucer furnace. [...]

Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen, "We need to persuade governments to come clean on what they know. Some of us suspect they know quite a lot, and it might be enough to save our planet if applied quickly enough."

How about that? The solution has been right under our noses in Roswell, N.M. all this time! Would someone please tell Washington?

Moving along to a more sane (and chilling) point of view from Canada, The Old Bill recently wrote about evil and what it might look like. He concludes that it's likely to resemble Erik Prince (founder of Blackwater Security, a private mercenary army for hire that has the largest private military base in the world) or his father, Edgar, founder of the Family Research Council.

Old Bill is concerned about other member's of Prince's family too:

Erik's mom Elsa is a board member of Focus on the Family. His sister, Betsy, one time head of the Michigan Republicans, married Dick Devos, son of Amway - their foundation is a strong backer of Focus on the Family. His Freiheit Foundation funds numerous theocon/religious right groups.

What's Old Bill's conclusion?

Let's see, a major war-profiteer, mercenary army CEO. . . does that seem a bit at odds to the gospel? to the person/spirit/ethos of Jesus?

[...] having watched the rise of the religious/theocratic right in the US for almost 3 decades, I'd never considered the possibility of them creating their own army, I'd underestimated the wiliness of the devil. Yet here's a group that has created its own army, with the blessing of the Bush administration, and is amassing huge profits. Appears Corrie ten Boom was right. Sounds over the top, I know, but I think as Canadians we need to start asking what we will do if/when the US drifts/lurches into a fascist state, a theocracy. . . And as Christians, we need to start asking the questions Bonhoeffer asked, at what point must we give up our silence, our comfortable acquiescence? [emphasis added]

If you think Old Bill is overreacting, then consider this statement from Aaron, a priest-in-training at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida (built by Tom Monaghan, Domino Pizza billionaire):

Aaron argued that the United States can only be saved from moral perdition if it, like Ave Maria, embraces the magisterium as supreme. "We don't believe in the separation of church and state," he said, "and this country should orient itself toward Christ. The foundation of Western civilization rests on Christendom, which means that America owes its existence to the Catholic Church." [emphasis added]

Our country should orient itself toward Christ? A good starting point would be to end the war in Iraq, the one based on a lie.

Are Evangelicals Fixated on Homosexuality?

That's a question being posed by Tony Campolo. He also believes, "Sigmund Freud would have something to say about the ways in which we evangelicals seem to be fixated on homosexuality." Unless you live under a rock, it would be pretty hard not to notice that fact, and fixation is putting it mildly.

Campolo says he became aware of this fixation during two dozen interviews he recently did on Christian radio to promote his new book Letters to a Young Evangelical. Although his book has 21 chapters, he had to spend at least 80% of his time focusing on the few pages that dealt with homosexuality. Here's an excerpt of how those interviews went:

The primary focus of the questioning during these interviews focused on my assertions, based on my own research and a survey of literature on the subject, that nobody has come up with a conclusive explanation of what causes a homosexual orientation, and that it develops so early in the bio-physical and social development of children that it's practically impossible that it could be something that is deliberately chosen. It seemed to me that the interviewers were not willing to accept what I had to say, and wanted me to commit to one of two other options that I believe to be erroneous. The first was the suggestion that the homosexual orientation is the result of poor socialization. This is the commonly held belief among those evangelicals who head up ministries that propose to “deliver” homosexuals and make them into heterosexuals. The most cited version is that a boy overly identifies with a dominant mother, while his father is either absent from the household or is a somewhat weak personality. This theory puts already upset and confused parents of gays on unnecessary guilt trips.

The other theory often proposed in these interviews was that being homosexual is somehow the result of trauma resulting from the gay person being sexually molested as a child.

The reasons for these beliefs were all too obvious to me. If either of these theories had validity, then it could be said that homosexuals who wanted to change could do so by making the decision to be open to the work of God in their lives and getting some good Christian counseling. When I questioned such conclusions, the interviewers usually came back at me by claiming that if I did not accept what they were saying, then I must be implying that the homosexual orientation was inborn. That, to them, was unthinkable because accordingly, this would lead to the assumption that God created homosexuals the way they are, and that we should accept them as such. Over and over, I would have to repeat that nobody knows definitively what establishes same-sex attraction in persons - and again I would have to assert that what we do know is that it is practically never the result of any conscious decision.

Sadly, as Campolo points out, evangelicals have little to offer in the way of "positive suggestions" for those who are struggling with being homosexual in a homophobic world.

This fixation not only hurts homosexuals and their families, it's also tarnishing organized religion's image. More from Campolo:

In many instances, those in this new generation are even reluctant to accept being called evangelicals. They sense that the label “evangelical” is commonly thought to be synonymous with right-wing politics and suggests a gay-bashing, anti-environmentalist, anti-feminist, and pro-war mindset. Instead, they are increasingly calling themselves Red Letter Christians. This name, of course, associates them with those verses in scripture that record the words that Jesus spoke, which in many Bibles are printed in red. That I affirm this designation and promote this new label in my book often greatly disturbs my interviewers. They quickly remind me that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. “That’s right!” I respond. “He most likely maintained ancient Jewish laws on the matter, but condemning gays was not on His big-ten hit list, while attacking judgmental religious people was.” [emphasis added]

Jesus did talk about unconditional love, humility, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and love for one's enemies, but the one thing Jesus talked about more than anything was helping the poor. That tells me it's time for our country to fixate on social concerns and move beyond this absorption we have with homosexuality.