Let the woo-ing begin

http://www.barackobama.com/2006/06/28/call_to_renewal.php

A speech recently given by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
What say you?

Politics and Christians - now there's a can of worms

Right. Left. Evangelical. Liberal. Religious. Non-religions. The polarization that has occured in this country due to religion fascinates me. - Amen?

Like Superman and Lex Luthor, Christ and Satan, "right" and "left" have been cast as mortal enemies in a saga that has played out like a good vs. evil B movie. This apparent divide has become excruciatingly obvious since G.W. figured out how to speak evangelical Christianese and started pulling the "religion card" to get elected. And it wasn't long after that the press finally discovered that, yes, there are people in the U.S. who really do believe that a God-man was raised from the dead 2,000 years ago. And, psst: these same people also believe this same God-man is still alive, and they worship him too. YIPES!
It was almost like the press corp finally became aware that Martians exist. And while that was shocking enough, they also found out that instead of being green, Martians are really pink.
I think I've seen more documentaries and news shows dedicated to "finding the 'real' Jesus" and "what does a captured evangelical really look like in its own habitat?" than I care to reflect on.

And so the Republicans have learned to speak Christian, the press has learned to disect Christian, secular society has learned to demonize Christian (as many Christians have unfortunately learned to do to unbelievers) and the Democrats have learned to ignore Christian.

Despite the liberal, or (let's use the new in vogue term) progressive, evangelical Christian intention to clean up their less politically correct evangelical kin and make them look presentable in public, this group of affluent middle-American Bible-thumpers doesn't quite seem to fit anywhere in the public arena, and I'm not sure they should. They don't identify with the fundamentalist right-wingers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who always seem to be able to offer the press an abominable quote about the latest world happening and how it is directly tied to the "end times." But these evangelicals don't quite seem to fit in with those Christians who are OK with abortions and such either. Some come across as hateful because of those stances, but they're the same people who take several weeks off work to travel to the Gulf coast to help with clean up efforts after hurricanes or send hundreds of dollars out of their household budgets to foreign countries devastated by natural disasters. Average middle-American evangelicals are admittedly tough to figure out if your not an average middle-American evangelical.
And now they're not only being courted by the Republicans, it seems as if the Dems are trying to get in on the action: http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/living/religion/14926802.htm

While evangelicals seem tough to define, I think that both Republicans and Democrats have made a fatal error. They have turned the average evangelical into a swing political vote that will sway left or right depending on how well you convince us you have morals or if you talk nicely to us in that sweet Christianese.
But Christianity is not a political party. It's a way of life. As a politician, you can't tell us that religion doesn't fit into the public arena and then try to convince us you're moral and you'll vote those morals just so you can get a political seat. You can't tell us that religion is a private matter between an individual and his or her God and then tell us that we need to create more faith-based groups to help with the ills of society. It's like telling a preacher to lead a church but he's not allowed to preach.

And these inconsistencies that religious and non-religious alike have been told to simply accept have placed such a divide between the non-religious and the evangelical that I'm not sure the gulf will be traversed any time soon. And over what? Two political parties that are more interested in getting their own side into power than they are about making sure that disasters like Katrina don't isolate an entire region of our nation or making sure that old folks don't have to decide between eating and taking their medicine or simply making sure the national budget is balanced.

Immigration reform and the Christian

I've written several profile articles lately about Catholics who have been moved by the issue of immigration reform and have put their actions where their words are. Some are lay people, others priests and academics. They separately traveled to the U.S./Mexico border, witnessed first hand the struggles of those trying to cross over in order to make a better lives for themselves and their families. At the same time they encountered those whose legitimate concerns about such a porous border have forced them to take up arms in order to "defend" that same border.
I have been told there are no easy answers and, of course, we need guidelines to govern the border. But one thing that has drawn me toward these people is their unfettered belief in the value of every life. And it's not like these Catholics just know intellectually that the lives of these immigrants are as valuable as any of ours. They know it to be true in their hearts - a feeling that would do many of us well to internalize, I think.

Get this: One upper middle class man I interviewed was visiting his summer home in Michigan when he began a conversation with a local priest who likes to take parishioners on field trips to the border to see "what it's really like." The man decided he wanted to go. He'd never been anywhere before that wasn't a tourist attraction, and he seemed as surprised as anyone that he would spend a week getting to know the people trying to steal their way into his country. After what he saw - children and families living in homes made of pallets and digging through garbage just to eat - he expected there to be a bitterness against God to rival that of anyone who's suffered beyond the bounds of human endurance. Instead, he found people who thanked God that they were simply alive. He found people hospitable enough to welcome this rich American - the epitome of those seemingly trying to keep them out of the U.S. - into their humble pallet homes and offer the best of what they had to eat while they went hungry. He was stunned. And as this white, 50-ish, graying man told me about his experiences, he had tears in his eyes as if it were the first time in his life he had come face to face with the reality that people around the world really do live that way. It probably was the first time. And while this man isn't quite sure what to do now to help - he simply knows he must. He's been telling anyone who'll listen about his trip to the U.S./Mexico border. He seems to figure it's better to tell people than to do nothing.

I talked to a priest who is also an academic and works on a Catholic Charities board. He visits Latin American countries regularly. He says he wants those coming to the U.S. to be as welcome in the U.S. as he is welcome in their countries - with in reason. He knows that the answers don't come easily and he's certainly not saying there shouldn't be guidelines. There do need to be laws governing the border - no doubt about it. But he does know that the answer doesn't come from being heavy handed, building higher walls and sending in the troops. To him, it's a matter of humanity, it's a matter of treating other human beings with respect, it's a matter of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless. In his experience, people trying to get into the U.S. don't want to leave their spouses, children and other family members. Rather, they must. He asks, would you want to leave your spouse and children for another country? Of course not. But more than that, they want their families to eat. Who could blame them for wanting to try? At the same time he has no sympathy for criminals trying to cross, but he admits they seem to be a very small portion.

So why do I specifically mention the Catholics here? Because in my experience it seems that Catholics are more open to immigration reform than other Christians. Despite my experiences, get a load of this Pew Research Center article http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=20. While I'm somewhat surprised at the Catholic responses in this article, I have to say I'm not surprised at the evangelical response to immigrants. Why is it that evangelicals, and to a lesser degree other mainline groups, seem more concerned about our own economic stability than the needs of the hungry, naked and homeless. Isn't that exactly the opposite of what Christ taught?