Michele Bachmann

In something that can only be described as a miracle, a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota called forth manna from heaven. The problem is, the manna fell on her Democratic Farm Labor Party opponent.

In a Friday night interview with Hardball journalist Chris Matthews, Michele Bachmann described Barack and Michelle Obama as anti-American and called for a media investigation of left-leaning members in Congress for unAmerican views.

It wasn’t long before the interview made the rounds of the liberal blogosphere. Many expressed shock that Minnesota, the land of Paul Wellstone, Al Franken and Jesse Ventura, was haunted by a fundamentalist who appeared to be channelling the spirit of Joseph McCarthy.

Within 24 hours of the broadcast, Bachmann’s DFL opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, received $450,000 in campaign contributions, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

The Hardball interview also inspired Bachmann’s Republican opponent, Aubrey Immelman, to reenter the race as a write-in candidate. A professor of evolutionary psychology, Immelman said, "When you say the kind of things Michele Bachmann has been saying, you activate the Stone Age brain, and people react in fear."

Thus, one fundamentalists’ primal fear, and the blessings it afforded her opponents, provide evidence for the coexistance of evolution and God.

Wise Turk

Martin Luther once said he’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a stupid Christian. At the time, Austria was under invasion by Islamic Turks.

Whatever our founding fathers believed, the founder of the Protestant faith considered sensible Islamic terrorism preferable to mindless Christian government. Luther believed these Islamic invasions were God’s vengeance against the Catholic Church. Maybe 9/11 didn’t reflect God’s judgment against gays and abortionists so much as his opposition to government that is Christian in name only, something they had in Luther’s day as well.

One man’s reformer is another man’s terrorist. Though supported by his fellow Protestant reformers, Luther, like Barack Obama, was opposed by the religious establishment.

Today’s Christian fundamentalists would likely label a bright, anti-establishment monk like Luther an elitist. Fundamentalists distrust intellectuals, apparently believing that only stupid people would choose to become a Christian. It’s amazing how a religion that’s so intollerant of human intelligence could tollerate its Intelligent Designer. Didn’t God create humans in his own image?

Conservative columnist David Brooks recently attributed conservative movement self-destruction to attacks on elitists. While early conservatives, like William F. Buckley, were extremely intelligent, the movement has become so anti-intellectual that it’s alienated entire professions. College professors, lawyers, doctors and technology professionals are now predominately Democrats, Brooks said.

Buckley’s son, Christopher Buckley, was recently fired by the National Review--the magazine his father founded--for endorsing Obama. Though a conservative, Buckley, like Brooks, acknowledged he’s impressed by Obama’s intelligence.

A maverick by any other name

The Maverick family is mad as hell at John McCain and Sarah Palin for misappropriating their family name. The Texas family, whose practice of not branding their cattle was the origin of the word maverick, is proud of their family’s liberal heritage that began in Boston in the 1600s, according to an Oct. 4 article in the New York Times.

Maverick family members have supported the ACLU, fought against McCarthyism, and have been labeled Communists by Texas conservatives. Maury Maverick Jr. wrote a column for the San Antonio Express-News shortly before his death in 2003 in which he opposed the upcoming war in Iraq.

I also come from a family of mavericks. I’m baffled by Palin’s appropriation of the term. No maverick would stand (or sit) for her minister casting out witches from her as Palin is depicted on YouTube. Social conservatives tolerate mavericks about as well as they tolerate homosexuals and abortionists. I’ve been told I lack “values,” that I’m a “woman with a past” who’ll be “left behind” when the Rapture comes.

As a born-again Christian, I prefer the word “testimony” to “past.” Still, Christianity isn’t a maverick-friendly religion. If Palin were a maverick, Christians wouldn’t support her.

Jeremiah Wright and Denial

People wonder, how could Barack Obama attend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church and not notice the kinds of sermons he was preaching?
In a word: denial. I had a similar experience with a church I attended several years ago.

One Sunday morning, my minister abruptly stopped his sermon to publicly reprimand his teenage daughter for some behavior I wasn’t even aware of. It’s human nature for a father to occasionally embarrass his teenage daughter. Usually, it’s unintentional. However, I felt that intentionally humiliating one’s daughter crossed the line from normal father-daughter behavior to abuse.

I was enraged. It took every drop of self control I had to stop myself from marching to the front of the church, shoving that minister away from his pulpit, and publicly reprimanding him as he’d just reprimanded his daughter. Instead, I said to myself, “Thank God, he’s not my father.”

You’d think I would have left my church after that. There’s a reason some churches refer to their leaders as “father.” Common sense says a man who abuses his daughter could also mistreat his church members, not to mention preach an abusive God. But we want to believe the best about people, and thus filter out behavior that doesn’t conform to that belief, no matter how misplaced. I simply forgot the incident.

When I did leave my church, it was for an entirely different reason. As a former charismatic, I’m in the habit of “testing the spirits.” At a certain point, I no longer sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit in my church and figured if God had packed his bags, there was no use in me hanging around.

However, I continued to fellowship with women from the church. These women started behaving like the Stepford Wives, sharing bizarre, abusive and misogynistic doctrines. Initially, I brushed it off.

But a victim of abuse often imitates the behavior of her abuser. At one meeting, several women ganged up on me, humiliating me in the same way as our minister humiliated his daughter years before.

Though hurt, I was grateful that I’d left that church behind.

Marilyn Musgrave Right

I don’t normally agree with Congressperson Marilyn Musgrave on anything. But I do agree Congress shouldn’t let themselves get bent over a barrel by a bunch of spoiled Wall Street bankers. Or, for that matter, by President Bush, who could count on Daddy to bail him out when his businesses failed.

I’m curious about the demand for no judicial oversight. To me it suggests Wall Street business practices were not only unethical and fiscally irresponsible, but possibly illegal. Which is why I not only believe we should have an independent board overseeing whatever bailout plan passes, but that we should appoint former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer to lead that board.

Sure, Spitzer’s had some personal issues recently. But that also means he has free time on his hands, as well as a history of fighting Wall Street corruption and for the average American investor. Few people in Washington today have those kinds of credentials.

Dixon, IL

As a child, my mother sang her first solo--”Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem”--in front of her church in Dixon, Illinois, accompanied on the church organ by Ronald Reagan’s mother. But as Mom tells it, the family didn’t pronounce the name RAY-gun back then, but REE-gun.

My mother knew someone else while she was growing up in Dixon back in the 1930s and ’40s: a young woman who became pregnant out-of-wedlock. The young woman’s mother was a social climber, who believed her daughter could do better than the schoolteacher who’d impregnated and was willing to marry her daughter. This mother drove her daughter to Chicago for a back alley abortion. The daughter then developed an infection and died.

The daugther was an only child. After her death, her father became so despondent he had to be institutionalized. The woman’s mother appeared to suffer little.

Mom and I agreed the greatest sin was committed by the mother, who cared more about outward appearances than other people.

Unfortunately, I observed this same sin in Ronald Reagan. After a friend talked me into voting for him on the basis of the abortion issue, it quickly became clear Reagan was an actor who’d played Christians for suckers and had no intention of doing anything about the abortion issue. That’s assuming he could.

Constitutional scholars say even if the Supreme Court were stacked with pro-life justices, most justices are reluctant to overturn precedent. Of the four current conservative justices, only Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have expressed a willingness to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Even if the Supreme Court succeeded in getting those five votes, this would only throw the abortion issue back to individual states. Ever drive to Wyoming to buy illegal fireworks? A pro-life state can’t decide not to honor the abortion a woman received in a pro-choice state.

Long before Roe vs. Wade, there were abortions in Reagan’s hometown. While I admire those who adopt, volunteer at crisis pregnancy clinics and unconditionally support their unwed pregnant daughters, I can’t imagine how anyone could be suckered into believing they’re preventing abortions by voting pro-life.

Change We Can Believe In

A recent letter used Bible verses to proclaim the concept of change as inherently evil. It brought to mind a rather irreverent, though biblical, joke my father used to tell: “What do you say when you have meatloaf for dinner three nights in a row? -- Jesus Christ! The same yesterday, today and forever!”

The fact is, our country, and even our concept of God, has already changed significantly in recent decades.

Our politics have shifted decidedly to the right in the past three decades, a change I attribute not so much to effective conservative strategies as the aging of the Baby Boom generation. Most of us become more conservative with age.

Bill Clinton’s domestic policies were more conservative than those of Richard Nixon, who came from more working class roots than most politicians today. That’s not to mention the policies of George W. Bush. Even our foreign policy has become more conservative. Nixon would have scoffed at the notion that negotiation with our enemies constituted “appeasement.”

Religion has changed as well. The pro-life movement has effectively converted an entire segment of Christianity into a fertility cult, a pagan religion the Bible is highly critical of and that historically has been associated with abusive behavior toward women.

I’ve seen signs the fertility cult movement is already taking a toll on its followers. In a column published in May, Cal Thomas referred to the characters in “Sex and the City” as sluts. I can remember a time when a Christian man wouldn’t stoop to using such language in public discourse, no matter what a woman’s behavior.

A couple years ago I left a Bible study I’d attended for years with a group of conservative women. I thought our differing political beliefs didn’t matter. After all, we worshipped the same God. I finally realized this assumption was false. While I worshipped a loving, forgiving God, my friends in some cases held such an abusively unloving concept of God they were effectively worshipping the devil.

We’ve already seen change in America. The question is whether it’s change we can, or should, believe in.

Voodoo Economics

The current crisis didn’t surprise me. As far back as 1995, economists started seeing indicators paralleling those that led to the Great Depression. The blame for this crisis doesn’t lie with George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, but with Ronald Reagan, and what George H. W. Bush described in the 1980 presidential campaign as “Voodoo Economics.”

The bailout plan totally discredits the premise of Voodoo Economics. Apparently, the economy doesn’t “trickle down” from the wealthy to the rest of us, as Reagan asserted, but trickles up from the rest of us to the top.

I’m taking a meteorology class right now. In the environment, water does trickle up. Evaporation off the ocean is a factor in producing hurricanes.

A better analogy is a house, with wealthy Americans the roof and working Americans the foundation. The central premise of Voodoo Economics is that the roof holds up the house. If you levitate a strong roof, the walls will rise up to meet it. This is voodoo.

I don’t deny the roof is important. The walls wouldn’t afford much protection from the elements without it. But without the firm foundation, you have what President Bush recently described as a “house of cards.”

Rev. Wright

Rev. Wright                Mar 19, 2008, 7:29 AM

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.
--Virginia Woolf

To me, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s discourse doesn’t sound any more damning of America than that of Pastor John Hagge, who’s been quoted as saying Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment on New Orleans and the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon. Hagge recently endorced Sen. John McCain for president.

But I think the concern about the Rev. Wright and about previous comments made by Michelle Obama raise a deeper issue: Should a Christian be patriotic, or is his or her ultimate allegiance in heaven?

A number of thinking people have weighed in on the issue over the centuries. Packrat that I am, I’ve collected their quotes. Here are a few:

Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, who believed 16th Century invasions of Europe by Islamic Turks were God’s vengeance against church heresies, said, “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.”

At a time when America was divided, Abraham Lincoln said, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis after speaking out against them, said, “Politics are not the task of a Christian.”

In a 1908 speech defending Teddy Roosevelt’s decision to remove “In God We Trust” from American coins, Mark Twain said, “Well, I didn’t see that the statement ought to remain there. It wasn’t true. But I think it would better read, ‘Within certain judicious limitations we trust in God,’ and if there isn’t enough room on the coin for this, why enlarge the coin.”

In his essay, “Meditations On the Third Commandment,” Christian writer C. S. Lewis said, “The demon inherent in every party is at all times ready enough to disguise himself as the Holy Ghost; the formation of a Christian Party means handing over to him the most efficient makeup we can find.”

Go back and reread those Sunday school Bible stories and learn from them. They’re not about the dangers of excessive chocolate, as “Veggie Tales” implies, but the dangers of excessive patriotism. In America, as in Babylon, unquestioning patriotism is a symptom of a lack of faith in God.

Purity Balls and Teen Pregnancy

The pregnancy of 17-year-old Bristol Palin may be off-limits, but as the 9/6 Editorial noted, it brings up the concern of teen pregnancy in America.

Every year I read about the purity ball that’s held for fathers and daughters at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. Though I find the ritual rather quaint, I agree with its founders that a close relationship between fathers and daughters greatly diminishes the temptation for early sexual behavior in young women.

My father was hardly religious, yet of all the influences in my own life, I’d have to credit the unconditional love I received from Dad for giving me the sense of self worth to say “no” to men before I felt emotionally ready for a sexual relationship.

Some statistics show the rate of teen pregnancies is particularly high among evangelical Christians like the Palins. Liberals might argue that this is because the abstinence-only sex education evangelicals support doesn’t work. Conservatives might argue liberals are more likely to have an abortion, and thus aren’t reflected in teen pregnancy statistics. Whatever the cause, teen motherhood is not only accepted by young people of all political backgrounds, but appears to be somewhat revered.

This is a big change from when I was young. When my freshman college roommate became pregnant in high school, her Christian parents sent her away to a home where she had her baby and gave it up for adoption. Though I appreciate the increased societal acceptance of teen mothers, the media parading of something that was once kept secret to protect a young woman’s feelings troubles me.

In particular, the public spectacle made of Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears makes America look not so much like a Christian nation as a fertility cult, with a whole generation of young fertility goddesses.

The good news is that a young woman who doesn’t receive unconditional love from her earthly father can still receive that love from her Heavenly Father. The bad news is that evangelical Christians, in their zeal to win elections, have dumped that loving Heavenly Father for a god of “values.”

Pagan Christianity?

When I was working for a large computer manufacturer, there was a common belief in the corporate culture that small start-up companies were more innovative than venerable large ones like ours. There was some evidence to support this belief: Apple, Microsoft, SUN Microsystems. My company decided if they could find a way to return to that start-up mentality, they, too would become innovative.

The real problem with my company wasn’t that they lacked creativity, but that they were out of touch with their customers. They often produced products with innovative features their customers didn’t need, at a price they often couldn’t afford. And so my company, like much of American industry, began buying up start-up companies, and because they’d forgotten how to manage a start-up company, ultimately drove them out of business.

I couldn’t help seeing this same mindset as I read “Pagan Christianity?” Much as I appreciate the courage of Frank Viola and George Barna--whose research I’ve long respected--to openly confront the problems in American churches, I get the feeling that, like my computer company, they’re dealing with the symptoms rather than the root of the problem.

Like start-up companies, house churches are a cultural necessity that never really went away. They existed relatively recently in Communist countries and still exist in nations where Christians are persecuted for the open expression of their faith. During the Protestant Reformation, there was a proliferation of itinerant ministers who were often accused by Catholics of being heretics.

What happened in 327 AD is that, with Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Christians no longer had to hide, just as Christians no longer need to hide in Russia and never have needed to hide in America. But this doesn’t mean the house church was God’s plan for Christianity.

I’ve never had any particular regard for church hierarchy. Christ told his disciples not to let anyone call them rabbi. When we see priests withholding communion from congregants who voted for John Kerry, it’s clear church leaders are overstepping an authority Christ never conferred upon them.

But though the book addresses a lot of my gripes about feeling I’m a passive observer in what’s become little more than a family entertainment and self-help program, this isn’t the reason I stopped attending my church. As I listened to sermons week after week it became clear that, either directly or through inference, the god that was being preached in my church was utterly devoid of love. God was at best indifferent, at worst sadistic.

I left my church, not because its practices were pagan, but because I was sick of wasting my Sunday mornings worshipping an awful god. As a former charismatic, accustomed to “testing the spirits,” my biggest frustration in church was that it was inappropriate for me as an evangelical, let alone as a woman, to stand up in my church and say, “Jesus has left the building. I just don’t sense his presence here today.”

My question is whether having smaller fellowships with less hierarchy will fix this problem, or simply distribute it.

At the same time I left my church I left a women’s Bible study whose concept of God was just as awful, if not worse. Because these women judged my criticism as evidence I was “a woman with a past,” it was every bit as intimidating to express my thoughts in this small group as it was in church. Unless you address people’s negative concepts of God, as Jesus did in his Sermon on the Mount, and as Martin Luther did during the Protestant Reformation, you’re still going to have problems, albeit on a more distributed scale.

Just as most start-up companies fail, a significant number of first century fellowships also went astray. Some of these groups were so awful that Paul advised Timothy in his final letter to have nothing to do with them. I’d be open to trying a fellowship like what Viola describes here, but at this point I’m afraid to try any Christian fellowship.

Still, it made my week just knowing someone else thinks something is wrong, even if we don’t happen to agree what it is.

Rev. Wright New

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s discourse doesn’t sound any more damning of Americans than that of Pastor John Hagge, who’s been quoted as saying Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment on gays in New Orleans and calling the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon. Hagge recently endorsed Sen. John McCain for president.

Recent criticisms of Wright’s sermons and comments made by Michelle Obama raise a deeper issue: Is patriotism compatible with Christianity?

The question isn’t about Wright’s freedom of speech or Barack Obama’s freedom of religion but God’s right to damn America, rather than confine himself to piecemeal damnations of homosexuals, abortion doctors and the City of New Orleans.

If Hagge is going to get into end-times prophesy and label churches the Whore of Babylon, he needs to consider that Babylon is in Iraq. So is the American military. We’re there in part because ministers like Hagge pimped the voters in his church to the Republican Party. By endorsing McCain, Hagge is again prostituting the Bride of Christ.

The virtue of the church is one reason sincere Christians have historically been unpatriotic.
Protestant Reformer Martin Luther attributed 16th Century Islamic Ottoman invasions of Europe to God’s vengeance against the Catholic Church. “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian,” he said.

British writer G. K. Chesterton, an influence on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, said, “‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Christian who was hung for treason by the Nazis after freeing Jews from concentration camps and plotting to assassinate Adolph Hitler, said, “Politics are not the task of a Christian.”

Before criticizing the Rev. Wright, patriotic pundits should reread those Sunday school Bible stories. They’re not about the dangers of excessive chocolate, as “Veggie Tales” implies, but the dangers of excessive patriotism.

The difference between a patriot and a Christian is simple. A patriot says, “In God We Trust.” A Christian asks, “Can God trust in me?”

The New Socialism

I’ve long believed it was conservatives who would bring socialism to America. The last week as proven me right. While there are few remaining safety nets for middle class Americans,

Faith Voters

As a Protestant with a Catholic sister and brother-in-law, this column, which raises the specter of withholding communion from pro-choice Catholics, incorporated an interesting oxymoron: faith voter. Yes, you can legislate morality. But such legislation doesn’t have the power to make a nation moral. Only God has that power.

Citizens and religious leaders who rely on government rather than God to influence morality, or on taxpayers to fill the coffers of “faith”-based charities, are anything but faith voters. This form of godliness, that denies God’s power, is exactly what the Apostle Paul prophetically warned Timothy about. This may explain why our nation is no more moral today--and perhaps even less so--than when Ronald Reagan took office.

Every statistic shows American church attendance is declining in almost every demographic, particularly among the young generation who were born during the Reagan Administration. I question the godly priorities of those who would abort the Church--Christ’s Bride and womb--to save unborn babies who, as innocent, none of us question go directly to live with their Heavenly Father.

Neither am I convinced it’s ethical for Christians to alter the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a “Gospel of LIfe,” which emphasizes temporal life over eternal life, being born over being born again. Or that a religion increasingly resembling a fertility cult, a type of pagan religion the Bible is highly critical of, could still be called Christianity.

I wonder if it’s ever occurred to anyone that it’s psychologically abusive to tell people their salvation is in peril if they vote the wrong way. Voting is a behavior the Bible never addresses. Though the abusive behavior Thomas describes is only associated with Catholicism, as an evangelical Christian I’m concerned that if Protestants don’t openly oppose such abuse it will be implicated to Protestant churches as well. And if we keep splitting hairs based on political views I suspect Americans will become so disenchanted with the narcissistic god who rules all political parties they’ll find it ever easier to stay home Easter morning.

Catholic Bishops are free, of course, to run their dioceses as they choose. However, I’m starting to understand why Christ and the Old Testament prophets were so critical of religious leaders.

Maverick Wannabe

“Maverick: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party.”
--Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’m told my political views lack “values,” that l’m a “woman with a past” who’ll be “left behind” when the Rapture comes. But my father was a maverick, who raised his daughter to be a maverick, too strong-willed to repent of her feminist and environmentalist views.

Christianity isn’t a maverick-friendly religion. One evangelical minister preached Jesus broke the legs of lambs who strayed from the flock.

I once helped a farmer’s son herd sheep. Sheep go astray en masse, not alone. No good shepherd would cripple his entire flock. Such nonsense is a bridge to nowhere. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll find Christ on my own.

Mavericks are like that: stubborn, opinionated and independent. Tell me how to vote; I’ll vote the other way. Withhold my communion; I’ll withhold my tithe.

This is why Christians opposed John McCain.

But Sarah Palin is no maverick. A maverick wouldn’t let her minister cast witches out of her. A maverick wouldn’t be team playing enough to be a hockey mom, patriotic enough to say “Country First,” or submissive enough to receive support from Focus on the Family.

The Gospel According to Nick Carroway

A poet I dated briefly in college once showed me his notebook. “Of course,” he said, turning to one poem, “Every Jewish man has to write a poem about the Messiah.”

So began my fascination with literary messiahs. I just finished one: “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an Oprah pick from last fall. It’s odd to see Jesus portrayed as a Latin lover, though Marquez gives clues. Florentino’s love letters that help Fermina through her widowhood. His voice like the Holy Spirit. The persistent and undying nature of his love. His love for widows and prostitutes.

Often sexual, literary messiahs are portrayed as one of two Old Testament characters. Some authors portray Christ as Hosea, the husband of an unfaithful wife or prostitute. Others, like Marquez, portray Christ as David, the adulterer who seduces a true love he believes married the wrong man. Some stories, like “The Princess Bride,” blend both.

Hosea is an emasculated husband who dutifully and dispassionately stalks his cuckolding wife. David is the complex, risk-taking, passionate rogue women secretly desire, but are discouraged from marrying.

In my experience, conservatives favor the pro-marriage Hoseanic messiah; liberals the sexier Davidic messiah.

My favorite literary Christ is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the Gospel according to Nick Carroway. This Prohibition-Era novel, which predicted an America divided into red and blue states, ranked second in the top 100 novels of the 20th Century.

Again, the hints are there. Fitzgerald describes Jay Gatsby as a son of God, who has visions of ascending into heaven and attempts to rescue Daisy Buchanan from her cruel Capitalist husband, Tom. Gatsby’s fellow bootleggers are 12 men with Jewish surnames, one of whom betrays him. Gatsby takes the fall for Daisy’s sin, committed under the highway billboard “God,” who sees everything. In an allusion to the Book of Revelations, Gatsby reveals himself to Daisy In a Manhattan hotel room, with wedding music in the background, as the man who truly loves her, only to have Daisy protest she loves both of them (God and money).

It’s downhill from there.

Lent

My dad was a Mormon, my mother an Episcopalian. Unable to agree which faith to raise their children in, they agreed on no faith at all. Because of this, Christian traditions like Lent have always confused me. I appreciated Terry Mattingly’s March 15 explanation of what it’s all about.

My Christian friends in college often gave up desserts for Lent, though I suspected it was driven by a desire to lose weight. Not that I was judging. Borderline anorexic in college, I didn’t need an excuse to skip desserts or other foods.

Skipping dessert for Lent seemed practical, if not particularly religious.

One Good Friday evening I went down to the cafeteria for dinner. My Christian friends had gone home for the Easter weekend, a holiday my family didn’t celebrate. I sat with Mike, a guy I knew from my computer science classes.

Though I usually liked dorm food, Friday dinner was the worst meal of the week. They served fish for the Catholics along with some other usually yucky meat, which that night was ham.

Ham was yucky meat. Cafeteria fish was nothing to write home about. I did my usual Friday night meal: salad bar, peanut butter and crackers.

Mike did likewise, though for a different reason. “I don’t know how they could serve ham on the Passover,” he said.

I tried to empathize. When I was little they didn’t have lean ham like they do today. As a child I’d bite into a ham sandwich, get a mouthful of fat and gag.

My Christian friends gave up desserts for Lent. Mike gave up pork. If I were going to give up something for Lent, I’d probably choose pork, too.

My husband’s family serves ham for Easter dinner, an American tradition Blake assures me is the product of a 20th century marketing campaign by the pork industry, and not a conspiracy against Jews. After returning from shopping this year, Blake held up the package of lamb for Easter dinner and said, “Behold, the lamb of Whole Foods, that will be cooked by Blake.”

Traditions change for many reasons.

Personhood Laws

I occasionally see a bumper sticker that says “God is pro-life.” I find this slogan disturbing, and not only because I happen to be pro-choice.

A God whose central act was sending his son to die on the cross doesn’t strike me as terribly pro-life.

If you want a pro-life god, you might consider a fertility god such as Baal. In ancient Baal worship, Ashtoroth was daughter of the mother-goddess Asherah. Baal worship so influenced Hebrew culture, the Holman Bible Dictionary says Astoroth became the Hebrew word for “womb” or “fruit of the womb.”

In modern usage, Ashtoroth means fetus.

Fertility cults revered the act of procreation, the womb and the human fetus. Such over-reverance for life led to highly sexualized cultures such as those confronted by the prophets Elijah and Hosea, as well the Apostle Paul.

Cultures pretty much like modern-day America.

I hate to think of the burden to Colorado law enforcement agencies if we define personhood as beginning at conception. My sister is a criminal prosecutor in Denver. Ann already has her hands full with rapists, drug dealers and murderers, and even one 9/11 terrorism suspect. Imagine her case load if miscarriages became involuntary manslaughter, if frozen embryos demanded due process, if prenatal ultrasounds became child pornography.

Fertility cults belong in history books, not in Colorado law.

Obama Speech

Barack Obama’s mention of his grandmother in his recent speech brought back some of my own family memories. A decade ago, my uncle pulled me aside and explained that the black horse in the Book of Revelations meant that black people were evil. Raised as a Mormon, Uncle H. wasn’t enough of a churchgoer to realize LDS doctrine regarding blacks changed in 1967.

My mother tells me my grandmother was also quite bigoted toward blacks. Grandma was a devout Lutheran and a gutsy lady who lived in an apartment in the Capital Hill area of Denver, and walked alone around downtown Denver until she was quite old. She wasn’t taken advantage of on the street, but in her church. By her white pastor, Charles Blair.

Grandma experienced a conversion in racial attitudes after she attended a speech given by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Seeing and hearing the Christian faith she loved preached from the mouth of a black man totally changed Grandma’s perception of black people.

Cal Thomas might cross the street to avoid black men, but Grandma was fearless when she took her nine-year-old granddaughter to the 16th Street Walgreens for an ice cream soda.

Capital Hill didn’t have the black population like Five Points. But this was before the reconstruction of Lower Downtown, so there were some bad neighborhoods nearby, though neither my parents nor my grandmother attributed the crime in these areas to skin color.

Things were different for me than they were for Grandma. In junior high the daughter of Boulder’s black Mayor Penfield Tate helped me overcome my fear of jumping hurtles when most of my PE teachers gave up on me. I dated a black man in college who was brilliant with computers and a born-again Christian.

Most people are cautious around gangs of any skin color. But while traveling in recent years to New York and Atlanta, I noticed white tourists approaching individual black men to ask for advice about which subway or Marta train to catch. I did likewise. I never saw people approach Wall Street bankers to ask directions.

National Day of Prayer

I received an e-mail from The Interfaith Alliance last week noting a concern that Focus on the Family has taken over the National Day of Prayer, establishing a shibboleth whereby Jews, Muslims and even non-fundamentalist Christians can participate, but only on an outsider status. The National Day of Prayer will be held May 1.

At first I shrugged this off. I’ve never attended the National Day of Prayer, figuring such acts of civil religion were political rallies in disguise. A liberal, I figured I wasn’t welcome anyway, and could pray as easily at home.

But the next day I read an article on the front page of the New York Times that Vladmir Putin is establishing the Russian Orthodox Church as the official religion of Russia. Russian officials have shut down gatherings of Methodists and evicted Seventh-Day Adventists from their church.

Now, America isn’t Russia. James Dobson may have the hubris of Putin, but not the power. Still, I couldn’t help perceiving a disquieting parallel between the two events. If nothing else, it’s clear by now there are those in this nation who would establish a litmus test for faith.

And so, this year, I decided I’m not going to take it in silence anymore. I’d like to propose a state-wide boycott of the National Day of Prayer. While it’s true most of us haven’t attended in the past and wouldn’t attend anyway, such tactics have never stopped Dobson and his ilk from boycotting Disneyland.

This way, we can all not attend together.

Are you with me? Are you willing to just stay home on the National Day of Prayer? You can pray or not pray, as you choose. I ask only that you spend a few moments in reflective empathy, imagining what it’s like to be the member of a religious minority or any other outsider who’s shunned. It’s what Jesus would do.

Prosperity Gospel

Recent letters addressed the notion of redistribution of wealth, and whether it’s mandated by the Bible.

I don’t believe the teachings in the New Testament were intended to apply at a governmental level for two reasons. First, the New Testament was written in the context of the Roman Empire; the Christians in Acts had no political influence and functioned primarily within their own social sphere. Second, I interpret Christ’s coming, along with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. as a sign from God that his experiment with theocracy was a dismal failure and that he’d given up on the whole idea.

However, there’s a precedent in Old Testament prophetic writing for the notion of God punishing Israel as a nation for the government’s lack of concern for the poor. Whether that applies to Christian nations I couldn’t say.

As Iraq and Colorado liquor law changes show, murder, covetousness and non-observance of the Sabbath are the foundation for America’s 24/7 economy. If Americans ever started obeying the Ten Commandments, our economy would tank. Surely, God understands this.

Wealth and individualism are stumbling blocks for American Christians, as I discovered during my own exposure to the Prosperity Gospel many years ago. My minister would cherry pick Bible verses that suggested God wanted us to be healthy and wealthy. Only as I began reading the Bible on my own, and more inclusively, did I realize the Prosperity Gospel contradicted almost all of Christ’s teachings.

Currently, prosperity teachings are more popular in the African-American Church. In the white church, I think they’ve become mainstream. Though Jesus taught one can’t serve both God and money, a lot of American Christians perceive no conflict between their capitalism and their faith.

From all I can tell, the Prosperity Gospel is a heresy, though it’s never gotten the attention from religious leaders the Gnostic Gospels recently received. I suspect the difference is that, while the Gnostic Gospels have a secular influence in novelist Dan Brown, the Prosperity Gospel was started by Christian leaders like Kenneth Copeland. Unlike European gnosticism, “prosperitism” is distinctly American.

Masculinity and Faith

Yesterday I read an article from Christianity Today commenting on recent books that promote the masculinizing of churches as a means of drawing men in. Some of these books blame women for feminizing the church, which seems a little surprising if you consider the power structure in most American churches is overwhelmingly male.

I come from a family with a high volume of non-churchgoing men. Though the men in my family would qualify as rebels, it’s not because they’re hyper-masculine. In some cases, these men would qualify as lady’s men. What sets them apart from most Christian men I know isn’t masculinity but birth order. Non-churchgoing men tend to be middle children, second sons, or in Christ’s words, prodigal sons.

I’ve heard sermons in which ministers acknowledged they couldn’t understand the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and why the father forgave his rebellious younger son. While I appreciate this honesty it raises a question: Is it any wonder more men don’t attend church?

I think Jesus had a particular interest in attracting prodigal sons into the church. Because these men are risk-takers, and unconcerned about what others think of them, they tend to be natural prophets.

What turns off men like these toward religion isn’t femininity, but authoritarianism. Tell a prodigal son how he should vote and he’ll be out the door in two minutes.

My family stopped attending church over the past few years. My husband left because he felt the men’s group was too focused on discussing masculinity rather than the Bible. My sons chose to stay home with their father. I left because I realized the God that was preached in my church was less empathetic than my father.

Empathy is generally considered a feminine trait. And yet, Matthew Murray wrote in the letter he wrote before shooting up the New LIfe Church, “Jesus, where are you? Do you even care these days?”

I’d argue American churches aren’t lacking in masculine traits so much as feminine qualities like empathy. As “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown argued “the sacred feminine” is missing in American churches.

Anger and Health

My husband and I have belonged to Orchards Athletic Club almost since it opened. We even belonged to the health club that existed there before that. A year or so ago the ownership of the club changed. As with all such changes, it created a little bit of upheaval.

Everyone has their strengths. Dennis McGrath (?) was exceptionally good with maintenance. If an exercise bike or anything else got broken, someone was on it right away. I can’t say how often I saw Dennis helping out with the maintenance tasks in the building.

The new owners, twin brothers Hugh and Ainsley, have a strong fitness background. It’s the rare occasion when I finish a workout and am not in some way congratulated by one of them for my effort.

I always think of thanking the brother who says this by name only, quite honestly, I haven’t yet figured out how to tell them apart.

Health is a bit of an obsession in this country. Of course, there’s valid reason for this. There’s been a growth in recent years in health problems associated with obesity. It’s hard to pick up a newspaper or a magazine these days that doesn’t have an article related to some study showing what kinds of foods one should be eating more or less of, or what’s the most effective type of exercise.

My mother has always struggled with her weight. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t on a diet. Only when I was a kid, they didn’t obsess about what types of foods you ate, but how much. I remember my mom eating things like hot dog pizzas that would be considered way to high in fat today.

Some people have suggested this emphasis on small portion sizes is one reason the French have a lower rate of obesity than Americans, in spite of their high fat diet. In his book “Eat, Drink and Be Healthy,” Harvard Medical School nutritionist Walter Willett, a contributer to the revised Food Pyramid, described a cross-cultural study in Europe that showed the amount of fat in the diet made no difference in obesity rates for men. In women, the effect was the reverse of what one might expect: women were more likely to become obese on a low-fat diet than a high-fat diet.

Remember the nursery rhyme? “Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean.” Though Willett doesn’t advise women to eat steak and butter, one of the revisions in the Food Pyramid was an increase in healthy fats from sources such as nuts and oils.

In her book, “Fight Fat Over 40,” National Institute of Health researcher Pamela Peake mentions testimonies from middle-aged women who ate entire packages of low-fat cookies. Peake advises women that if they want a dessert, they choose the richest most decadent one they can find, but limit their portion size.

As a Christian, I’ve often wondered if the emphasis on what we eat is overdone. Jesus said it wasn’t what enters our body that defiles us, but what comes out of our heart.

I’ve noticed when I’m walking on the treadmill or riding the exercise bike that if I start thinking about someone I’m angry with, my heart rate will spike as much as fifty points almost instantly. If I force myself to think about something more pleasant, my heart rate goes back down. While I don’t know the correlation between heart rate and blood pressure, to me such a rapid spike suggests something not-too-healthy is going on.

By contrast, following a lighthearted conversation with the women in the locker room before my workout one morning, I had to push myself hard just to get my heart rate over 100.

With that in mind, I’ve been using my workouts not only for exercise, but as a form of biofeedback, trying to find the healthiest ways to think through interpersonal conflicts in my life.

A recent study found the rate of heart attacks in America has spiked since 9/11. While some of this is likely due to increased anxiety, a psychiatrist once told me that in men anxiety often presents as anger. Because many women consider anger unladylike, they may be more inclined to bury their anger, which can lead to depression. It’s fine to be “ladylike” in your anger, as long as somewhere--in your journal or with your best friend--you acknowledge and work through it.

Indeed, the level of anger has increased in recent years. Someone who commented on the study said that Homeland Security may be killing more Americans than the terrorists are.

Joel

When I first met Joel in my magazine writing class, I felt almost sorry for him. He had the sort of homely look that tugs at a mother’s heart strings. My mother made a similar comment once about Prince Charles.

My first interest in Joel was because he was a new father. It’s an undergraduate class. Other than my instructor, Joel was the only classmate who was a parent.

One day in class we were sharing our article ideas. Joel had originally planned to write about one thing, which didn’t pan out. He told the class our textbook author, Zinsser, said we should write about the things we were most passionate about. Joel said the thing he was most passionate about was his faith and his involvement in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For that reason, he’d be writing an article about Gordon Hinkley, the LDS president who recently died.

All of a sudden, I had something else in common with Joel. I’m half Mormon. The Mormon faith teaches it’s the father’s responsibility to get his children into heaven, though my father wasn’t involved in his faith. Raised in the home of his Mormon bishop grandfather after his own father died of testicular cancer, Dad was downright irreverent when it came to religion. He used to say, “What do you say when you have meatloaf for dinner three nights in a row? Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.”

Some of my other relatives are more committed, like Joel. One cousin in Utah has done German name translations to be used for the baptism of the dead. This is something I plan never to tell my Jewish friends. The baptism for the salvation of Jewish Holocaust victims--who Jews regard as martyrs for their faith--is viewed by Jews as a major insult. Ethel and her husband Frank also went on a second mission trip after his retirement.

I’ve learned some things through my father’s family that Dad never told me. After my grandfather died, when my father was two-years-old, his mother moved in with her father-in-law. Though I’ve never heard exactly why, my uncle believed the relationship was polygamous. This is something my cousin has shared with somewhat more levity than my aunt when she showed me the pictures of her father’s polygamous family.

Dad used to make the sign of the cross over the front of his trousers, as if his genitals were the three persons of the Trinity, a gesture he seemed to find incredibly funny, but which I found inscrutable as a girl. That is, before I learned these things about my family history.

Since the Lord set me free from my own involvement in Christian fundamentalism, I’ve wondered sometimes if Dad was onto something. Whether it’s radical Islam, the FLDS or the religious right, all fundamentalist religion worships the same triune god.

Diffusion of Innovations

At the end of every semester graduate students in journalism worship the god of Power Point. This semester, I had a difficult time getting into it. My presentation for my Communication in Technology Transfer class was on diffusing assistive technology to dyslexic college students. The confluence between Power Point and dyslexic college students weren’t quite resonating with me.

I threw together a rock video instead.

The study of technology transfer isn’t just about technology, but in a broader sense the theory of how the phenomenon of cultural change occurs. My textbook, “DIffusion of Innovations” by Everett Rogers, applies as readily to church revivals as it does to cell phones. What’s known today as “viral marketing” is described in the Bible as “evangelism.”

As a delegate for Barrack Obama, I’ve been applying what I’m learning in class to the presidential election. Innovators tend to be cultural outsiders. As such, they may not be easily accepted by others. Obama is an example of this because he’s not quite “black” in his upbringing, but not quite white either. The same could be said of Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, who was rejected by the Catholic Church leadership but accepted by his fellow college professors and students.

Though dyslexia afflicts only 10 percent of individuals, 35 percent of American entrepreneurs describe themselves as dyslexic. Functional MRIs reveal that dyslexic brains function differently than “normal” ones. Their different brains make dyslexics the ultimate innovators.

Discount investment company founder Charles Schwab, a dyslexic, speaks of his tendency to make logical leaps from A to Z, leaving his managers confused as to how he got there. This difficulty in communication may explain why Schwab flunked college English twice. Nevertheless, jetBlue CEO David Neeleman said his learning disability may even give him an advantage. Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea said, “Everyone should have dyslexia and A.D.D.”

Other traits are also associated with innovation. Obama is left-handed, a trait like dyslexia often associated with creative thinkers.

Other dyslexics compensate for their lack of reading skills through strong oral communication skills, including actors like Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Patrick Dempsey; attorneys like Erin Brockovich and David Boies(?); journalists like Anderson Cooper and Nelson Lauver; politicians like Gavin Newsom and Paul Wellstone.

Early adopters of new innovations tend to come from less risk averse populations: young people and members of higher socioeconomic groups. Obama has been called an “elitist” or “rock star” for the fact his supporters come from these groups, but this is consistent with a cultural movement for change. By contrast, Hillary Clinton is supported by traditionally risk averse populations such as older women and blue collar workers.

While Hillary Clinton and John McCain employ robocalling to get their message out, Obama’s campaign relies on viral marketing--personal calls and neighborhood canvassing by his supporters--benefitting from the fact young supporters are adept at using cell phone technology and often have call plans that allow them to making long distance calls for free.

Like a virus, cultural movements follow an S-curve, starting out slowly, then hitting a tipping point at which they diffuse rapidly throughout the population. Late adopters of new innovations are often influenced by opinion leaders, well-known individuals in a position to communicate their views to a broad audience. In the Democratic Party these are superdelegates. The fact superdelegates are starting to “tip” in favor of Obama suggest his campaign could reach a tipping point in time for the Democratic National Convention.

I wasn’t sure how my rock-video presentation would go over in class. Maybe people would think it wasn’t businesslike. To the tune of Lenny Kravitz’ “Fly Away”, I included photographs and quotes from dyslexic opinion leaders like Gavin Newsom, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Whoopi Goldberg, Anderson Cooper and Erin Brockovich, ending with jetBlue’s Neeleman and a jetBlue plane flying away to Kravitz singing “I want to get away, I want to fly away, Yeah, yeah, yeah” and jet engine sound effects.

At this point, one of my classmates, said, “Wow! The pictures fit with the lyrics.” My classmate Mike, who worked for many years in television news production and has a personality almost exactly like Robin Williams, was timing the presentation. He gave me a solid thumbs up, then later told me his son has dyslexia.

Personhood Laws

I saw a bumper sticker stating “God is Pro-life.” Still, I hate to consider the burden on Colorado law enforcement agencies of defining personhood as beginning at conception.

My sister is a criminal prosecutor in Denver. She has her hands full with rapists, murderers, drug dealers, even one 9/11 terrorism suspect. Imagine her case load if miscarriages became involuntary manslaughter, frozen embryos demanded due process and prenatal ultrasounds became child pornography.

About that bumper sticker. Are we talking about the same God, the one who so loved the world he sent his only begotten son to die? Is this really the pro-life God?

My bumper sticker would say, “God is Love.” If I wanted a pro-life god, I’d choose a fertility god like Baal. Baal worship taught that the mother-goddess Asherah gave birth to a daughter named Ashtoroth. The Holman Bible Dictionary says Astoroth became the Hebrew word for “womb” or “fruit of the womb,” an ancient term for fetus.

By every definition, Baal was pro-life. Yet he caused all kinds of grief for Old Testament prophets like Elijah. This isn’t a problem in America. Not because we have no fertility gods, but because we have no prophets.

Brokeback Mountain Model of Christianity

I read an article from Christianity Today commenting on recent books that promote the masculinizing of churches as a means of drawing men in. Some of these books blame women for feminizing the church, which seems a bit surprising if you consider the power structure in most American churches is overwhelmingly male.

I refer to the masculinizing efforts of men like Mark Driscoll as the “Brokeback Mountain Model” of Christianity.

I come from a family with a high percentage of non-churchgoing men. Though the men in my family would qualify as rebels, it’s not because they’re hyper-masculine. What sets them apart from most Christian men I know isn’t masculinity but birth order. In my experience, non-churchgoing men tend to be middle children, second sons, or in Christ’s words, prodigal sons.

I’ve heard sermons in which ministers acknowledged they couldn’t understand the Parable of the Prodigal Son, couldn’t understand why the father was so partial toward his rebellious younger son, while not appreciating his obedient elder son.

This raises a question: Is it any wonder more men don’t attend church?

I think Jesus had a particular interest in attracting prodigal sons into the church. Because these men are often risk-takers, and unconcerned about what others think of them, they tend to be natural prophets.

What turns off men like these toward religion isn’t femininity, but authoritarianism. Tell a prodigal son how he should vote and he’ll be out the door in two minutes. Up until recently, most Christian political efforts have centered on gender roles and sexuality.

In your gut you know: real men aren’t peevish about sex.

My family stopped attending church over the past few years. My husband left because he felt the men’s group was too focused on discussing masculinity rather than the Bible. My sons chose to stay home with their father.

The Bible portrays the church as feminine, the metaphorical Bride of Christ. American churches aren’t lacking in masculine traits so much as feminine qualities like empathy. Indeed, if Christ were to return today he’d be forced into a gay marriage.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Barack Obama owes a lot to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Back in 2004, this group revealed more truth than they intended to. The problem with American discourse today is that we have a large segment of Americans who are living in the past.

America can’t solve its present problems, let alone address the challenges of the future, when its rhetoric is stuck back in the 1960s. A generation that’s still stuck Vietnam is unqualified to lead us home from Iraq.

What’s needed is a new generation of leadership. Experience, while beneficial, becomes a liability when it means trying to solve problems with the same old methods that never worked before. Not only is Obama from the post-baby boom generation, but he’s left handed, a trait often associated with creative and innovative ways of problem solving.

In a YouTube video from a group called MyFox that I assume is affiliated with Fox News, a reporter attacked a young Cuban Obama supporter. The title of the video was “Obama Supporter, Che Guevara Shill”, though I doubt the woman, let alone the typical YouTube viewer, was old enough to remember Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara.

Hello! The Cold War is over. I’m 49. I’m not even old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis. CSU students in my classes can’t understand why America is the only nation in the world whose citizens don’t have the freedom to travel to Cuba.

In a speech before the Israeli Parliament, George W. Bush accused those like Obama who want to sit down with Middle Eastern leaders of being appeasers like Neville Chamberlain. But Bush has plenty of his own appeasers. Fox News is the Monica Lewinski of journalism, always ready to provide lip service to the president.

Diplomacy is not appeasement. Diplomacy was practiced by U.S. presidents like Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I understand that, for all his tough talk, President Bush is too timid to sit down at a table with his enemies, though I can’t understand why John McCain is. Diplomacy is one element of America’s past that’s worth embracing.

Fundamentalists worship the same triune god

To me they looked like the Stepford Wives, the women from the FLDS in Texas watching as their children were taken away. Their pompadoured hairstyles reminded me of pictures I’d seen in my family albums, only in color. Pastel.

I’m half Mormon. Though I don’t practice the faith, I’ve spent enough time with that side of my family to know the mainline LDS Church doesn’t engage in underage rape as a spiritual practice.

My father once told me the Mormon faith teaches it’s the father’s responsibility to get his children into heaven. Though he occasionally suggested I attend the LDS ministry near my college campus, it seemed odd to follow a faith my father had no use for. Late in life, Dad expressed regret for his failure to convert his children.

Dad was downright irreverent when it came to religion. He had a habit of making the sign of the cross over the front of his trousers, as if his genitals were the three persons of the Trinity, a gesture he found amusing, but which as a girl I found inscrutable.

I’ve since learned things through my family that Dad never told me. After my grandfather died, when Dad was two-years-old, my grandmother moved in with her father-in-law. My uncle believed the relationship was polygamous.

In Denver a year-and-a-half ago, Saudi Arabian Homaidan Al Turki was tried for rape on the grounds he’d kept an Indonesian woman as a sex slave. It was a high-profile case, one that came to national attention through the Department of Homeland Security because of the defendant’s believed connection to the 9/11 hijackers.

After the trial, the King of Saudi Arabia challenged the guilty verdict on the grounds the Islamic Law of Sharia requires four witnesses to a rape. The prosecution produced only three.

I’ve read that Mark Driscoll’s fundamentalist Mars Hill Church in Seattle sings a song called “Grow a Pair.” It paints a clear picture of the gods (gonads?) these people worship.

Irreverent or not, Dad taught me more than he realized about religion. Whether it’s Mormon, Islam or Christian, all fundamentalist religion worships the same triune god.

Prophets and Priests

The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way.
Jeremiah 5:31

Diplomacy is not appeasement

In a speech before the Israeli Parliament, George W. Bush accused those like Barrack Obama who want to sit down with Middle Eastern leaders of being appeasers like Neville Chamberlain. Afterwards, John McCain reiterated that he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists.

President Bush has plenty of his own appeasers. The British now think of former Prime Minister Tony Blair as an appeaser. In America, Fox News is the Monica Lewinski of journalism, always ready to provide lip service to the president. McCain’s support for the president’s statements sounds like appeasement, especially from a man who hopes to distance himself from the president.

Diplomacy is not appeasement. Winston Churchill practiced diplomacy. So did U.S. presidents like Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I can understand that, for all his tough talk, President Bush is too timid to sit down at a table with his enemies.

I can’t understand why McCain is.

Well-behaved women

I saw my favorite bumper sticker at the state Democratic convention last weekend. “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” I’m not normally a bumper-sticker person, but this is one I’ve considered buying.

I commented on this to my companion. Then I caught myself. “Oh, that’s the Hillary table.”

My companion and I were both Barack Obama delegates.

Not that I’m down on Hillary. My husband, who’s still on the fence about who to vote for, has griped about the nasty things Obama supporters post on his Web site about Hillary. To me, this sort of discourse isn’t representative of what Obama stands for.

But there are some with legitimate gripes. On the chartered bus I rode with the Larimer County Democrats, I spoke with a woman who did public relations for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. A front person who set up and researched talking points in foreign venues like Bosnia and Israel, Dorian described the disenchantment she felt when after all her efforts and that of fellow staffers the questions at press conferences all centered on Monica Lewinski.

If Bill acted like that when he was president, Dorian asked, imagine how he’d behave with time on his hands.

The Fourth Congressional District was slated to hold its assembly and convention on Friday evening at 8 p.m. But that was contingent on CD 5 getting in at 4 p.m. and CD 3 at 6 p.m. I got in line with my credentials to register at 2:30, a line that stretched most of the circumference of the Doubletree Hotel in Colorado Springs. I registered around 4:30 or 5, partly because they kept moving CD 5 and 3 delegates to the head of the line.

I got to know a lot of people in that line.

When it became clear CD 4 wouldn’t convene until 10 p.m., the Obama and Clinton campaigns gathered their delegates from that district together to hear speeches by surrogates that would have been held during the district convention. The Obama campaign emailed delegates earlier asking us to support former Denver mayor Federico Pena as superdelegate. Pena spoke, describing how his wife had asked him when he was going to make up his mind to support Obama.

Afterwards, as I shook hands with Pena, I said, “Now, if only I can talk my husband into supporting Obama.”

“You keep after him,” he said, jabbing me in the arm with his left forefinger.

At the CD 4 assembly, Peggy Markey, who’s running against Marilyn Musgrave gave a rousing speech. A few people were grumpy, which may be understandable given the late hour. But I kept noticing a man wearing a turban who I believed worked with a microbiology professor at CSU I’d spoken with in line. Every time I looked, the man in the turban had a smile on his face. I imagined that he was from a country that didn’t have a democratic government. Perhaps his involvement in the political process was one of the most exhilarating experiences he’d had in his life.

I got back to my hotel room shortly after midnight, feeling fortunate to be a delegate. Fourth District alternates didn’t get seated and finish voting until 1:30 a.m.

One of the first items in the state assembly the next day was the approval of the party platform. It was rather lengthy, and I’d been busy finishing up my classes at CSU, and thus had only read the synopsis. Someone circulated a minority plank that proposed encouraging Israel and Palestine to settle their differences, which had been voted down by the state committee. The minority report got voted out on a voice vote, though from where I sat in Larimer County it sounded like most favored it.

A man sitting near me commented that he’d heard that state senators Ken Gordon and Andrew Romanoff attended the same synagogue. Their rabbi was liberal on social issues, but conservative when it came to support on Israel. Though Gordon and Romanoff have both mentioned being Jewish in emails I’ve received from them, Jews have often been loyal Democratic voters. Between Jews on the left and Christian Zionists on the right, Israel is an untouchable subject in American politics.

Toward the end of the convention I noticed a man who looked like one of my husband’s business partners across. I was surprised. My husband’s business partners are Generation X-ers, seemingly disinterested in both religion and politics. Even so, I waved, figuring if it wasn’t Nels he wouldn’t wave back. It was Nels, and an Obama supporter at that. We sat together and got caught up on what was going on with our kids.

While standing in line with Nels at the end of the convention, I bumped into the man with the turban. His accent sounded Indian or Pakistani. My husband and I once had a friend from India. A Hindu, Devin hated Muslims with a passion. It’s not wise to ask questions like, “Are you from India or Pakistan?”

The Clinton line was pretty well cleared out by then, but the Obama line was still long. If I’ve learned anything about conventions, it’s that you should wear comfortable shoes. Announcements over the intercom assured Obama delegates an earlier announcement they’d run out of ballots meant they’d only run out of ballots on the floor and not upstairs.

The man in the turban said he’d registered as an Obama delegate for the national convention and asked if I’d vote for him. I told him I’d also registered to be a national delegate. He said he’d vote for me if I’d vote for him. I agreed and handed him my business card.

Neither of us had a chance. There were around 1500 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. I’m not a self-promoter by nature, and couldn’t bring myself to campaign for the slot. Though I’d asked a few friends and acquaintances like Nels to vote for me, it wouldn’t have been near enough.

Still, there was something exhilarating about seeing my own name on a ballot, and marking an “X” in the square.

Provo

I just visited my aunt who lives near Ogden, Utah, one of the few places in America where it’s still harder to find a Starbucks than it is to find a church. That is, if the church you’re looking for happens to be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I know this. I needed Internet access to check for an e-mail message I was expecting. That and a caramel macchiato. Auntie Marj doesn’t keep coffee in her house. She drank Pepsi for years before a friend pointed out it contained caffeine. Now even her Pepsi is decaf.

My aunt’s phone books listed nine Starbucks in Davis County, four in Salt Lake City.

Starbucks wasn’t crowded in Syracuse, Utah.

A few years ago, I commented to Auntie Marj that my migraines seemed to clear up whenever I visited her, and that I suspected it had something to do with the fact I wasn’t drinking coffee or tea.

“Brigham Young said caffeine wasn’t good for you,” she said, smiling.

Young may have been onto something. Utah has the lowest childhood obesity rate in America. Adult obesity rates are also comparatively low.

From personal experience, this makes sense. The times in my life I’ve lost significant amounts of weight correlate exactly to the times I eliminated caffeine from my diet. I had a difficult time gaining weight during both of my pregnancies. The moment I cut out caffeine, my appetite nose dived.

Not that I think cutting caffeine would cure obesity. Some thin people drink coffee all the time. And there’s Type II Diabetes in the Mormon side of my family, though in Auntie Marj’s case it was so easily controlled she no longer has to test her blood sugar. At 88, she’s not active, but sleeps well at night.

We worry these days about fast food. I agree portion sizes have gotten out of hand. When I was working behind the counter at McDonald’s most adults ordered the equivalent of today’s Happy Meal.

Customers also ordered more high-fat milk shakes back then. And fewer caffeinated soft drinks.

God's Purpose

One day several years ago I was sitting at Edmondson Park talking while our kids played. I told her how I’d gone back to college to get a journalism degree, and how I hoped to get a job working with a newspaper.

Oh, no, this woman said. I was far too mild-mannered to succeed in journalism. What I needed was a less stressful job. I should work for a nice place like Group Publishing instead.

Obviously this woman wasn’t aware I’m not a big fan of Christian publishing. Or that I’ve never desired for my coworkers, or even my friends, to be exclusively Christians.

I pointed out to her I’d heard a past editor of the Loveland Report-Herald speak at a public relations event. He, too, was a soft-spoken, mild-mannered person.

Oh, no, she insisted. Her second cousin twice removed went into journalism and it was awful. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe it was her brother-in-law.

I was angry, though, mild-mannered person that I am, I bit my tongue rather than lash out at her for what, in all likelihood, was well-intentioned advice.

Only later did I realize what angered me. For the past 20 years I’d experienced deep regret for not majoring in journalism in college. It was a decision I’d made as a young woman, a decision rooted in fear. My first semester in college I looked around my freshman journalism class, saw men and women who were so much more extroverted than me, and decided I was totally out of my league. In midlife I was determined to correct what I now believe was the biggest mistake in my life.

This woman had known me for all of 20 minutes and already presumed she had the right to shatter my dreams.

The problem was, the doubts this woman expressed about my abilities so closely mirrored my self doubts that I couldn’t easily dismiss them. Instead, I wrestled with them for several days.

One day, on the way home from walking my sons to Edmondson Elementary School, I encountered this woman’s son walking to school alone. He seemed in no particular hurry, though the playground was empty and the tardy bell had already wrung. Rather, he dragged his feet as if he were marching to his death.

It wasn’t uncommon for this boy to be late to school like this. But this time my heart went out to him. Maybe this was his mother’s modus operandi. Maybe she told everyone close to her they were going to fail at whatever they endeavored to do. Maybe she shattered everyone’s dreams.

National Day of Prayer

Last month, I received an e-mail from the Interfaith Alliance criticizing the National Day of Prayer. Coordinated by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, the “national” day allows participants of all faiths, but specifies leadership criteria that excludes everyone but fundamentalist Christians.

The e-mail reminded me of several experiences from college.

One day a group of my Christian friends were talking. A man brought up a woman, also named Megan, who lived in my dorm and had a reputation as a party animal. Paul began regaling the others on this woman’s “bad” behavior.

A woman--later my roommate--interrupted him. “Megan did that?”

“Not that Megan,” he said. “Pagan Megan.”

Linda told me the story and began jokingly calling me Pagan Megan. She apologized for this, but I didn’t mind. The nickname was given in a loving fashion. I was the quiet, mousy, “good girl” in my family. Linda conferred on me the rebel status I secretly longed for.

Though I didn’t know the other Megan in my dorm, I was vaguely troubled about a religion so elitist as to marginalize an outsider.

Around that time, a man was kicked out of Campus Crusade for Christ. A charismatic, Dave made the mistake of telling others about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, a doctrine evangelical Christians don’t share.

Dave, who I later dated, led a Bible study in my dorm, where he was admired for his miraculous gifts of teaching, word of knowledge and faith healing. Though I wasn’t a charismatic (yet), I began realizing the powerful religion was on the outside track.

Heartbroken after Dave and I broke up, I prayed my next boyfriend wouldn’t be a Christian. My next boyfriend was Jewish. Steve loved to argue. “Christianity,” he argued, “is nothing but dogma.” While I disputed this back then, I’ve since realized he was right.

The National Day of Prayer reflects the dogmatic emphasis on form over substance Steve was criticizing, a “focus on the phony” that recently inspired me to study Judaism. When religious elitism trumps faith, experience shows it’s best to stay home.

One way to God?

Some people argue that Christ is the only way to God. Often such people are so disagreeable one fervently hopes they find that way soon.

A YouTube video promoting Carrington Steele’s book, “Don’t Drink the Kool Aid: Oprah, Obama and the Occult” criticized Oprah Winfrey for promoting Eckhart Tolle’s new age book, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.” This infraction earned Oprah the designation of Antichrist.

The Antichrist may well be the oldest urban legend in Christianity. The Book of Revelations never once uses the name. A search on biblegateway.com shows the Apostle John used the lowercase word antichrist a total of four times in his two epistles. In context, the term appears to refer to an early heresy, possibly Gnosticism.

The Bible never uses the capitalized name Antichrist. Period. Never in the context of an individual. Certainly not in the context of end-times prophesy.

And yet, the name is used so frequently in American discourse--right up there with Adolph Hitler and Neville Chamberlain--the Associated Press style book contains a listing for it with the aforementioned capitalization.

Given the Antichrist’s mythical status, it’s a safe bet that Steele’s book has an equally shaky scriptural foundation.

The Steele video included an excerpt of Oprah’s television program in which Oprah stated her belief there was more than one way to God. It’s the classic “Woman Bites God” story, which explains why CNN covered it in yet another YouTube video.

A third video showed George W. Bush in an interview with Charlie Rose, saying essentially the same thing as Oprah. He believed there was more than one way to God, and only God could judge who would enter heaven.

In “Shrub,” Molly Ivins described an argument between George W. Bush and his mother, Barbara Bush. Barbara questioned her son’s Christian beliefs on the grounds they excluded people of other faiths. George countered that it said so right there in the Bible.

Dissatisfied with this response, Barbara picked up the phone and said, “Get me Billy Graham.”

Graham told George that, though technically he was correct, only God could make those judgments.

20th Century Gospel Music

“Reach out and touch faith.”
--“Personal Jesus,” Johnny Cash

Recently, I stumbled on a video on YouTube of Evanescence’ “My Immortal” done as a Gregorian chant. The group Gregorian performs many secular songs, including R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven. It’s exactly the approach Pope Gregory ? used in evangelizing Europe: Take the secular and sanctify it.

In my opinion, the best gospel music of the 20th Century came from the genre called gospel blues. Some personal favorites are Blind Willie Johnson’s “John the Revelator” and Johnny Cash’s “Personal Jesus.”

Because gospel blues aren’t “happy” music, they’re not often played in church, or at least not in white churches. But this hasn’t kept such music from crossing over into secular culture.

“Personal Jesus” has been remade by both Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson. A sexualized Depeche Mode video on YouTube portrays a cowboy visiting a house of ill repute. The Marilyn Manson video ends with a group of nuns handing a swaddled baby to Manson, which he drops to the floor, where it smashes into pieces and proves to have been nothing but a china doll filled with coins. A blog called obamamessiah contributes a video which portrays Barack Obama as a cultural messiah.

YouTube has an old 78-RPM recording of a raspy-voiced Blind Willie Johnson singing “John the Revelator,” as well as an old black and white video of Son House. There’s an acoustic version of Phil Keaggy, which isn’t as good in my opinion as his amped up version. The song is also performed by the Gaither Vocal Band, Australian singer Nick Cave, as well as in “The Blues Brothers” movie. Southern jam band Guv’t Mule does a really nice New Orleans style cover.

Depeche Mode’s video for “John the Revelator” takes liberties with the lyrics and portrays George W. Bush as three of the four riders of the apocalypse; Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld as the two beasts described in the Book of Revelations.

These days, Christians talk about taking back culture. Maybe they could start by taking back their gospel music.

Personal Jesus

“Jesus, where are you? Do you even care these days?”
New Life Church gunman Matthew Murray

“Your own personal Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers. Someone who cares.”
“Personal Jesus,” Depeche Mode

I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that “Personal Jesus” was originally recorded in 1989 by Depeche Mode, and not by Johnny Cash as I’d assumed. In his final 2002 album, Cash co-opted the secular hit, converting a song about Elvis Presley into one about Jesus Christ.

Inspired by Pricilla Presley’s book “Elvis and Me,” “Personal Jesus” was ranked #368 in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004 and included in Q Magazine’s “100 Best Songs Ever” in 2006, according to Wikipedia.

Depeche Mode’s video on YouTube portrays a group of cowboys visiting a house of prostitution. Marilyn Manson’s version ends with a group of nuns handing a swaddled baby to Manson, who drops the baby to the floor, where it smashes to bits, proving to be nothing but a china doll filled with coins.

Johnny Cash could have done what many Christians do. He could have become offended that Manson desecrated a song about Jesus. Instead, he sang the song himself. Because people know Cash is a believer, he completely shifted the context of the music.

The notion of Jesus as personal Savior was popular when I accepted Christ back in 1976. It’s gone out of style since then. Partly I think this is a result of the pro-life movement. An individual voter can’t alter the results of an election. Christianity switched to a corporate model, one that viewed differences of opinion as disunity. Christians began seeking salvation through changed laws, rather than changed hearts.

Today’s Jesus is an impersonal warrior who cares more about who you vote for than what you pray for.

The Bible tells us Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. If the new and improved Jesus marketed in many churches today hasn’t sold well in America, maybe it’s because secular culture’s concept of a personal savior, though more sexual, has changed little in the past 30 years.

Sluts and other such Christian mysogyny

In a column published last month, Cal Thomas used the term “sluts” in connection to the movie “Sex and the City.” Thomas said this was what his grandmother would call such women.

But my Lutheran grandmother would never have used such language, leaving me wondering whether to blame Thomas’ upbringing or his pro-life proclivities for his abusive language.

Maybe Thomas was mimicking Barack Obama’s grandmother analogy in his speech about racism. Obama’s grandmother practiced bigotry, like Thomas’ grandmother practiced misogyny, like my Mormon grandmother practiced polygamy.

Those naughty grannies.

In an online novel workshop last year, a woman confronted me about a sermon scene in which a minister referred to Gomer, the adulterous wife of the prophet Hosea, as a slut. No minister would say this, my classmate said. When I told her the scene was based on an actual sermon I attended, she was flabbergasted.

Grace and I concluded there was a cultural divide between her Christian experience and mine. Grace was raised in the South in the Southern Baptist Church. Southern culture conditions men to speak courteously to and about women. For all his faults, the worst thing Bill Clinton ever called a woman was “that woman.”

I was raised outside the church in feminist Boulder. Despite our differences, Grace and I agreed on one thing: Christian men shouldn’t call women sluts.

My husband and I discussed how in the West women were considered to be tougher and less needy of protection from men. Thus, it became culturally acceptable for Western men to speak of women in more disparaging terms, such as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen,” an insult to single mothers, or John McCain chuckling at a woman’s use of the word “bitch” in reference to Hillary Clinton.

I recently returned to college where I’ve discovered the generation raised with the pro-life movement doesn’t believe Christianity promotes “life,” but hatred and abuse toward women. This perception hurts young Christian men who, no longer perceived as chivalrous, are leaving the church in droves.

Christians who denigrate women harm culture and Christianity more than movies like “Sex and the City.”

I've sometimes wondered if dreams were prayers

And God could watch them and know what we really wanted.
Not those laundry lists we give him when we’re on our knees
But buried desires we’d never admit to anyone, even God,
Because some of them are naughty things
Adulteries of the mind our ministers tell us we shouldn’t want
But our minds want because otherwise we wouldn’t dream them.
Maybe God already knows we want those things,
And isn’t angry because it’s all part of his plan.
Maybe the prayers we say on our knees should be more honest
Like those we say on our backs.

RNC

In 2000, I made a campaign contribution to John McCain. I talked my husband, an Independent, into declaring himself a Republican so he could give McCain a parting sympathy vote in the Colorado primary. I’m still on McCain’s e-mail list.

Though I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1980, I’ve never otherwise been politically involved. I think this is because, as an evangelical Christian, I’ve been told my political views were immoral. But my parents were mavericks, who raised me to be a maverick, too stubborn to let go of my feminist and pro-environmental views.

McCain’s appeal back in 2000 was rooted in the fact he appeared to be a maverick like me. Since 9/11, he’s looked less like a maverick, and more like just another Republican. This year, Barack Obama looked like the true maverick. This is the first year I’ve done more than vote and make a campaign contribution. I volunteered and was a county and state delegate for Obama.

For many of us, presidential elections amount to the lesser of two evils. This year, for me, is the greater of two goods. I’ll vote for Obama, but won’t be disappointed if McCain wins. Indeed, this was the year of the maverick, including Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul.

I watched the Republican Convention on FoxNews.com. In convention coverage, I focus on audience shots. RNC delegates looked pale and male. In fairness, Democrats practice affirmative action in selecting delegates. Still, this doesn’t look like the “shattered glass ceiling” party.

Whatever became of the “Big Tent?” Where were progressive Republicans, like Arnold Schwartzenegger or Christine Todd Whitman? When did “one nation under God” morph into “Country First?” When did Christian motherhood morph into a pitt bull with lipstick?

Older delegates seemed excited whenever speakers mentioned vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. But young delegates looked bored, as if they wished they were at that other convention.

Some call Palin a maverick. If so, she’d hardly be a darling of the religious right. Social conservatives hate mavericks, which explains their disdain for McCain.

Besides, I know mavericks. Sarah Palin is no maverick.

One way to God

My Jewish boyfriend in college used to say Christianity was nothing but dogma. Though I argued with him back then, I’ve since realized he had a valid point.

For all the emphasis on preaching the right Gospel, and adhering to the correct doctrinal elements, many churches I’ve attended seemed to preach the wrong god. The god I was hearing preached was either so abusive or so indifferent, I wouldn’t want to know him, let alone spend all eternity with him. After leaving church week after week in tears, feeling emptier than when I walked in, I decided to seek God elsewhere.

A recent Pew poll suggests I’m not alone. A fairly high percentage of Americans, including over half of evangelical Christians, believe there’s many ways to find God.

Back when I was in college, several Christians I knew were approached by a local church whose doctrine was based on a Bible verse claiming that it was necessary to be baptized in order to be saved. The church twisted this doctrine still further, saying it was necessary to be baptized in their church to be saved. The Navigators representative on my college campus explained that one sign of a heresy was basing beliefs too heavily on a single verse, while overlooking the totality of the message in the entire Bible.

Many Christians insist there’s only one way to God, a dogma they base on a single verse. But Jesus promised, “Seek and you shall find.” He never stipulated anything about doctrinal beliefs. Those most adamant they’ve found the one true way to God often hold such a negative concept of God, they might as well worship the devil.

If you read the Gospels in their entirety, you see that Jesus was fairly inclusive in his approach to people, often acknowledging faith in people who wouldn’t have been considered to belong to any faith tradition at all. The Apostle Paul was so inclusive Orthodox Jews to this day consider him to be a heretic. Though the Bible prophecies false Christ’s, it never says says they’ll be false because they’re lacking in dogma.

Freakonomics

The book “Freakonomics” includes a statistical argument that shows that in areas where abortion rates increase, the crime rate drops twenty years later. Authors speculate mothers abort the individuals most likely to engage in crime.

The argument is unprovable, in part because the anecdotal evidence is all dead. Because abortion is more accessible to women in higher socioeconomic groups, economic growth could explain both increased abortion and reduced crime.

But it raises an interesting question: is there ever a societal advantage to legalized abortion?

In this regard, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein provides the anecdotal evidence “Freakonomics” authors lack. After the death of his father and older brother due to cancer, Saddam’s depressed mother considered getting an abortion, but was talked out of it by a couple who’d taken her in. After Saddam was born, his still-depressed mother abandoned him, leaving him in the care of his uncle, returning several years later with Saddam’s abusive stepfather. Some experts have attributed Saddam’s tyrannical behavior to this early abandonment and abuse.

In effect, our pro-life president did what he preaches Saddam’s mother didn’t have the choice to do: he aborted Saddam Hussein. But imagine how different life in America and Iraq would be today had Saddam’s mother gone through with her abortion, and that precious little life not been saved. Imagine how many innocent lives have been lost because Saddam’s mother didn’t get an abortion.

Several years ago, I researched the history of abortion and discovered something interesting. Contrary to the belief of many Christians, the use of abortifacients existed in biblical times. The Assyrians, who led the Hebrews into the Babylonian Captivity, impaled women for the crime. Hippocrates addressed abortion. A Christianized Roman Empire took steps to outlaw the practice.

A moral and ethical issue throughout history, biblical authors never addressed abortion. Why?

Because opposing abortion negates the Gospel. By elevating temporal life over eternal life, being born over being born again, pro-life rhetoric undermines both Christ’s New Testament message and the Old Testament faith of Abraham and Isaac. Biblical authors would have saved fetuses only to abort the Judeo-Christian faith.

Does Church = Christ?

I left my church about a year and a half ago after experiencing depression during church services. For quite some time, I was reticent about going back to church, or even trying a different church. One week I even considered visiting a church I’d attended clear back in college, just to see what it was like. I got as far as looking at the church Web site to see the service times, and saw the topic of that week’s sermon was, “Don’t Go To Church.”

I took it as a sign.

Recently, I discovered my church Web site carries podcasts of the sermons. I decided this was a way to keep in touch with what’s going on in my church, from the safety of my own bedroom. If something about the sermon bothered me, I could always turn it off.

One of the first sermons I heard was one relating to the verse, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” It was your typical beginning of summer sermon, trying to deflect the usual summertime drop in church attendance. It wasn’t, I reminded myself, directed at me.

But, of course, I took it personally. After all, I hadn’t been attending church for a year and a half. Was I separating myself from the vine?

Jesus is speaking here, defining himself as the vine, but the minister took the liberty of applying the verse to the church. This raises the question: is the church equivalent to Christ? By separating ourselves from the church, have we separated ourselves from Christ, or only from the outward expression of our faith?

The question troubles me. I believe one of the reasons I was experiencing depression during church services is because I wasn’t sensing Christ’s presence in church. Immediately after I stopped attending church, I felt a tremendous lifting of burdens, and a sense of Christ’s compassion for me. I literally experienced Christ’s presence more directly after I left my church than while I was there.

Christians used to say, “Don’t put God in a box.” What is a church but God in a box?

Obama, the Antichrist?

“Seven lies multiplied by seven multiplied by seven again. Seven angels with seven trumpets. Send them home on the morning train.”

“John the Revelator,” Depeche Mode

A few days ago my husband overheard a conversation here in town in which some people worried Barack Obama might be the Antichrist. It reminded me that back in college, my Christian friends warned that Ronald Reagan might be the Antichrist. Like Obama, Reagan was a charismatic individual, and arguably even more of a celebrity. Each one of his names had six letters; thus, Reagan was the 666.

Non-christians also portray political leaders in the context of end-times prophesy. A Depeche Mode video of “John the Revelator”--lyrics altered from the original 1920s Blind Willy Johnson version--depicts George W. Bush as three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove as the two beasts, Paul Wolfowitz as the devil.

The Antichrist is a uniquely American urban legend. The Book of Revelations never once uses the name. A search on biblegateway.com shows the Apostle John used the lowercase word “antichrist” a total of four times in his two epistles. John never described the antichrist as an individual, but as a spirit. In context, the term appears to refer to an early heresy or heresies, possibly including Gnosticism.

The Bible never uses the capitalized name Antichrist. Period. Never in the context of an individual. Especially not in the context of end-times prophesy. And yet, Antichrist is used so frequently in American discourse, the Associated Press style book even contains a listing for it with the accepted capitalization.

I suspect the reason for the confusion is that Revelations describes 666 as the number of a man. However, this could just as easily be interpreted as a “manmade” number as to an individual.

It’s telling that both liberal and conservative Americans share a common fear the American government is the fulfillment of end-times prophecy, despite popular interpretations targeting the United Nations. I suspect this points to a common concern our government is too powerful, that we’re becoming one nation over God, rather than under God.