What Santorum Gets Wrong

When I decided some months ago to start blogging again, I intended to avoid politics; I was just going to write responses to the lectionary.

However, when the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination feels that it's appropriate to criticize President Obama for a "phony theology" that is "not based on the Bible," I can't help myself.

When Republicans in Congress can summon an all male panel of clergy to complain that their rights are threatened by insurance coverage for women's healthcare (and simultaneously deny an opportunity to speak to a woman who was prepared to speak to how the laws impact her), something has gone off the rails.

When I say "what Santorum gets wrong," I don't plan to do a point-by-point rebuttal of his various statements and claims. The last thing the world needs is more Christians pointing fingers at each other and saying, "I'm right, you're wrong."

Today, however, is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. While there is a heightened focus on sin and all our various collective and individual failures, there is also necessarily an emphasis on forgiveness and salvation. What Santorum and people like him appear to have not understood - perhaps conceptually, intellectually, but clearly not in their hearts - is that salvation isn't up to us.

Oh, we can have a long argument about salvation by faith versus salvation by works, but that misses the point, too. It's not up to us. It's salvation by God.

The writers of the New Testament reached a pretty clear consensus that grace is a gift, freely given. We don't earn it, and in fact, we can't earn it. There is no person so good, so pure, so virtuous that they can enter into eternal life by their own efforts. No one deserves to go to Heaven. The astonished disciples asked Jesus, "Well, then who can get into Heaven?" He said, simply, "For mortals, it is impossible." Remember, this is the guy who also said, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to uproot itself and fall into the ocean." But Heaven? "For mortals, it is impossible."

And then he says, "For God, all things are possible."

A lot of people - hopefully most people - concede this, even if they maybe don't really believe it. The most self-righteously pious, judgmental blowhard televangelist will also probably be the first person to say he's a sinner, but he's also a lot like that pharisee in the classic parable, pointing at the tax collector and saying to God, "I may not be perfect, but at least I don't sin as much or as badly as that guy." That's really where we find ourselves. "I may not be perfect, but at least I do not have sex outside of marriage/I do not use birth control/I have not had an abortion/[fill in the vice of your choice]." That's basically Rick Santorum: I assume he wouldn't dare say (and doesn't believe) that he's not a sinner, but at least his theology is "based on the Bible," not like that other guy's. It is a classic case of "holier than thou," in the most pathetic and literal (if illiterate) sense.

So it begs the question: if no one is perfect, then just how imperfect can we be, and still get into Heaven? And if that sounds like we're framing the question too much in a "works-based" theology, then let's rephrase: no one fully understands God or gets everything right, so...how wrong can we be and still be "right enough"?

But there again we fail to remember it's not up to us.

The Bible, which is sometimes described as a record of the history of salvation, is not a book full of inspiring, feel-good stories about virtous people, or, at the very least, that would be a grotesque oversimplification. It's a book full of troubling - but ultimately inspiring - stories about a whole lot of very real human beings who say and do all kinds of dumb, mean, fearful, selfish things. What we're meant to take away is that people are complicated, and that God can work with us and through us even though we screw up in ways big and small, all the time. Our brokenness is not an obstacle for God. Paul strenuously insisted that nothing can separate us from God's love, one of many verses the literalists prefer to pretend come with an asterisk.

And so, even laying aside the incredibly sad state of affairs that a self-professed defender of the Constitution does not understand why it's irrelevant, inappropriate and offensive to comment on whether the president's "theology" is sufficiently orthodox for the office, Santorum's own biggest mistake is failing to understand that no one's theology is sufficient.

You just can't legislate people into heaven, Rick.

St Barnabas

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3:31-11; Acts 4:32-27

I suddenly dig St Barnabas. If you'd asked me yesterday who St Barnabas was, I couldn't have given you a very good answer. It's not that I've never kept his feast before, it just never stuck. I wish I had looked him up before I visited a parish of St Barnabas last week.

Reading the lessons appointed for morning prayer on this feast, one wonders just which Bible, exactly, a lot of Americans are reading. (Okay, fair enough: they are in fact probably reading one that does not contain Ecclesiasticus, found in the apocrypha.)

It's hard for me to resist the temptation of pointing out what I think other people should take away from these readings, instead of concentrating solely on what they say to me, but I just get so angry at the way our faith is misrepresented, distorted, even, yea, perverted by those who have appointed themselves its greatest advocates and true believers. Today's reading from Sirach is exemplary, but not unique. How is it, exactly, that so much of America's Christian culture aligns itself with a political system that serves Mammon? I get equally despondent over many liberals, the self-appointed guardians of objectivity and education, who are satisfied that all they need to know about the Bible or Christianity they have heard on television from crackpots, and dismiss Christians as ideological zealous bigots, or, at best, sad, deluded people clinging to some bizarre ancient myth to bring rays of hope into their pathetic little lives, and think of the Bible as an archaic manifesto for every kind of small-mindedness and oppression known to history.

The rich person toils to amass a fortune,
and when he rests he fills himself with his dainties.
The poor person toils to make a meagre living,
and if ever he rests he becomes needy.

Bam! That's about as succinct a summation of the progressive view of the shortcomings of capitalism as you could find. We hear a lot, especially from the "libertarian" crowd, about how the rich are the products of their own success and hard work and, ergo, the poor must be so because they chose not to work as hard. Assuredly, there probably are some underachievers out there who ought to take more responsibility and show some initiative, but a general philosophy that the poor don't work as hard as the rich when more often than not it's the poor who end up working the physically exhausting or the dangerous or the smelly or unpleasant or unrespected tasks is delusion. Some wealthy people definitely work very hard, but usually in a comfortable and safe way, and they are able to rest from time to time in comfort, if and when they choose. And, of course, some rich people don't work at all. We live in a celebrity culture, where some people are famous for being famous.

One who loves gold will not be justified;
one who pursues money will be led astray by it.
Many have come to ruin because of gold,
and their destruction has met them face to face.

Okay, enough shooting fish in a barrel. I certainly am no saint in this regard; perhaps I sin even more egregiously, because I read things like this, and I feel their truth, and while I desire to live a comparatively simple and modest life, the plain truth of the matter is that I am stinking, filthy rich. I don't think most Americans would agree with that assessment -- I drive a Honda, I live in a suburban apartment, I don't have a butler or a maid or take fancy vacations; in fact, I think a lot of Americans would say my life is kind of lame. I don't even have cable. And yet, given my income, I am in the top 1% of earners worldwide. More than 99% of humanity has less money than I do, so I don't know how I could define myself as anything other than loaded.

Sure, I work pretty hard (by "middle class" standards). But I'm not pursuing any particular passion; it's just a job. I want to have my modest but comfortable life, pay off my student loans, and put some money away for retirement. In our culture, that's not bad. It's considered normal and responsible. But there's the serious disconnect between a real Christian life and a generic American life. The stories of the saints are filled with people who walked away from comfort for the sake of the Gospel; in America, we tend to think that following the Gospel entitles us to comfort.

St Barnabas is one of these heroes. He was a landowner who sold his property and gave the money to the church. Now, maybe that doesn't sound so extraordinary to us. Wealthy folk - even the non-religious - commit acts of generosity and philanthropy all the time. But this information about Barnabas comes to us immediately following the controversial section of Acts that appears to claim that the early Christians were essentially socialists. "No one claimed private ownership of any possession, but everything they owned was held in common....There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold...and it was distributed to each as any had need." Barnabas didn't donate a fortune in exchange for getting the new wing of the hospital named after him. He simply gave away everything he had so that those who had nothing might have something, trusting that the community would be there to meet his needs, too. He didn't decide there was a certain fraction of his income he could do without; he laid his money at the apostles' feet.

Note how at odds this is with the political wing of our country that most loudly claims to be the paragons of Christian virtue. They abhor the notion of living like this, and rail against anything that might benefit the poor at the inconvenience of the wealthy. Of course, they defend this by noting that all this charity was voluntary, not compelled by the government. But we have a totally different system; we are not run by hereditary monarchs (hereditary oligarchs, maybe...), or puppet princes in the service of a foreign empire. We govern ourselves; it's not like Caesar taxing the poor to pay for his own excesses. Instead, we, like the apostles, are supposed to be sitting down together, adding up our resources, and using them to address our needs and problems.

I still have such trouble with the hypocrisy of these "conservatives" who claim the authority of Scripture, but only when it's not inconvenient or at odds with their personal political views. Somehow we end up with "Christians" who want to cut off unemployment assistance in a time when there are vastly more people looking for work than there are jobs to be filled, arguing that unemployment insurance just encourages people to be lazy. We get "Christians" who deny global climate change, even as poor communities in coastal areas around the world continue to be inundated by rising seas, as icecaps and glaciers disappear and deserts expand, because making a meaningful effort to combat these problems would necessarily mean making major changes in the comforts and conveniences to which Americans (especially, but not exclusively) have grown accustomed. We get "Christians" who argue that there is no "right" to health care, as though our capacity to prevent and cure disease and eliminate or ameliorate suffering is a special privilege of the wealthy, rather than a moral obligation.

Blessed is the rich person who is found blameless,
and who does not go after gold.
Who is he, that we may praise him?

Good question.

In Which I Take Hillary Clinton's Side

Okay, so lately, I confess I have been on a personal journey learning more about the saints and exploring Christian mysticism and having some remarkable experiences of my own...but on the other hand, let's get real.

"The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531."

And the pope is infallible and condoms spread HIV.

At Long Last

Obama's First Huge Mistake

The selection of evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20 is absolutely astonishing and tremendously disappointing.

President-elect Obama's defense of the choice is ironic: claiming that he wants to honor and represent the diversity of America, he has gone with a pastor who has stood in public opposition to that ideal.

Rick Warren is entitled to his religious views that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and to hold the belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman. He is even entitled to disregard all the available scientific research on the subject of sexual orientation and continue to maintain that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice" that can be "treated." He was entitled to support California's Proposition 8 and to campaign on its behalf.

What Pastor Warren was not entitled to do, however, was to participate in a campaign of dishonesty about the "threat" the civil marriage of same-sex couples posed to religious freedom and freedom of speech. He claimed that any religious figure who spoke out against homosexuality or same-sex marriage could be "charged" with hate speech and fed the silly fear that churches would be "forced" to hold same-sex wedding ceremonies.

Either Mr. Warren does not understand his own first amendment rights that he claims to be so worried about, or he is a liar.

The legalization of civil marriage for same-sex couples does not restrict in any manner any person's fundamental right to speak in opposition. Just look how many people were censored or arrested for "hate speech" in California during the four months that same-sex marriage was legal there: zero. And how many pastors were forced to bless same-sex unions agains their deeply held religious beliefs? None.

It is true that Warren's rhetoric has been more moderate in tone than many other conservative religious leaders, but the content was no less poisonous. It is odious that in the name of "diversity" Barack Obama has given this honor to a person who used his pulpit to call for the elimination of existing rights for a minority population based on prejudice -- whether protected speech, or no.

Barack Obama's victory was in large part possible because the nation chose to soundly repudiate the politics of pander perfected by Karl Rove in targeting people like Rick Warren and his supporters. It is disheartening that this selection reinforces the notion that to be a credible religious figure in America one must be socially conservative. Why couldn't Obama have picked a progressive member of the clergy, like evangelical activist Jim Wallis? Or why not Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, who is also a scientist? Or perhaps a prominent African American scholar like Harvard's Peter Gomes?

Consider me extremely disappointed.

Thank God for CNN

Today's top story: "A man identified as an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at -- but missed -- President Bush during a news conference Sunday evening in Baghdad, where Bush was making a farewell visit. In Arab culture, throwing shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult."

Okay...unlike, where, exactly, where chucking footwear at someone is a compliment?

So, Portland is having this once-in-a-century kind of blizzard thing. The cats and I are curled up under the tree listening to the wind howl. There is nothing on TV. I am actually considering watching the SciFi original movie about the great white shark terrorizing the canals of Venice. I'll probably just watch until a gondola gets eaten and then go to bed.

I'll leave you with this parting thought:

For the Record...

As much as I opposed Hillary Clinton's pursuit of the Oval Office, I am rather intrigued and excited by the notion of having her as Secretary of State. She makes Sarah Palin's "pitbull with lipstick" look like a poodle.

Is Anybody Home at CNN?

Here's a lame-ass headline from CNN.com: "Obama's Vetting Could Chase Away Candidates."

Yes, you morons. THAT IS THE POINT. Sheesh!

Sarah Palin's Secret Gay Son

So, I had this very odd dream last night.

My father was reading to me out of The National Enquirer -- so, already you know we are in some kind of alternate-reality here -- an article claiming that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (you might remember her from such political disasters as "The Turkey Slaughter that Upstaged My Press Conference" and "The Couric Interviews") had a secret son named Brian no one knew about, who had been disowned and exiled because of his homosexuality.

Well, I had to find out if this was true, so immediately I set out to investigate. And then, well, this being a dream, suddenly I was no longer with my father, I was entering a building that appeared to be a library. A vaguely cherubic, slightly pudgy, rosy-cheeked teenager passed me and said, "Hello, Andy."

"Wait -- how do you know my name?" I inquired of the stranger. He winked at me, and then presto we were in some kind of underground lair where he revealed his identity to me.

"You know who I am," he said -- and I did! -- "but I no longer use the name that was given to me. I am now called Shhhhhh." When he pronounced his name, it echoed around the subterranean cavern with terrible authority.

He then explained that during his years of exile he had come in contact with a master race of alien homosexuals and had become their military commander. He was right this moment in the process of initiating an intergalactic invasion that would wipe out fundygelicals once and for all and then said, "But I am looking for a pastry chef. Are you interested in the job?"

Even though I am not a pastry chef, naturally I accepted. Then I woke up.

Join the Impact: Prop 8 Rally in Portland!

In which it is revealed that I suck at community organizing.

In the wake of the passage of California's Proposition 8, which took away the right of same-sex couples to marry in that state, a national day of protest was organized by a group called "Join the Impact," with simultaneous rallies in every state in the country.

I decided this would be a boffo opportunity for the recently resurrected Oregon chapter of Integrity. The local network coordinator could not attend (Ducks game!), but he gave me his email password and on Thursday I sent out an email blast to basically the entire Diocese inviting them to the protest.

I know it was short notice -- the whole event was planned over the internet in just a couple of days -- but I confess I'd hoped for slightly better Episcopal representation. Only one other member of Integrity showed up -- and he hadn't gotten the email, he was just there by coincidence. So it was me, him, his straight roommate, and one very nice, very supportive lady from my church. Oh well.

The rally consisted of a series of speakers. For the first 20 minutes, they had no amplification whatsoever. Then someone brought a bull-horn, but the speakers were in the center of the crowd, so if the bullhorn wasn't pointed right at you, you couldn't hear what was being said. Eventually we moved away from the main part of the crowd since we realized no one could see our banner, and took up a spot on the steps of the PSU library. I think people maybe thought we were crazy Christian counter-protesters.

Sam Adams, the openly gay mayor-elect of Portland, gave a barnstormer of a speech. At least, I'm guessing he did. We heard the crowd roar repeatedly with approval, but I didn't hear a single word. Next time some AMPLIFICATION might be in order, folks.

At least I got this cute new profile pic of me and some other guy's dog. How gay is this?

Bumpersticker of the Day

"If We Ignore the Environment, It Will Go Away."

Thought for the Day

Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head;
my lying foes who would destroy me are mighty.
Must I then give back what I never stole?

Psalm 69:5

She Thought Africa Was a Country

FOX News doesn't just throw Sarah Palin under the bus, they tie her to the bumper and hit the gas.

Sign of the Apocalypse

Perusing the Google searches that are leading folks to my blog 1 day after the election, "Obama Antichrist" and variations seem to be winning.

For the curious, here's every post I've written that contains "antichrist."

Whoops, I Was Wrong

I predicted Obama would get 355 electoral votes.

Looks like he's headed for 364. My bad!

CA Prop 8 to Face Court Challenge

Opponents of Proposition 8 in California have refused to concede the election, citing the approximately 4 million absentee ballots that have yet to be counted. That's probably a long shot, but apparently we have another ace up our sleeve.

Originally I believed there would be no recourse in the courts; after all, Proposition 8 amends the state constitution, which the state supreme court must uphold and enforce. However, an emergency appeal was filed today by Lambda Legal, the ACLU and the National Center for Lesbian Rights urging the invalidation of Proposition 8.

Here's the argument: in May, the court cited numerous precedents and reiterated that marriage is a fundamental right. Proposition 8 improperly eliminates access to a fundamental right by targeting a specific group. To put that another way, it's as if California voters had passed an amendment to deny the right of free speech only to women, or the right to vote to non-whites. According to the brief filed today, "any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid."

There's even a precedent for this. In 1990, the state supreme court reversed an initiative that "improperly attempted to strip California’s courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state’s constitution. "

The state legislature voted twice to legalize same-sex marriage in the state, and the supreme court ruled 4-3* back in May in favor of marriage. Proposition 8 may yet fall.

The bigots will scream bloody judicial activism, but we have to win this. Proposition 8 is a manifest injustice. Under the banner of righteousness, these people campaigned on fear and deception to villainize and victimize thousands of their fellow citizens. Prop 8 protects nothing -- least of all children or the free expression of religion -- and serves only to deny thousands of Americans their fundamental rights for the sake of outright prejudice.

In yet more reassuring news, the California Attorney General issued a statement today that the 18,000 same-sex marriages that have already taken place will continue to be honored.

This is not over!

* In the original version of this post, I inadvertently wrote that the supreme court ruled "unanimously" in favor of marriage; I was thinking of New Jersey's Lewis v. Harris. In the California case, three justices concurred and dissented in part.

Mixed Blessings

Right now, my relief and joy that Barack Obama was elected president has been momentarily supplanted by distress that Proposition 8 in California appears to be passing. This country took one giant leap forward for civil rights last night, and one step back.

Still, there are reasons to be encouraged. That fully 48% of California voters said they were okay with same-sex marriage is a huge milestone and shows just how far the gay rights movement has come. Younger voters overwhelmingly opposed it. Our day will come.

More on this later.

The Mac is Back

John McCain -- your concession speech was amazing. That was the John McCain I thought I knew. Where have you been?

Too little, too late.

Dodged That Bullet

Sayonara, Sarah!

It's Over

Going out on a limb, but with MSNBC calling Ohio for Obama, it's over. According to my projections, Obama did not need Ohio to win. This clinches it.