The Saddleback Civic Forum last night disappointed me greatly. I was hoping we would see Rick Warren force the candidates to wrestle with deep moral issues, engage complex situations with wisdom, and discuss their personal philosophies in detail. I was hoping that Rick Warren actually meant it when he said that there were more moral issues than abortion and gay marriage.

Instead, it turned into a two-headed coin: Barack Obama, being honest, thoughtful, nuanced, and intelligent; and John McCain, spouting talking points and obviously prepared anecdotes. And Rick Warren proved that for all his talk about being different, he's just another Christian Right hack.

Why did Rick Warren, who claims to understand Christianity, spend 20 minutes with each candidate on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cells (none of which are mentioned in the Bible) and not ask either candidate how their religious views impacted their understanding of the people across this planet and in this very country living under the crippling oppression of poverty? Where was the question about one of the primary moral questions of our age - that of the United States's proven and admitted use of torture in treatment of detainees (which John McCain flip-flopped and approved in a moral failure that should disqualify him from receiving the vote of anyone who calls him- or herself a person of conscience)?

In short: Why were all of Rick Warren's "moral questions" on the Republicans' turf? Why did he not address the very real and very meaningful moral issues of poverty (mentioned throughout the Bible) and treatment of the oppressed and the prisoner (also mentioned throughout the Bible)? Why did he not ask John McCain and Barack Obama if they thought the Federal Budget was a moral document?

Moreover, if this was supposed to be a faith forum with all Christians on stage, where were the deep questions about the candidates' faith? I would have liked to see a question - or even a mention - of Jesus Christ from Rick Warren or John McCain; as it is, only Barack Obama seemed to acknowledge the existence of Jesus Christ on that stage.

This was a setup, plain and simple. This wasn't an opportunity for the candidates to prove themselves to the Christian Right; it was an opportunity for Rick Warren, about whom my opinion has changed 180 degrees as a result of this forum, to prove himself to the Christian Right by telling them that their two big issues really are the only ones that matter. It was a pitiful display on his part.

Rick Warren has demonstrated that he is just another right-wing hack.

Labels: Barack Obama, Christian Right, Christianity, John McCain, Religion, Rick Warren

California Legalizes Gay Marriage, Does Not Fall Into Ocean

I just checked the front page of the LA Times, and California remains high and dry just as before. This despite their legalizing gay marriage, an act the antigay bigots assured us meant that California was now on God's hit-list.

It's great seeing all those pictures of happy couples whose relationships are finally getting the legal recognition it deserves, but sad to see so-called "Christians" standing outside county court-houses with signs proclaiming hate. My message to them: Protest all you want, but please don't insult the rest of us by claiming that Jesus wants anything to do with your hate and bigotry.

Labels: California, Christian Right, Christianity, GLBT Rights, Politics, Religion

(Caution: I'm going to throw some bombs here. If you're expecting measured, academic prose, I recommend looking elsewhere.)

John McCain's problems with the (nominally) Christian Right have been well-documented. Jim Dobson, Christian quack "psychologist," has said that he "cannot and will not" vote for him, and the few evangelicals he did have on board - John Hagee and Rod Parsley - had to be thrown under the bus when it turned out that they aren't so much on board with things like not hating everyone who isn't a right-wing Christian. So even though John McCain agrees with the old guard of the (nominally) Christian Right on their big-money issues - he's anti-choice and anti-gay - he's not exactly their favorite person in the world.

Couple that with the fact that young evangelicals seem to be actually (gasp!) reading their Bibles and discovering that Jesus seemed to care a lot more about poor people than he did about whether those eeeeevil gays are marrying. They're discovering that the Bible has a lot more to say about caring for nature and making society an equitable place for the least of these than it does about the great bogeyman of "secular humanism." In short, they're discovering that they've been sold a bill of goods by the charlatans and pretenders running the (nominally) Christian Right, and that the values of the Bible, the values of the Christian tradition, are not gay marriage, secular humanism, a ban on women's rights, and free markets for all.

Enter Mara Vanderslice and the good people at the Matthew 25 Network. They don't have much up on the Intarwebs yet, but from what I understand, they're going to be reaching out to young evangelicals and trying to persuade them that there is much more to being a Christian in political life than walking in lockstep with the (nominally) Christian Right. They're going to demonstrate that it is the Democratic Party and Barack Obama - not the Republican Party and John McCain - who are likely to work for the people Jesus says we need to work for - the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the prisoners, the indigent.

I think it's a good start.

Labels: Barack Obama, Christian Right, Christianity, Matthew 25 Network, Politics, Religion

We must face the fact that in America, the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bethany and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about how this generally isn't just true of race, but of class as well. One of the most tragic casualties of the Protestant Reformation and the wave of schisms that followed it is that, particularly in the US, we no longer worship next to our neighbors. In the old Roman Catholic system, you lived in a parish, and though there were exceptions for the very rich, you generally worshipped next to people of all socioeconomic classes; you kneeled next to a butcher or a tailor or a banker. It was truly a catholic church experience. Today, we worship next to people who generally look like us, talk like us, and spend like us - and everyone knows which church is the "establishment" or "elite" church in their town, and which is the church for the working class.

This isn't to say that the establishment or elite churches don't try, or that they're uncharitable or don't care about the poor. If one talks to people in those churches, one understands that they care just as deeply about issues like the bad economy, world poverty, and war just as much as the people in the workers' church. They're just as worried about being laid off, just as worried about their kids' education, just as worried about the state of their community.

So why is it that the one thing we don't talk about in church is the thing Jesus talked about the most - money? I mean, sure, we'll talk about how to have a budget and how to make sure you set aside 10% and how to handle your money, but we don't talk about the broader picture - the haves and have-nots, and why our society is set up so that the have-nots generally tend to descend from other have-nots. We don't talk about class. And we still segregate by class - a de facto segregation that hurts the church's witness to the world.

The problem is that it isn't as easy as just inviting some poorer people into the establishment church. No matter how nice you are, no matter how welcoming you are, there's still a gulf there. I've seen this in person at several churches - the gulf of the underdressed.

I remember a wedding I went to in Athens with Bethany where I discovered this firsthand. My flight had just gotten in the day before, but in typical Delta Airlines fashion, my luggage had yet to make it - so I was stuck with what I'd worn on the plane. What I was wearing wasn't too informal - a button-down shirt and a nice-looking pair of khakis - but at this wedding, which was at Athens's "establishment" church and featured three-piece suits, I stuck out like a sore thumb. No matter how much people pretended not to notice, I knew I was other - so Bethany and I made a brief appearance at the reception and got out.

Now, this was just a wedding and I was a guest, so it wasn't too big a deal, but our churches are like this too. We as a society - and especially we in middle- or upper-middle-class churches - are far too blissfully unaware of the effect of conspicuous consumption on the subconscious (or conscious) mind of our churches. What does it look like to a man who can't afford a nice business suit when all the men are wearing them? What does it look like to a woman who has one or two nice outfits when all the women come in a new-looking dress every week?

I wonder what it would look like if the church not only stopped encouraging conspicuous consumption in dress, but started encouraging its members to be mindful of what the community's consumption patterns say to those who don't have as much. I'm not talking about the "come-as-you-are" fantasy, which just substitutes $75 Banana Republic jeans for $75 slacks, but about openly encouraging church members to come dressed inconspicuously so as to be more welcoming to working people.

I'd imagine it would get some people thinking about what it means that they can afford (and buy) $75 jeans while someone in their community is struggling to pay their bills. I'd imagine it would get some people to think about how their external communication of their socioeconomic status alienates them from the very people whose welfare Jesus seemed most concerned about. And I'd imagine it would get some people talking about what kind of influence the church could be - on culture, on government, on business - to make our world a more just place for haves and have-nots alike.

That could be the start of some very interesting conversations.

Labels: Christianity, Class, Religion