Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Psalm 109:8 and Violent Rhetoric

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting on a new phenomenon making its way throughout evangelical culture: bumper-stickers that read “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8″. If you take the time to look up the verse you see this:

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership. (NIV)

Okay, cute, right? They want someone else to be President. How amusing. Whatever.

Except that the Psalm doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say:

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.

Aaaaaaaand now we’re getting into the territory where things turn decidedly un-Christian.

It’s pretty clear to me that this imprecatory psalm isn’t innocuous; at the very least, the person praying this psalm is praying for the death of the President. If one considers the link between violent language and violent deeds – a link we’ve talked about before – it becomes pretty clear that this could be seen as a clarion call to assassination.

Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis Schaeffer) makes this point succinctly in his interview with Rachel Maddow about this phenomenon:

“But now it turns out [in right-wing rhetoric] that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered if not by God then by just men [. . .] Really, this is trawling for assassins, and this is serious business.”

I’d like to echo what Schaeffer said right there: This is serious business. Words do things; violent rhetoric breeds violent actions. When someone is praying for the President to be struck down by God, it’s only one step further for that person to decide that he or she is God’s instrument to carry out what he or she sees as God’s justice. This is scary stuff here – and it’s only being compounded (again, as Schaeffer points out) by the Manichaean, apocalyptic worldview many evangelical Christians are succumbing to.

But of course, we Christians know that many of the people who would pray this psalm don’t really want to see President Obama struck down – they just want him voted out of office in 2012. Fine. But that’s not what this psalm says, and if we’re nothing else in this world, we should be honest. Praying for God to strike down political leaders we disagree with is not Christian – and those who display bumper stickers, or T-shirts, or coffee mugs bearing a Bible reference that calls for Michelle Obama to be made a widow and Sasha and Malia to be “fatherless” and “wandering beggars” soil the name of Christ in this world. They give all Christians a bad name with their implication that such thinking is in any way in line with Christian morality or values.

In other words – all Christians should stand side-by-side against such thinking. There’s nothing “cute” or “amusing” about a bumper sticker or a T-shirt that calls for the President of the United States to be killed, whether that be by God’s hand or man’s. For the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Christianity’s reputation in a skeptical world, we must stand against this phenomenon and be vocal about our stance. We must make it clear that such rhetoric is in no way Christian, and that those who would pray such a thing are not praying in the Holy Spirit.

The upshot of this is clear: If you’re a Christian, and someone you know has one of these bumper-stickers, you have a responsibility to say something to them – particularly if they’re part of your church. If responsible Christians don’t stand up against hateful and violent language among us, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world thinks we’re hateful and violent. We need to stand up to our fellow Christians and let them know that things like this bumper-sticker are not of Christ, and tell them in the name of Jesus that they need to stop using violent and hateful language.

And we need to pray for President Obama, whether or not we agree with his politics, as Paul says in 1 Timothy:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

May we continue to hold up our President and all our leaders in prayer during these troubling times.

(Cross-posted at the Matthew 25 Network.)

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Highlights from the Equality March

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Yesterday I joined several of my colleagues and tens of thousands of people I don’t know in the Equality March, a march and rally to the Capitol for LGBT rights. It was a great experience – perfect weather (including, as you’ll see, an apropos celestial phenomenon), great folks around me, a really loving environment, and an important cause. Here are some pictures I took:

The aforementioned celestial phenomenon - a rainbow at an equality march. I did a quick-and-dirty punch-up in Photoshop to bring out the foreground since my iPhone, while awesome, isn't a professional-grade camera.

The aforementioned celestial phenomenon - a rainbow at an equality march. I did a quick-and-dirty punch-up in Photoshop to bring out the foreground since my iPhone, while awesome, isn't a professional-grade camera.

A number of people from the NY marriage equality group had color-coordinated t-shirts and umbrellas. Kinda reminded me of day camp. At the end of the march, they should have played a big game of Red Rover.

A number of people from the NY marriage equality group had color-coordinated t-shirts and umbrellas. Kinda reminded me of day camp. At the end of the march, they should have played a big game of Red Rover.

I climbed onto a traffic signal in an attempt to get a better shot of the march stretching out in front of us. Note the rainbow sign with van-guy selling sunglasses; one of my companions was sure that he had the red-white-and-blue sign for the Tea Party protests.

I climbed onto a traffic signal in an attempt to get a better shot of the march stretching out in front of us. Note the rainbow sign with van-guy selling sunglasses; one of my companions was sure that he had the red-white-and-blue sign for the Tea Party protests.

Marching down Pennsylvania Ave. toward the Capitol building. I love living in DC.

Marching down Pennsylvania Ave. toward the Capitol building. I love living in DC.

The only bigot we saw all day... and all he was doing was driving around. I was actually quite surprised that the bigots weren't having a counter-protest somewhere.

The only bigot we saw all day... and all he was doing was driving around. I was actually quite surprised that the bigots weren't having a counter-protest somewhere.

Jackson, the son of one of the people in our group and by far our youngest protestor, takes a well-deserved nap at the rally.

Jackson, the son of one of the people in our group and by far our youngest protestor, takes a well-deserved nap at the rally.

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A Conservative Bible? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Apparently the Bible is too liberal… so the same people who brought us Conservapedia (the right-wing conservative version of Wikipedia, complete with made-up facts) are going to rework the Bible to make it fit into their worldview.

Seriously.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Among their conservative principles for Bible translation:

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Their full free-market meaning? Yeah, Jesus was totally thinking about laissez-faire and the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s free market when He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. And the whole parable about the farmer casting his seed over the field? Clearly, Jesus is talking there about optimizing crop yields and exploiting laborers in order to maximize agricultural profits.

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

(For the record, here’s the story in question.)

Yeah, because we wouldn’t want sentiments like “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” to complicate our worldview. We wouldn’t want to contemplate whether or not we’re acting hypocritically before we condemn others.

Of course, given the spotty record of right-wing religious figures who demagogue about family values, maybe they are better off excising that passage…

And finally, the coup de grace…

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

Why not go the whole way and replace “Lord” with an inarticulate guttural grunt, a thumbs-up, or a “guy nod”? God doesn’t want those boring liberal words mucking up His pristine Bible. Conservative God doesn’t use words, He uses action… so next time you’re in church and they ask you to read a passage aloud, instead of all that boring text with its “high word-to-substance ratio” you should just punch the guy next to you in the jaw. That’s what Conservative Action God wants.

(Cross-posted at the Matthew 25 Network.)

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The funniest thing I’ve seen all day

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

If you haven’t seen Jon Hodgman’s nerd roast of Barack Obama at the Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner, you really need to… if for no other reason than to see the President throw up the Vulcan hand sign.

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Republicans to DC Residents: Drop Dead

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Yep. The Republican Party has once again put their ideology ahead of my rights as a DC resident and American citizen. The DC Voting Rights bill is dead.

For those who aren’t aware, we residents of the District of Columbia pay full federal income taxes every year. We can be drafted to fight in America’s wars. Yet unlike every other taxpaying American citizen, we do not have representation in either house of Congress, and our laws are subject to review and veto by a Senate subcommittee that is completely unaccountable to us and our city’s interests. We are, in essence, second-class citizens, residents of a colony. We suffer under that which the founders of this country fought against – taxation without representation.

Many bills have gone before Congress to rectify this injustice – including one just this year, that almost passed – until Republican John Ensign attached an amendment stripping DC’s post-Heller restrictions on gun ownership. Whether it was intended as a poison pill or just another part of the Republican Party’s irresponsible “let’s all have guns” cowboy politics, it killed the DC Voting Rights bill.

Let me put that a bit more clearly: Republicans don’t care about DC residents’ rights – or at the very least, don’t care about them enough to put their ideology aside and do the right thing. They think I should have a right to keep an AR-15 assault rifle in my house, but they don’t think I should have the right to representation in Congress. (Of course, the real reason I suspect that Republicans are trying to kill DC’s congressional representation is that we’d invariably send a Democrat – and, of course, to the contemporary Republican Party, political gain trumps all principles, ideals, morals, or values.)

There were questions about whether the bill would pass constitutional muster, and it’s still only half-a-loaf – even if we do get a voting representative in the House, we would still be second-class citizens because we would lack representation in the Senate as well as the right to make our own laws without Congressional veto. But still – half a loaf is better than the none at all we currently get.

It’s becoming all too clear to me now that the only acceptable option for the District of Columbia is full statehood rights – at least one representative, two Senators, and full, unrestricted home rule. Anything less is continued acceptance of the colony status for DC – and that is absolutely unacceptable in a democratic republic.

Democracy begins at home. Those of you who have voting representatives have an obligation to contact them and demand statehood for DC.

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No surprise, but still disappointing

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

The California Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8, the California ballot proposition that denied some of the most basic human rights to LGBT people. Gay or lesbian couples who were married when it was legal will remain married. This ruling isn’t much of a surprise – court-watchers had pretty well predicted this was going to be the outcome – but it still, quite frankly, sucks. Sucks hard.

What sucks for me personally in this, as a Christian, is seeing my brothers and sisters in Christ applauding such decisions and standing in the way of basic human rights. Even if they accept what is, in my opinion, a rather piss-poor Biblical case that same-sex sexual acts are sinful, the fact is that Christianity is not, and should not be, the law in this country. The fact that their narrow interpretation of the Christian text says that homosexuality is wrong should not make it law. The fact that they personally can’t get past bigotry shouldn’t mean that others are denied their rights.

I will say it openly and without hesitation: Anyone claiming to be a Christian who stands against basic human rights for gay men and lesbians is in sin, and needs to repent. Even if they believe (wrongly) that homosexuality is sinful, that is no excuse to deny them equal rights under the law. It’s that simple. There is absolutely no validity to bullcrap arguments about “traditional marriage”; those who use such arguments are hiding their bigotry behind a rhetorical flourish.

So what’s next? I’d bet all the money in my bank account (which admittedly isn’t putting a lot on the line) that proponents of basic human rights are going to put an initiative on the 2010 ballot in CA. I will support that initiative full-throatedly as my top priority in 2010. It is imperative that anyone who calls him- or herself a Christian stand behind such an initiative and support it (as much as is possible) with his or her money, effort, and (if possible) vote. It is also imperative that every Christian put pressure on his or her own state legislature (or, in the case of us second-class citizens of DC, our city council) to bring equal human rights to his or her own state if it isn’t already one of the few that acknowledges such rights.

This is a blow, but not a fatal one. We who support equal rights will prevail in time. The question is: which side of history will you be on? Will you look back on the ’00s with regret, as supporters of racial segregation look back at the ’60s and ’70s, or will you be able to look back and tell yourself that you stood on the right side of history? That is the question before each of us today. God help us that we make the right choice.

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