A boring and pointless debate

Democracy can be so boring.  It's not sexy like the #metoo movement or outrageous like the daily tweets of the fool in the White House.

I hung on every word of the first two debates last June.  I was getting to know the candidates, and they differentiated themselves significantly.

But on Tuesday night, July 30, after I made a list of the ten speakers, I soon crossed out five of them.  Listening to them was pointless.  None of these five could beat dt.

• Steve Bullock, governor of Montana--obnoxious.
• John Delaney, rich guy and former congressman from Maryland--worse.
• John Hickenlooper, governor of Colorado--not a bad guy but boring.  Possible VP nominee.
• Marianne Williamson of California--author and lecturer, interesting but can't beat dt.
• Tim Ryan, congressman from Ohio--ditto.  At least as a VP nominee he could bring in a key state.

That left me with the two handsome youngish men, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, Texas.  Again, I like their politics but they don't have a chance of defeating the ass in the White House.

So then I was down to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, along with my favorite, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.  All three are more credible candidates, but IMHO, none of them can beat the clown that many fools will still vote for.

I would vote for any of these ten candidates if he or she is nominated by the Democratic convention next summer in Milwaukee.  But I don't think any one of these three senators can defeat dt.

• Sanders--too old to win the votes of younger people.  
• Warren--too female and too strident to win the middle-of-the-road voters.  I love her for being female and strident and smart and having plans to implement, but as Williamson said, people vote for personalities, not for plans.
• Klobuchar--not enough money at the moment.  She could win Midwestern voters and those voters who are neither strongly to the right nor strongly to the left.  If she had money and more supporters, I think she could give dt a run for his money.  Your average Democrat would support her if nominated.  If, if, if...

As a result, I come to the Wednesday debate with a jaundiced eye.  I'm not sure either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris could defeat dt--and that's what this election is all about, given that the Senate is unlikely to remove this liar and Russia-controlled president from office.

Marianne Williamson made the most important point in Tuesday's debate when she called for reparations to descendants of slaves imported from Africa.  I am glad I witnessed the debate to hear her speak and to hear the others respond. 

Listen to her Prayer of Apology for African-Americans on Youtube.

Yes, today's economic differences between African-Americans and Euro-Americans are rooted in the kidnapping of these people, the enslavement of them to profit from their labor, and the Jim Crow laws that followed the emancipation.  

Monetary reparations have been needed for a long time.  Better late than never.

That's what democracy is all about--listening to a 2 1/2 hour debate to hear one good, concrete idea.

Who will sit together at the heavenly feast?

The heavenly banquet - from the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome

Rachel Held Evans is like Jesus in many ways, not least that her impact continues to grow after leaving this earth.

Many have written their tributes to her, but others have seized on the occasion of her death one week ago to write vicious criticism cloaked as tribute.

One supporter of Rachel wrote that she and her conservative evangelical opponents will sit at opposite ends of one long table in the kingdom of heaven.

But blogger Anne Kennedy replied:

And so we are not sitting at opposite sides of one long table.  We are not eating of the one bread and drinking out of the one cup...
We are talking about two different faiths, two different kinds of love, two different lords... 
Christians must speak the truth about who that God is, and who we are as his [sic] creatures.

Two different faiths!  And all because of Rachel's decision to support gay and lesbian Christians as fully equal to straight Christians, blessed by God if they marry or become pastors.  

Since when does the Nicene Creed include specific beliefs about heterosexuality vs. homosexuality?

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father...

by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made [hu]man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures...

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life...
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

There just isn't a clause in those early creeds saying that committed same-sex relationships are wrong and that if you disagree, please step aside and don't call yourself a follower of Jesus.  You are in a "different faith" with a "different lord."

There is a clear expectation that God is male, but there isn't even a statement that the Bible has to be interpreted literally and without its social context.  

Rachel gave up the belief in creationism that she was taught in Dayton, Tennessee, and the belief that women could not be pastors, and the belief that the three brief references to homosexuality in the New Testament could be applied to faithful same-sex relationships in the 21st century.

Because Rachel's understanding changed regarding these subjects, Anne Kennedy claims Rachel is outside the bounds of proper Christianity, serving a different lord.  These opponents of Rachel doubt whether she will make it inside those pearly gates.  

Rod Dreher agrees with Kennedy in his recent blog post on The American Conservative site:

What so many of the people on that side cannot seem to grasp is that for the things they believe about LGBT to be true, they have to do such radical revision to fundamental Christianity that they render it into essentially a different religion.  

He and Kennedy agree:
And so an unapologetic embrace of the LGBTQ agenda is not biblically Christian.  Those who teach and preach it can be said, without any confusion at all, to be outside the visible boundaries of biblical faith.

Early statements of faith don't matter to them, and careful contextual examination of each word of the Bible doesn't matter either.  They have a new creed, established since 1980, that defines Christians by their stances on gay rights and legalized abortion, not on their love for and commitment to a risen Savior.  

For an analysis of this change in the rules of orthodoxy, see Franky Schaeffer's Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back.

See also Randall Balmer's The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond.  

John Stonestreet is another one of these right-wing evangelicals who sparred with Rachel on Twitter and then wrote a less-than-friendly tribute to her that Christianity Today posted on its website two days after her death.  He got so much blowback that the article was quickly removed and CT editor-in-chief Mark Galli had to post an apology on the website.

The good news in all this hubbub over Rachel's death is that more people everywhere are learning that there are progressive evangelicals in this country.  Not all born-again Christians support Trump and guns while opposing gays and abortion.  

Right-wing churches may draw lines that shut progressives out, but the circles of Jesus followers continue to expand.  Believers like Rachel Held Evans and Pete Buttigieg are changing the public perception of Christianity.  

Let's listen to Jesus when it comes to deciding who is right and who is outside the bounds of faith: "Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.... By their fruits shall ye know them."   (Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7: 16-20)

Christians for Pete Buttigieg

"Christian gays are the new thing apparently" texts my daughter Roz to me with a happy face laughing so hard it's crying.

She also sends a quote from USA Today with a photo of Pete Buttigieg captioned,

Buttigieg to Pence: If you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is with my creator.

Then she comes upstairs to ask if I want anything from Yummy.com.  I don't.  It's 10 pm. 

"Have you heard of this Christian gay guy?" she asks.  

"Yes, Vicki emailed me about him a month ago.  She wanted me to donate $10 to help him reach the required number of donors to be included in the presidential debates, and I did."

"So did I," she says.  "The media are acting like it's something new, but you and your friends knew about it forever."

"Right," I laugh.  "They're only 30 years behind EEWC."

Evangelical Women's Caucus, now EEWC-CFT, took a stand for gay civil rights in 1986, and two of our leaders published a pro-gay book in 1978, four years before Roz was born.

"I like him--he's my religion," she continues.  "He's an Episcopalian.  The Democratic Party needs to claim the religious high ground so those stupid evangelicals--"

"Roz!"

"Sorry, present company excluded!"

She identifies as a gay Episcopalian, not an evangelical. 

Hooray for the Creator and for churches changing their understanding of sexuality--gradually.

Check out Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.  

Give a copy to a friend and to your church.

Pete takes on Pence

Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of Fort Wayne IN

Friends from various odd corners of my world are talking with excitement about Pete Buttigieg's recent announcement as a candidate for president in 2020.

Sharon from Sacramento emailed me.

Dana in Orange County called my husband to talk about him.

Andrea Mitchell reported about him on MSNBC this morning--I count her as a friend.

Buttigieg is a Christian and church-goer.  

When asked about Pence, he said he doesn't understand how Pence can claim to be a Christian yet support "a porn-star presidency."

He said his own understanding of Scripture is "protecting the prisoner... the stranger...the poor person" and giving "welcome."    That matches my own understanding.

He noted that sexuality seems to be the main concern of Pence's Christianity.

See this interview on CNN:  https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/03/11/pete-buttgieg-town-hall-pence-or-trump-sot-vpx.cnn

He also wants to expand the Supreme Court and get rid of the Electoral College.  The key is to reframe the debate so that fundamental change can be understood as pragmatic.

And he's not taking corporate money!  Radical, indeed.

Could he win some millennial votes from Bernie Sanders?  At any rate, it's important to get him enough separate donors to qualify for a part in the primary debates.

On January 24, the New York Times ran a review of his memoir, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future.

The reviewer, Adam Nagourney, puzzled over why a guy 37 years old would write a memoir: "this does seem a little early."  

He compared it to Barack Obama writing a memoir in 1995, nine years before he burst onto the national scene.  Then he suggested that a memoir might be "the modern equivalent of an early outing to New Hampshire."

When one considers that in 1995 no one thought Obama might become president, "...the notion that Buttigieg might be the nation's first openly gay president doesn't feel quite as far-fetched," Nagourney concludes.  

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