Deep down I still have a child-like vision of the world that my parents created for me: Everyone is equal. Everyone is welcome. Things like race, gender, sexuality, income make no difference to God and shouldn't to you. When you feel lost, lonely, frightened, just hold out your hand and Jesus will be there. Only hate hate! Stand up for what you believe in. And finally, all faithful Christians are liberal democrats.
OK, so neither of them every came out and said "all faithful Christians are liberal democrats," but it took me until college to find a reasonable counter-example. This is not to say that all liberal democrats are Christian. But, that the example of good Christian fellowship in my life have almost always been liberal democrat and the examples of wrong, anti-Christian behavior have too often been conservative republican. And so admittedly, I think the jury is still out on this subject. But I digress...
On to the point of this little rant. The news has been bombarding us with a lot of ethics questions lately. The Supreme *cough* Court has recently issued some bombshells on abortion & race. My sister recently posted in her blog about the treatment of "practicing homosexuals" by religious conservatives.
At some point, while I was sleeping, moral conservatives re-claimed the mantle of Christianity in America. And here's my problem with that...I see little, if any, of what my parents taught me in the collective example of the public face of moral conservatism. In fact, I find a lot of what I'm seeing to be immoral, judgmental and downright wrong.
Don't believe me? Check out this article for an extreme example: The Other Jamestown Party.
The most amazing part to me is that this country is becoming amazingly bipolar. Perhaps not since prohibition & the roaring 20's have we seen such a vocal group of moral conservatives matched up against such a glut of self-destructive over-indulgence. The dark paths in life are so obvious yet we are so oblivious to them. We as a society seem to be stuffing our faces on the objectification of women with our increasing acceptance of pornography in our every-day lives. Gambling too has become so commonplace that people have become anesthetized to it's slippery slope. Remember the 7 deadly sins?
The truth is that our country needs those moral conservative voices to wake us up. But it's up to us to see that these voices are wrong. They are not the voice of God's desires. They are the voices of our fears. More and more, I've begun to wonder how we can take these self-righteous causes of the moral majority and turn them into the righteous cause of Christ. I'll leave you with this one insane example (something I've suggested before) for the simple purpose of getting those neurons firing.
The abortion debate would be moot if we did a better job of protecting women's rights in the first place. Teaching young men & women about their sexuality and their responsibility should not be the role of the Government. It should be the job of *gasp* the church! Is not the human body a "temple" and isn't sexuality a gift from God? And, this isn't a call for another abstinence program. Young people who are given the tools to make good decisions usually do. Yes, that means that sometimes they won't. That's also part of God's gift called free will.
Think about that. Think about all the other hot-button topics that divide us. Ask yourself: Is everyone welcome here? Do we treat everyone equally? Do things like race, gender and income mean something to me? Why? What can I do to build a better tomorrow?
OK, this was a much longer and jumbled post than I expected. Yet, I'm hitting the publish button anyway.
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