Creeping Tolerance

I've kept my ramblings pertinent recently. I've tried to speak of what matters most.

I've kept my nose out of politics. Partly because, since the primaries are over, and both parties have their candidates, anything I say would be a combination of preaching to the choir and stating the obvious.

What I have to say may be stating the obvious, but I've become sufficiently irked by a media mantra to not care anymore.

Since Barack Obama makes a point of expressing his faith (likely to combat the Muslim rumors) and since he is a Democrat, the media has gleefully lifted the embargo on discussion of religion in politics. The incongruity of the most liberal Democrat in the Senate stating frankly that Jesus Christ is his Savior (yes, I meant incongruity) has been lost on us.

The reason for this new-found faith of the DNC is two-fold.

The Democrats finally saw the light and found God in exit poll data. Statisticians and marketing experts could have told them that excluding the God plank from their platform was off-putting to many.

The other reason is that Barack Obama is black. And divesting a black man of his religion is unnecessary, even offensive, because African-Americans are stereotypically religious. The cringe-inducing shell-shock of W.'s statement about Jesus Christ in his coming out in 2000 is dissipated. God is welcomed with open arms now if He watches His p's and q's and doesn't become too confrontational.

The media mantra I spoke of is pure subversion, whether or not they realize it.

Ad hominem is the order of the day. They are ever ready with the defense, "Obama is a Christian, he has attended a Christian church for the last twenty years." Besides the fact that I thought we were supposed to forget that Obama attended a church pastored by a man named Wright, the defensive statement presupposes a right-wing evangelical litmus test. Apparently we're all sitting around asking "Yes, but is Barack a Christian?" And when supplied with the affirmative, we're good to go. (The disturbing irony is that all too often this is true.)

Now, first of all, I would have hoped we had gotten past the idea that attending church magically bestowed the blood of Jesus on the attendee. Guess not.

Second, I would have hoped, but knew better, that the creeping tolerance, of the mutant, 21st century cross strain, had run it's course. No such luck. In other words, in today's world, if a man says he is a Christian, calls children mistakes, supports infanticide. . . .he is a Christian and don't you dare presume to question the dubious fruit hanging from his withered boughs.

Christianity has been stripped of any identity, thus any salty savor, by creeping tolerance.

John Wesley has said that his brother Charles made people prove their profession while he himself took people at their word, and that he was more often proven right than Charles.

This is a Christian principle. But it has parameters.

I'm assuming that if John came upon a falling-down drunk prostitute in the act of extorting money from a helpless child he would suspect her veracity when she slurred, "Praise the Lord, brother, I'm a born-again Christian."

There are rules you follow if you are a Christian, even in this post-post modern world.

Obama doesn't follow them. No surprise. I'm not shocked. He is the candidate of a party who has long disassociated itself from Christianity, and his politics are simply what we expect.

But can we stop with this, "Of course he's a Christian, he's gone to church for the last twenty years."

By the way, equal time wise, neither does John McCain's story, heart-warming as it is, of his experience with the prison guard in Vietnam confirm his Christianity. But the fact that he opposes infanticide gives us a little more reason think that maybe he actually subscribes to the creed.