Yay! Church politics.

My good friend Moff posted on teh Facebook about this story. Here's how it begins:

Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Its Fold

By RACHEL DONADIO and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: October 20, 2009

VATICAN CITY — In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.

This has been the cause of much hand-wringing in Anglican circles, and in the press. My opinion (as expressed in a Facebook comment), while not particularly noteworthy, seemed wordy enough to merit reproduction on the blog. So here it is, FWIW:

Speaking as a (remarkably) piss-poor Anglican, I say: whatevs. Bottom line: moves like this will cause some people pain, with which I sympathize. It will cause other people to rejoice, with which I also sympathize. And when people are unhappy with what's going on in their corner of the Church, they will do one of three things: suffer on where they are, find a different portion of the Body which suits them better (a possibility which this move enables for some), or get fed up with the whole thing and leave. And through it all, the Church remains one (and many), holy (and embedded), catholic (and particular) and apostolic (and welcoming - occasionally).

So when stuff like this - or a schism or an ecumenical agreement - happens, I just try to pray with the horrified and rejoice with the rejoicing. The church will still be about individuals and communities and their relationships with God. These high-level structural changes are the equivalent of, say, urban planning. It certainly influences the kind of life that's lived by the individuals, families, and communities affected - but ultimately the life is lived by those communities and families, wherever they are.

Actually, the subversive in me is kind of excited by the prospect of lots more married Catholic priests. Harbinger of further change in the world's most inertial human organization?

(Note: credit belongs to LeRon Shults for the parenthetical counterpoints to the creedal marks of the Church - one/many, holy/embedded, etc.)

Two-pronged enmity

Reflecting on a the horns of a dilemma, or something. Two syndromes:

1) The good is the enemy of the great:

Person A: "You know what? It would take a lot of focus and effort and teamwork, but we could go for this Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal!"

Person B: "Really? But why...? These small, hairless, inoffensive occupations that we're currently busy with are getting us by just fine."

2) The great is the enemy of the good:

Person A: "Hey! Look at this cool thing I accomplished!"

Person B: "What?? Why did you waste time doing that? We TOTALLY could have accomplished a MIND-BENDINGLY AWESOME version of that!!!!!"

Person A: "Oh. But, we weren't. And we haven't. And I did this. And it's pretty cool."

[Six months later....]

Person A: "Hmm. Glad I didn't wait around for B's MIND-BENDINGLY AWESOME version, or we'd still have nuttin' at all...."

I wonder:

It seems to me that good and great are both pretty nifty. And initiative trumps nay-saying almost every time. So can't we all just get along? (Probably not.)

image by Tony the Misfit (rights)

Stuff the Church could toss

Almost a month ago, I made a long-ass comment on my friend Jan's blog, and I haven't thought much about it since. But then, today, out of the blue, someone ran across Jan's post and my comment, and emailed me about it, which led me to re-read it and think, "Heck, that's a lot of words...I might as well put them on my own blog too." So: Yeah, I wrote some words about "what the Church could toss". Let me show you them:

OK, Jan, I can't resist. But I would definitely go with your wisdom: this is contextual. I'll only list a couple things that I think should *always* be tossed from every church context (despite the fact that they are present in almost *every* church context), and then a bunch more that tend to be assumed to be necessary for nearly every church context, but are, really, truly, in my not-so-humble opinion, needed in fewer and fewer contexts.

List 1: Toss 'em, always:

Power struggles. If there is a power struggle in the church, at least one party *must* find a way to redefine the game in the vein of Philippians 2. My fellow Anglicans in Northern Virginia (and elsewhere) are doing a stellar job right now of demonstrating FAIL in this regard.

Nominalism. All churches need to find ways to stop selling snake oil. Showing up for two hours a week and chipping in for the offering is *not* the same thing as following Jesus. Following Jesus is *way* better. Why are we offering folks watered-down Dr. Pepper when we have the the most real medicine there is? Preaching about the difference doesn't solve the problem. How do we stop making nominalism a viable option? (BTW, this doesn't mean that we all don't need times when we don't serve, but are just served - but there is a big difference between a Jesus-follower going through a desert time, and a nominal Christian. Our churches are full of nominal Christians who will never pick up their cross and follow Jesus, as long as "show up and consume" is a viable option.)

List 1.5: On the bubble. (I've yet to hear a convincing case for why this is good in any context, but I'm not sure about it):

Large congregations (i.e., ones that start to approach 100 people). I mean congregations that are trying to be an interdependent community of disciples, not church institutions that are explicitly there only to provide services for any and all (eg., cathedrals). There are major drawbacks to large congregations (anonymity, nominalism, loss of community, need for depersonalized programs) which are not, as far as I can tell, mitigated by other advantages. (Nor are they solved by the magic bullet of "small groups.") In other words, I know of many things that small church communities can do better than large churches, but I don't currently know of anything that large churches can do better than a network of small churches - except make leaders feel important.

List 2: Toss 'em, contextually. (They aren't always useful, but have been useful in the past, still are in many contexts today, and will continue to be so in the future.)

"Educated" clergy. (Gosh, everybody's educated one way or another.)

The role of "pastor".

Any sort of clergy-laity distinction at all.

Most other prescribed church roles.

Hierarchical leadership (one person ultimately in charge of the organization - plural leadership among a team of equals *works*).

Full-time paid staff.

Paid staff.

Formal programs of every kind - "the church" does not need to provide programs for "the people" - the people *are* the church!

Church buildings.

Most other church assets.

Anything at all that's there due to a sense of entitlement, "it's always been that way", or an assumption that it's necessary. If folks want to keep doing something, then they should certainly keep doing it. *We* are the church, so there should be no sense of "the church providing this for us" - if it's needed, or wanted, then you (whoever feels the call) are the church - provide it!

But, you know, I can be a bit radical when it comes to this stuff. ;-)

image by Leo Reynolds (rights)

Free Philip Rizk!

This post is 100% stolen from P3T3RK3Y5. If you want to help get this story out, feel free to do like I did: don't shade your eyes - plagiarize!

-----

NY Times Van Spirits Away Protester in Egypt, Signaling Crackdown on Criticism Over Gaza

Associated Press - Germany seeks reasons for student's Egypt arrest

BBC - Gaza activist detained in Egypt

IHT - German-Egyptian activist held in secret location

Facebook Group - Please Join to raise visibility on this unlawful detention lacking in due process.

The more visibility this gains - the safer Philip is.


p.s. Want to Learn More?
Read more about Egypt, and it's human rights record.
US Aid to Egypt is great than any other Arab State.

P3T3RK3Y5

On having little to say

I used to blog a lot. March '08, not so long ago, was a banner month for my blogging output, in fact.

Now I don't blog so much. I was thinking, this morning, about why that might be. I think it's mostly because my thoughts of late - about church, theology, community, culture, etc. - are muchly in a swirl of speculation, and rarely seem to crystallize enough to warrant a blog post. It's been like this:

• I do what I do (church stuff, family stuff, day job, etc.).
• I think I perceive a pattern or something.
• I have some conversations about it with friends.
• I realize that the reality is more complicated than I was thinking.
• The pattern grows indistinct.
• I do not blog it. Return to first bullet point.

I think this is good. There's nothing bad about this. I'm learning, and listening, and tentatively experimenting. I've had phases like this before, and I feel like with all the cultural change that's swirling about us, this sort of thing is pretty appropriate right now. If you're paying attention, it becomes clear that "paying attention" is a good game plan these days. Or so it seems to me.

In other news, I switched feed readers. Sayonara, Bloglines - you've served me well. I may come back to you one day, but for now I'm lured by the siren call of Google Reader, with its much superior mobile interface, integration with Blogger, and general feature set.

Also, I'm proud of my country right now. I don't think I have crazy expectations, but it doesn't feel bad to indulge in some smile for this deeply flawed, idealistic human enterprise we call the USA, with its huge potential for good, as well as evil.

Peace.

DC Emergent Cohort - tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th

This just in from Sara and Jason:

Are YOU ready for the election??

The DC Cohort will meet TOMORROW Tuesday October 14th at 7pm at the Front Page. Jason Mack will lead us in a discussion about the politial times and the church. Seeing as the election for our next President: Commander and Chief is around the perverbial corner, we thought it would be good to flesh out what everyone is thinking about the state of things as it relates to the church.

Our next gathering (November 11th) will take place after the election so at that time we will really be able to take stock and talk about what the future might hold.
We hope to see each of you at the Page at 7pm TOMORROW night, Oct 14th.

(The Front Page is across the street from the Dupont Circle Metro. We are the motley crew with the large table in the corner)

peace and grace,

Sara and Jason

Mortgage monster

Is it ever OK to demonize someone? How 'bout if it's not a specific someone but just a vague class of people, not including anyone you actually know? No? How 'bout if that class of people is fairly objectively responsible for an awful lot of pain and heartache among your friends and neighbors? Still no? How 'bout if it's Halloween?

Probably not, I guess. But when Whitney pointed me at this Monster Maker from the San Antonio Express News (See? Newspaper websites do so make a valuable contribution to our culture!) - well, this is just what jumped out. I didn't set out to make him, but kinda like the golden calf - shazzam! There he was.

I'll get to work repenting now.

Hollywood calls YOU to responsibility as a citizen of Empire

The Hollywood pantheon has spoken. It's cute and cheeky, and frames issues in a very liberal-entertainment-wing-of-the-Empire sort of way, but I have to say I agree with the basic message: to fail in this fundamental exercise of civic responsibility is to deny our complicity in the heartless and horrible acts that Empire commits in our name.

Politics

Seeing as how it keeps coming up lately (and seeing as how I just attended a subversively wonderful rally on such topics), I thought I'd say a few words about my ever-evolving perspective on secular government. My thoughts on this have been shaped by such practical theologians as Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, a monkey named Mojo (whom I understand is nothing more than a mouthpiece for Walter Wink), Matt Pritchard, and Marguerite Welton St. Lawrence.

Here's where I stand these days, more or less. Biblically speaking, secular government is Caesar, or Babylon. God really didn't want God's people to have kings, but we insist on having them. Our governments are never going to save us. They are not going to be kingdom-oriented. If we are faithfully following our Lord, we will probably get in trouble with government at one point or another - God knows Jesus and his original followers did.

We should concentrate on following in the way of Jesus, serving and blessing everyone we meet, and stop waiting for laws and policies to make life the way God dreams it could be. And we Christians should be, at the very least, deeply suspicious of any power that uses force (violent force or merely legal, authoritarian force) to compel behavior, no matter how desireable that behavior. That's the way of Caesar. It's not the way of Christ.

Does this mean I completely equate the US government with the Roman or Babylonion empires? Absolutely not. The US is a republic. Whether our democratic process works well or not, there is a very real sense in which our government acts on our behalf, in our name, if we are US citizens. There's a very real sense in which the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of Western soldiers has happened in our name. There's a very real sense in which the torture of countless "enemy combatants" has happened in our name.

That's why I believe that US citizens, even Christians, really do have a responsibility to some minimal involvement in the political process: damage control. Caesar is always going to be Caesar. He's never going to be Christ, and quite honestly, he's never going to be someone who follows closely in the way of Christ. (He'd get fired.) But a Caesar who does not condone torture is hugely preferable to one who authorizes, commands, and defends the torture of unnumbered children of God in my name. It is worth spending an hour in line at my local polling place to try to pick the lesser of two evils, because we have seen how evil the greater evil can be.

Caesar always sucks. My hope is not in Caesar. But in a republic, we do not have the luxury of claiming that this is not our problem.

And that's what I think about that.

Jesus for President in DC!

Friday June 27 at 7PM

Calvary Baptist

755 8th St NW, Washington, DC

FREE Tickets at
www.JesusforPresidentinDC.org

One day in "The Lead"

There's a very cool Episcopal media website called "Episcopal Cafe". I subscribe to several RSS feeds from the Cafe, and they're frequently good food for good thought - and not just for those of us afflicted with affectionate interest in the latest gossip and goings-on within my particular institutional church tribe. The Cafe is cool. (A good friend of mine is an editor, BTW.)

One of the major feeds on the Cafe is called The Lead. As you might guess, it's the main "news" feed. (I put "news" in quotes not to mock the term, but merely to emphasize that this particular feed is meant to be "newsy" news, whereas other feeds on the site might comment on news items but are more opinion-, spirituality-, and/or art-driven. Got it?) That said, the items in The Lead often come with quite a bit of editorial spin. Not a bad thing, just worth noting. Nothing wrong with having a point of view.

So anyway, as I read the news items coming in to the Lead feed yesterday, April 30th, I have to say my level of disgust was, well, great enough to write a disgusted blog post about it. (Note: my head-shaking was at the news itself, not at the way it was reported.) Here are some headlines; click through if you want the gory details.

Williams won't allow Robinson to function as priest in England

Presiding Bishop writes to the House of Bishops [about the deposition of bishops leaving TEC]

Iker: Steering committee is "a self-selected vigilante group"

Two views of the future of the Church of England

United Methodist Church adopts full communion proposal with ELCA

Not guilty by reason of nonexistence

Here are stories - story after story - about people trying to maintain control (and/or jockey for more of that control) over other people within the Body of Christ. Who can function as a priest (I thought we were all priests??) or a bishop here or there? Who has the authority to steer or oversee whom? Who is permitted to act in "full communion" with whom within the Body? Who is permitted to bless which relationships, and how? Most importantly, who is on control of whom - given the power and authority to determine all these things for others, whether they like it or not?

These are stories about Episcopalians and Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans, and I hope you'll forgive me for reading them all as being largely about two things: control, and politics (which is merely the outworking of control). I love the Church very much - I really do - but I have to admit that I'm at a loss as to why in any way the Church is improved by adding these kinds of politics to it. This is why I'm a big believer in strong networks of free, intentionally diverse congregations - networked to help each other and serve the world, but with no-one trying to maintain control and uniformity among them.

Admittedly, interspersed among these political stories, on that same day, were some joyous tales of the Church being the Church, and blessing the world as Jesus meant it to do:

Tornado relief fund established

Episcopal artists as they see themselves

Grace in Allentown PA

These stories warm my heart and make me thank God for God's Church in this world. But these are all things that could also be accomplished by diverse congregations working together in strong networks in partnership with the mission of God. Without the need for all the freaking politics of control.

I'm just saying.

Denominational friends, if there's major stuff I'm missing here about the blessings that these Constantinian hierarchies carry with them that we would miss without them, please enlighten me.

Requiem for the American Dream

This post from Len Hjalmarson is so interesting, I'm just going to steal it in its entirety.

From TIME magazine:

“For years, Americans have reveled in profligate, load-up-the-back- of-the-SUV-at-Target excess, much of it paid for by credit cards, home equity or other loans. The binge has produced some supposedly healthy economic growth and provided everyone lots of nice stuff. But now debt collectors from around the world are knocking. That’s why today’s turmoil in U.S. financial markets will end in a massive transfer of wealth from America to the rest of the globe.”

Related,

Housing the homeless could save millions.

VANCOUVER — A study says providing shelter for the homeless with severe addictions and mental illness throughout British Columbia could save taxpayers millions of dollars.

“Addiction is the most prevalent mental health problem in both the street homeless and at-risk populations, followed by concurrent disorders and, less frequently, mental illness alone,” says the Simon Fraser University report.

The paper - entitled “Housing and Support for Adults With Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illnesses in British Columbia” - says providing non-housing services for such people costs the public system more than $55,000 per year per person.

It says providing adequate housing and supports could reduce this cost to $37,000 per year.”

Wait, what about the American Dream? You mean there might be flaws in "pull yourself up by your own damn bootstraps, become a good citizen (i.e., a good consumer), and work and spend and spend and spend until you die"?

Oh, I know what the problem is. Len's Canadian.

DBB on Obama's pastor and the Black American preaching tradition

Check out this powerful essay by Diana Butler Bass on the current media flap over Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Diana looks at Wright's words from the point of view of the long history of radical, prophetic African-American preaching, and concludes that they are offensive:

But the attack on Rev. Wright...demonstrates the level of misunderstanding that still divides white and black Christians in the United States. Many white people find the traditions of African-American preaching offensive, especially when it comes to politics.

I know because I am one of those white people.

And that's the point. Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable - and we comfortable white people might benefit from shutting up and listening. Not for the first time in the history of this nation. And for God's sake, can we give up on the implication that a church member must obviously agree with every word preached from the pulpit at his place of worship?

Yes, as Jan admits in the post I just linked, the company we keep matters. So now we know that Obama, a Black practicing Christian, keeps company with a Black preacher who is squarely in the grand tradition of no-punches-pulled African-American prophetic rhetoric in this country.

Shock horror.

HT for the DBB: EC

Holy shit

I feel like I really ought to reference this, a) because it's horrifying, and b) to balance the tongue-lashing I gave the Episcopal Church (TEC) and its Presiding Bishop a couple of posts back. Please read this article from Episcopal Cafe about Peter Akinola, the African Anglican archbishop who's been encouraging, enabling, and overseeing a lot of the conservative breakaways from TEC, particularly in Northern Virginia. Obviously more facts need to come out about this, but it seems there's some serious reason to believe (based on Akinola's own statements) that he's been supporting malignantly evil anti-Muslim violence in his native Nigeria. I hope the breakaway folks are paying attention, and praying hard about whether they really want to throw in with this man.

And I hope the rest of the Communion is paying attention too. Just because he's got big numbers of followers does not mean that this asshole is the future of the Anglican Communion, and allowing him to influence worldwide Anglican policy the way he apparently does seems to indicate that Anglican Communion leadership is one mother of an oxymoron.

Rendering unto Caesar

Who knew VA was an open primary state? (Probably everybody but me.) For some reason, I've always assumed that I had to be registered as a member of one of the major parties to vote in that party's primary in Virginia. Au contraire. So as far as I can tell, this means that registering for a particular party in VA constitutes giving up freedom to vote in the primary of my choice (i.e., whichever contest has me more concerned about the outcome), with no advantage to balance that loss. Therefore, I intend to change my registration to "independent" right away. Thankfully, this doesn't make a difference for next Tuesday's VA primary, because the race that I would choose to vote in is the one for the party with which I'm registered. But next time, I'll be free to vote however I choose.

I also need to give credit to Tony Jones for getting me thinking about this issue. He goes so far as to argue that affiliating with a particular party is equivalent to giving to Caesar way more than is Caesar's, and getting "in bed" with Caesar in a way that Jesus wouldn't - and that states that require one to affiliate in order to vote in primaries are being anti-Christian in that regard. So yay for the Commonwealth for not being anti-Christian. (But for the record, I'm not doing this just because I'm a part of a 10-point Jonesist emerging church.) ;-)

UPDATE: Huh, turns out I'm even dumber than I thought I was. There is simply no question about party affiliation on the Viriginia voter registration form. I just assumed my affiliation carried over somehow from New York and Maryland, which both have closed primaries. But no! Apparently I'm already independent, 'cause Virginia just doesn't give a crap about this. Yay, Virginia!

Super / Fat / Shrove Tuesday

Quite a Tuesday, isn't it?

Re: teh Super: My hope is not in Caesar, but government is what it is, and I'd rather have someone hopeful and inspiring and relatively authentic in the top US Caesar job than the other kind. So alls y'all Super Tuesday voters: vote Obama! (Or, if you're voting on the GOP side, vote McCain!)

Re: teh Fat: No parties planned, though it is one of those days when it's kinda exciting to work for a major media company, so maybe things will get a bit fat around here as we wait for the results to roll in.

Re: teh Shrove: I likes me some pancakes. Probably won't have any, though. Lent begins tomorrow, and I have reason to believe it's going to be a time of trial for my family and me. My Dad is suddenly and inexplicably and alarmingly ill, with symptoms that indicate something brain- and/or nervous-system-related. If you pray, and you don't mind putting in a good word for my Dad and Mom and my family, I'd be grateful.

Peace, friends.

Shout out to Republican Party voters

Y'all are totally making my election year, and greatly elevating my opinion of registered members of the Grand Ol' Party (at least those in states that have held primaries/caucuses so far). Thank you, thank you, thank you for making the one GOP Presidential candidate whose election wouldn't completely horrify me the front-runner. Please, please, please keep it up. On the Democratic side, Obama is my horse, though I could certainly live with Clinton. But on the GOP side, if McCain's momentum continues, I'll be grateful to not be in the position of dreading November, since I'd feel like I could live with either outcome. I disagree with McCain on the vast majority of issues, and I think he's eroded his integrity a bit in recent years by toeing the party line for political reasons more than he used to, but overall I think he's a man of integrity and conviction and more of a leader than a politician. And I don't believe he's an idiot, a tool, a wacko, an evil-doer, or a kleptocrat. So, yay! Go GOP, and go McCain! (At least until the primaries are over.)

(On a personal note, this post marks my first month with 10 or more posts since September of 2006, which was a time when my life turned upside-down a bit. [OK, more than a bit.] I wonder if this means my life is turning rightside-up again? Naah - I'm pretty sure it just means I have too much time on my hands at the moment.) :-)

I am the LOLrus. Goo goo ga joob.

UPDATE:

1) I forgot to give a hat-tip to Randy for the Olbermann rant on the Bush administration and water-boarding.

2) Turns out Hillary's entourage did leave a tip. Maybe. Maybe it was on a credit card. Maybe it was cash. Maybe it didn't get shared among the staff like it was meant to.

Whatever. If I was wrong to believe that Sen. Clinton and her peeps neglected this, then I apologize. But my bucket is still pretty empty, and I'm sorry to say that my impression of the Senator led me to believe this pretty readily. :-(

~~~~~

Perhaps you've met the LOLrus. If not, allow me to introduce you to his tragic tale:

Later:

Sad, no?

How am I like the LOLrus, you ask? Well, not in many ways, honestly. Very little has ever been taken from me. However, there is one thing I must admit that I miss - perhaps not as muct as LOLrus misses his bukkit, but acutely. Acutely.

I miss mah sense of hope and respect for US national politics. The Bush administration, it seems clear, is almost completely devoid of integrity. (I'm afraid I probably have to retract my earlier "I respect Dubya" post.) And as I look at the presidential election that's shaping up, my temptation to laugh about Christian Right leaders endorsing Republican candidates - who utterly fail to represent the values the Christian Right supposedly stand for - is more than dampened by the probability that I'll be forced to vote for Hillary Clinton instead. I really don't want to vote for Hillary. She so totally doesn't get it. :-(

I still have some hope. Not a bucketful, but some. Mostly in Obama. But quite honestly, the hope that can fill that particular bucket - politics - it probably always going to be pretty false, IMHO.

So, bye bye, bucket. I miss you. But in retrospect, you were always empty.

I respect George W. Bush

Of all the rude things I've ever put on this rude blog, I suspect the title of this post might be the most offensive to some of my throngs ;-) of readers.

But it's true - I do have a certain measure of respect for our commander-in-chief. Now, don't get me wrong - I wouldn't vote for him to be the facilitator of a yearbook committee, much less any public office. I would probably disqualify him right off the bat due to the extreme black-and-white, nuance-free way he seems to view much of the world, but add in the fact that he and I disagree strongly on a whole lot of major issues - war and peace, the environment, poverty issues, you name it - and I ought to be clear that I'm not exactly a bush supporter. And it's not even hard for me to come up with a list of white, male, powerful, conservative Republican politicians that I respect more than GWB: Bob Dole, John McCain, Bush's dad.

But I do respect Bush, and the reason that I respect him is that as far as I can tell, he's not, primarily, a mere political animal. He's a man of conviction, who frequently acts according to what he genuinely believes to be the right thing, despite the political consequences. You can see this in things on which I strongly disagree with him, such as Middle East / war policy or global warming (though he may be coming around on that a little), but I also see it in areas where he and I are much more in agreement (immigration reform) or where I am ambivalent (stem-cell research). I may not be happy with the thinking behind his convictions - I may think them shallow, simplistic, or just horribly wrong - but I generally have to say that my impression is that his convictions are heartfelt, and that he tends to act on them - not just according to the political winds.

So in the case of immigration reform, it seems to me that his years in Texas spending time around immigrants - legal and otherwise - has led him to an understanding of the realities of the situation that is informed by both experience and compassion, and that he is determined to support a right course, as he sees it - his conservative "kick 'em all out" base be damned.

And in the case of stem cell research, it is my impression is that he is acting out of genuine moral concern that we not go somersaulting down the slippery slope toward the mass production of human embryos for medical purposes. Honestly, I'm not sure where I'd draw the line on this stuff, but I respect his desire to be cautious in this area, despite the tide of public opinion and political pressure from all directions.

I'm not saying Bush is a good leader, or what our country needs. I don't think either of those are true. All I'm saying is that I must admit that I think he's remarkably authentic for a politician - a man of convictions in a town full of professional sellouts. So while I have never been a Bush supporter, and likely never will be, I also try to avoid making him the butt of jokes. My best hope for Bush is that his relative success as a President might inspire someone whose convictions I actually agree with to stand their guns in Washington and lead strongly and authentically.

Not quite sure I'm seeing that on the horizon, though. Obama? Gore? Beuller? :-)

The tragedy of divorce and the protection of marriage

Just a quick note regarding the sad passing of the anti-marriage amendment to the VA constitution this week.

"Marriage," in my opinion, has become an unfortunate casualty of our society's state of denial regarding the death of Christendom in North America. Church and state (or church and civil society) have gone through a divorce. There were irreconcilable differences. Like any divorce, it's had tragic consequences, but it's probably for the best. But we don't want to admit it.

We need to decide who gets custody of the term "marriage" - religion, or secular government - and stop pretending that the faith community's blessing of a union and the government's legal recognition of a union have anything to do with each other any more. In my opinion, faith communities should be able to bless any union they choose (and refrain from blessing any union they choose), and we should call that "marriage" (because in truth, God had the concept first). Government should cease and desist having anything to do with anything called "marriage", and should sanction civil unions, with the full benefits currently conveyed by the legal concept of "marriage", between any two consenting adults. Continuing to conflate the two concepts, which were only really related before the death of Christendom, just confuses these issues and leads to tragedies like the anti-marriage amendment we just passed in the Old Dominion.

Except that many of us *want* to confuse the issues. Because we're in denial. We hope and pray that Mom and Dad - church and civil society - will get back together - that it's really only a trial seperation.

Sorry, but I don't think so. Some relationships don't last forever. And we can't "protect marriage" by pretending that the Christendom divorce didn't happen - or by amending our constitutions to try to *prevent* loving, committed unions, instead of working on ways to encourage, strengthen, and preserve them.