Anne Lamont (Salon): God doesn't take sides

[Jack Rabbit]

From Salon.com (Subscription or day pass required)
Dated Wednesday April 27

God doesn't take sides
How do I reconcile my faith with that of the spiritual hysterics in the White House? Easy. I don't even try.
By Anne Lamott

I have been on a book tour for a month, and as God is my witness, at every single reading I gave, someone asked how I can "reconcile my Christian faith with that of the radical right." I never quite answered this to my own satisfaction, but would like to try to do so now. And the answer is, "I don't. Why would you even bother?"

The truth is that many of us left-wing Christians with fragile nerves and bad attitudes are becoming ever so slightly tense about the distinct possibility that this country we love is becoming, under the Bush administration, a theocracy. Those of us with public lives are constantly asked, "Don't you think the radical right has appropriated God, and if so, what is your response to that?"

My answer to the first question is no. No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. The people currently in charge of this country have so spiritualized their hysteria that their antics make for much better news coverage than the rest of us. Terri Schiavo ("Has America begun murdering its handicapped?" they thunder, and we say meekly, "Well, um, no"). "Lord of the Flies" rallies against gay marriage. Pro-life violence. And -- my personal favorite -- the frenzied opposition to stem cell research, based on the right's conviction that it is an atrocity to save actual human lives by creating new stem cell lines using frozen embryos slated to be thrown out after couples undergoing IVF conceive or give up . . . .

My response to the second question is that we who believe that a benevolent intelligence animates our lives need to live by Jesus' command: to try to stop killing other human beings, just for today, and to act upon a total commitment to the poor, to the old and to the Earth. Watch, God said, and I don't think he meant cable news. I could be wrong. But what I think he meant was, "Watch for the warning signs of God's presence so you can remember what he said to do -- bring food to those who hunger, bring water to those who thirst, and help through love and showing up to turn despair into hope, swords into plowshares."

This article is much appreciated by this freethinker.

The truly sad thing about the current hysteria created by the Christian right, the Bush regime and its political allies in Congress is that it tells Christians that it is heresy to support the separation of church and state.

I would not want to be put into a position of choosing between the tenants of my religious faith and the fundamental principles on which America was founded. One does not have to be a Christian to be outraged at right wing demagogues at the pulpit trying to turn such hydra-headed issues into simple, black-or-white choices.

[noel711]

1. I love Ann LaMott...

I know, I know, God doesn't take sides, but if you read the Bible, it's apparent that God does.... God sided with Israel when he chose Israel to be the chosen people. God sided against Israel when Israel tried to have it all. God sided with us all when God sent Jesus to remind us that there is a God. And Jesus sided with the forgotten, the poor, the outcast, the sinners, the diseased and the dying.

I learned in seminary that every time we human takes sides, Jesus sides with the losers. Because we take sides... something to think about.

[Lindacooks]

2. Thoughtful article, but...

I would like to think that God does take sides - on the side of the poor, homeless, downtrodden, weak, injured, and suffering, against the powerful, corrupt, evil, cruel, and oppressors.