Obama Goes to the White House, You Go to Hell: Catholic Priest Asks for Penance from Parishioners Who Voted for Obama

See this blog post here. This is a blog by Jonathan Turley, a law professor who shows up a lot on the talking head TV shows. A reasonable man with a temperament under control. Tracking the Roman Catholic church on this one is an interesting study. I think the RCs have boxed themselves into a corner on their stands on abortion and birth control. Most conservative Christians of any stripe will honor them for seeking consistency and being willing to take major hits for it. To be consistent they must be as rigorous on birth control as they are on abortion. They aren’t. And they lose steam in the dialogue because of it. Still, a lot of evangelical Christians have a high regard for the RCs’ willingness to take on major political and social leaders. They would like to go to a church like that – if it wasn’t Roman Catholic.

How many ways was that again?

One of my favorite blogs, Jesus Creed ,has moved to beliefnet.com/ Sure wish it hadn’t. That whole website reminds me of what I have struggled as an evangelical to get away from. For instance, in their Christian section of the site (as compated to Buddhism, etc.) there is this:

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12? 8? 10? Sure it’s not 15 or 75? This kind of approach depresses me, decreases my hope, increases my toxic thoughts and leaves me not wanting to pray. It is a version of painting by the numbers. Stay in the lines, carefully match the color and the number, and abacadabra – great art.

I think Jesus Creed moving to this website identifies it with just another “painting by the numbers” spiritual worldview. It’s not. But people will not notice the difference.

Bill Ayers and terrorism

I have been thinking a lot about Obama and Ayers. And generally I have not been bothered by the association. The era of Vietnam was a crazy time. It begged for radicalism on both sides – the drug culture, anarchy, free love, philosophical malaise, Kent State, the Berkley free speech movement, the 1968 Democratic convention, the association of the church with oppressive politics, etc. It goes on and on. I was essentially a conservative during those days, but with a heart very heavy with concern. I wish I had had more courage to do more against the war in Vietnam. Ayers was right – we did not do enough. No, bombing buildings is not the “enough” I am referring to.

Now we know how wrong that war was. Now we know how much lying was being done by our government and military. Now we know how freely the government asked our men to die in a war that they knew we were losing and could not win. Now we know how the egos of President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara were the real issues. Now we know how unjust the draft was because of its exclusion of the privileged class. We know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. We know we entered into a war without a declaration of war from Congress. It still burns me to think of that time and the pure frustration of it all – and the feelings of powerlessness as the government insisted that we all run off the cliff together.

I think Ayers’ indictment of the US government is correct. He did a dumb and dangerous thing and should have gone to prison, but I am more angry with Presidents Johnson and Nixon. They were the true enemies of justice and liberty when it came to Vietnam. They brought untold suffering on millions. How many American families today remain crushed from the after-effects? Not to mention the agonies of the Vietnamese.

I don’t think of myself as a liberal. But I do think of myself as an unwitting dupe of the state. And my patriotism has been used against me over and over again. Politicians have found it useful, like they do religion.  I look back now at the Vietnam days and believe that I did not do enough.