This is a link to a piece of campaign literature by the Republican running for State Senate in my district in Oklahoma City:

http://www.tnr.com/graphics2004.1/theplank/jantz.jpg

I ask you: quite aside from my theological and spiritual differences with the thrust of the message, does this belong in the stream of political discourse?

I’m not really talking about separation of church and state.  I won’t go there with you.  I mean, do you think this is a good way to pick a political representative?  Is it even possible to believe, absent mental illness of some kind, that there exists a God who prefers one politician over another?  I find the very idea strange.

“Evil” is such a problematic and strong word, how does it get bandied about like that?  We aren’t really talking about cannibalistic Satanic rituals, are we?  I have at times played Devil’s Advocate and expressed my deep reservations about whether Evil, in the religious sense, exists, given a loving and all powerful God with a plan that never errs for the universe.  I cannot believe in Satan, for to me that would be to believe in more than one God and I find it difficult enough to stay certain that God exists and acts in my life. 

I believe in one God and I do not believe in one prophet.  I believe a great many humans, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Bhudda, Lao Tsu among them, have been so wise and spiritual as to bring us articulation of spiritual truths.  To deify them is, in my opinion, unwise, as it is with Caesars and Pharohs.  I would not make gods of Newton, Freud, Einstein, Darwin or Marx and I do not make demons of Ted Bundy, Hitler, Pol Pot, Bush or Charles Manson  (couldn’t avoid the political there, it was just too rich).

With that as a baseline, you can guess the spiritual and theological rage I feel gorging when I read a postcard like the one I’ve linked.

I’ll put all that aside, though, and just try to think about this on another level.

There’s an obvious parallel, it seems to me, with this kind of fundamentalist pandering for political gain and the fundamentalist pandering for political gain we see in Iran, Iraq and the Gaza Strip.

Political theology has always in history led to war and misery and totalitarianism.  Always and invariably.  The English Civil War, the crusades, Mohammad’s conversion by the sword, you name it.

It is a type of political eliteism that’s no better and often worse than the oligarchy we have now and certainly worse than the liberal democracy we had between the robber barons of the 19th Century and the ones today. 

I’m back to that place I was as a child in the southern Baptist church being taught that there were billions of humans in the world going to hell because they had not been washed in the blood of the lamb.  Huh?  God does that?  Reluctantly, we’re sure, the Sunday School teachers would say.

OK.  But, do you think that’s true in Congress?  Do you think God’s concerns are so worldly as to go to the federal deficit and budget process?  If someone was a real Christian, they might remember that Jesus ran the money changers (bankers) out of the temple, mocked the Pharisees (lawyers) and told them to look at their money and “render unto Ceasar that which is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”   He ordered Nicodemus, the tax collector, out of a tree and to walk and talk with him personally.  Hmmmm.  I don’t think God is talking to the president and I don’t think God cares about whether the government spends more or less on highways.

I think if God cares at all about the political process, He wonders why the hell Christians vote for so much military spending.

And the death penalty.

And why they don’t feed the sick, the aged and infirm and the hungry children.

I think those Christian politicians will be known in heaven for the way they treated “the least of these” here on Earth.

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?

Do you really think that if I vote for a Democrat, it’ll be because God failed to put a hedge of thorns around me to protect me from evil? 

That seems a little bit of a difficult proposition to back up. 

What will this candidate think if he gets beat?  What will he say if he loses?  Will he believe the Devil beat Jesus in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma?  If he wins with a 49-51 majority, will he think half the people he represents are evil?