What would Jesus do?

So, the mother-in-law called last night. She was upset by a phone call she had just received from her sister. She had called to urge her to vote for McCain. Apparently while the mother-in-law spent the weekend at the O'Toole's, spending time with her new grand daughter, Baby O'Toole, she missed the preacher at her church urge the congregation to vote for McCain. His reasons......not the failing economy, not the war, but because Republicans display better morals than democrats. He basically then went on to argue "it's what Jesus would do!". Over the past few weeks, using the candidates positions on issues and issues that the mother in law felt were important to her, we had shown her Obama spoke for most of her issues. However she hadn't expected Jesus to endorse McCain. So now she is confused and upset at the prospect of being struck down as she places a vote for the anti-Christ.
Remember...... November 4th, don't vote on policy, the state of the nation, or the war. Just know that any vote for anyone other than McCain is a sin. You are morally redundant and should be ashamed of yourself. When you die you will burn in HELL!!!

Did we cover this one? Sarah Palin...

...once stated, "Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime."

There are some other people who also expect end time, many of them leaders in their own, sick right. Groupings of extremists, terrorists, the fringe of the fringe, whatever label you want to apply to them, also have leaders. Like their leaders, they believe that there is a grand process in action all around them, some secret information that only they are privy to through some divine act.

Most members of these groups end up the lemmings who follow the calls of a charismatic leader. For Al Qaeda it's Osama Bin Laden. Richard Butler was this leader for Aryan Nations. Dwight York is this leader for the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. Tom Metzger has been this patriarch for racist skinheads in the United States. David Koresh was this leader for the Branch Davidians. Warren Jeffs, incarcerated head of the FLDS, is one of the more recent leaders to have made news.

One thing that seems to tie many extremists and their leaders together, and this applies to a radical Islamists who wage violent jihad, Klansmen who today target perceived illegal immigrants, militias that bomb government targets, Earth Liberation Front radicals who torch subdivisions for encroaching on animal habitats, or Nuwaubians who try to overtake counties in Georgia by infiltrating police and government positions, is the belief that there will be a grand culmination for their cause, and many, if not most, of their leaders, are convinced that the culmination will take place during their lifetimes. Actually many of them preach or prophecize that the end will occur at a given date in the near future. Many of these people also believe that they have some divine role in it all. And while delusionally thinking that they are to lead their people against the "forces of evil" in this struggle, most of them seem to believe that the conflict is inevitable.

Given that they have put their names on the lines proclaiming the nearing end, many of them default to doing their best to usher in this end.

So, while Palin does not wear a white sheet to neighborhood BBQs or build pyramids in her back yard like the Nuwaubians, she does harbor a deeply disturbing worldview of The Beginning and The End. Putting her in a position, second in command from the top of the (for the moment) most power nation on the planet, to exercise that worldview on a grand scale is f-ing insane.

The idea that she won't blink doubles the scariness of all of this and basically amplifies the collision course that the last 8 years has already set against the Islamic world.

Look, I am not equating Palin with terrorism or violent extremism. I'm only pointing out that her worldview, that the world will end in her lifetime, is as self-absorbed and deranged as any of the ideologies that drive morons in the white supremacist movement or the ones behind suicide bombings in Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, or wherever.

If you can say with a straight face that you believe that you will see Jesus walk the Earth, or that the world will end, in your lifetime, then you are not fit to lead a mass of people counting on you to see things rationally. You are much more fit to stroll down to your place of worship on the weekend and stroll right back to your abode, all the while keeping your beliefs to yourself and your community that agrees with you.

And when you step into the spotlight and run for office, expect to get hell for those beliefs.

Fair. Defend them all you like, stand by them if you have the guts, but don't expect to convert 300 million people to the same narrow-minded ways.

W.W.J.D.?

What would Jesus do? Ahhh... the age old question that dates back as far as...... well as far back as some opportunist got the idea to sell ridiculous bracelets to Christian zealots (it's like shooting ducks in a barrel).

As if the W.W.J.D. bracelets weren't bad enough, now Jesus Christ, Inc. (the marketing arm of Christianity) has brought us this:

That's right: the Jesus H. Christ bobble-head doll. Apparently, it will be given away free to the first 100,000 Jesus fans 14 and under who attend the rapture.

But the shameless marketing of Jesus is not what I'm here to talk about today. I want to talk politics, and specifically the, um, "unique" logic of evangelical voters.

According to this article, younger evangelicals are leaving the Republican party. Apparently they are "down with" the GOP's stance on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research, but "ain't got no love for" other issues such as social justice, environmental stewardship, the Iraq War, and the rabidly pro-torture position of the modern conservative movement.

Now, am I going to postulate what this all means for the political trends in 2008 and beyond?

No.

Am I going to get on my soapbox and lecture the evangelical readers of this blog (a demographic that no doubt numbers in the tens of thousands) that the Republican party has been playing the abortion card on you for 35 years, yet, remarkably has not brought about their stated goal of outlawing abortion through Supreme Court appointments and so forth, despite reminding you how much they share your views on the intrinsic value of human life in even-numbered (read: election) years?

No. Of course not. Everyone knows I am not that opinionated.

What I'd really like to focus on is the hilarious concept of trying to vote like Jesus. The best line of the article I linked to is this:

Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay
rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see
U.S. troops leave Iraq.

* * *

Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate
yet. "I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.

Very good, Tyler! No, he wouldn't vote Republican, would he? After all there's that little problem that most evangelicals like to ignore: Jesus isn't an American. Kind of hard to vote in U.S. elections when you would be by birth and by citizenship, an Israeli. I know it's a pesky little fact, one that makes it harder to claim the moral high road as America declare elective wars against people with brown skin in the name of our blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, arayan messiah, who, now that I think about it, does look an awful lot like Fabio.

Hmm. That certainly puts Fabio's career in a whole new light, doesn't it?