Theological Dictionary

Tebowed: To be profanely reminded of Jesus' admonition about public prayer found in Matthew 6:5

The Gospel According to Steve King

Rep Steve King(R-IA-5) voted against commemorating the fact that slave labor helped build the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.   Rep. King's reasoning is that God is more interested in getting a mention at the Capitol Visitors Center than in people dealing honestly with the impact of slavery on our history.

Rep. King's Bible must not include, among other things, this passage: "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.  Even though you offer you burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well being of you fatted animals I will not look upon.  Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.  But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream(Amos 5:21-24).

I shudder to think what is in the Bible Steve King reads.

It's About Time

The Southern Baptist Convention, the religious denomination where I was born and raised, declared that waterboarding is torture and that there is "no room for torture in U.S. intelligence gathering." 

It is fair to ask why the SBC kept quiet during the Bush administration but better late than never.

Obama's Preachers

The New York Times has an article  about the 5 men who serve as President Obama's spiritual advisors.  The 5 men are either centrist or evangelical with a concern for social justice issues.  One of the men is Otis Moss whose son is now the pastor of Trinity UCC where Obama was a member.  There does not appear to be anyone with a strong connection to the religious right.

However, there are no women and no strongly progressive Christians.  I am afraid that these omissions will reinforce Obama's centrist and conformists tendencies.  I can see Obama making  a strong stand on poverty issues but I can also see a cautious stance on cultural issues like abortion and especially GLBT equality.  I am also sad that this will continue to reinforce the popular image that there are no progressive Christians and evangelicals with a social justice bent are the true "religious left."

The absence of progressive Christians does give those of us religious left the chance to use our outsider status to continue to speak truth to and pressure those in power.  Without being in the center of power I hope progressive Christians will use their voice to continue to critique the dominant culture even if someone we consider one of us is leading it.  

Approved Prayer

I do not like the idea of a National Day of Prayer, I am uncomfortable with all of these presidential and congressional prayer breakfasts, I don't like that every political convention and inauguration has a prayer(even if I liked Joseph Lowery's), and I don't like the fact that President Obama starts every public event with prayer.

However, if we are going to have prayers at these public events then the prayers should not be vetted.  I understand that an intemperate prayer might make a politician uncomfortable but this probably means that political events could do without prayer.  The idea of the White House vetting prayers sounds too much like the Church being subservient to the State and nothing good happens when the Church decides to let the State have final say over what the Church says.

A Rick Warren Post

This article explains why Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration is a bad idea.  It's not just that the views that Warren expresses are abhorrent.  It is also that his views causes him to partner with people like Martin Ssempa who is a pastor in Uganda.  Ssempa burns condoms in public exhibitions and believes that Gays and Lesbians should be put in prison.  Ssempa is very influential and close the the first family of Uganda.

It's not that Warren's views are wrong but they can be dangerous.