God Saves Texas From … What?

“Forty Days To Save America”
Had placed a conference call
Cos a pastor had some news to share
About his favorite pol.

To hear the pastor tell it,
Climatologists are irked
Cos that prayer y’all made fun of?
Here’s the funny thing—it worked.

Perry saved the state of Texas
When he prayed for rain to fall
Simple church and state entanglement
Has rescued one and all!

I say “one and all”, but really,
There’s a long, long way to go—
Is the drought in Texas over?
There’s a simple answer: no.

There are aquifers in trouble
In the South, and in the West
(So it’s clear—Northeastern Texas
Is the part God loves the best)

But it’s better than it once was
So they’re crediting the Guv;
If he hadn’t prayed and fasted
God might not have shown His love.

Lest you think the pastor stupid,
Simply wrong, or off his meds…
He’s distracting our attention
From a bailout by the feds.

[Tuesday] the EPA announced they’re giving more than $57 million in grants to the Texas Water Development Board fund for drinking water. “The funds will be used by the state of Texas to provide loan assistance to eligible water systems for infrastructure improvements needed to ensure safe drinking water is available to Texas residents,” the agency says.

That was Tuesday. Today, we find out that there was no need for federal intervention–Rick Perry’s prayers and fasting are the reason the drought is over… to the extent, that is, that it is over.

It is, absolutely, the case that the drought is less problematic now than it was when Perry held his prayer at the beginning of what is typically the rainy season. It’s similar, I guess, to the success I have achieved when I head to the beach right after low tide and pray for high tide.

Either that, or the puppy sacrifice worked. (perfectly safe and heartwarming story at link)

Mitt And God

Mitt doesn’t have charisma
He doesn’t have appeal
He doesn’t have the common touch
He doesn’t have the feel
He doesn’t have the numbers
But still Mitt wants the nod
Instead of talking politics,
It’s “God, God, God, God, God!”

He’ll keep God in the public square
He’ll keep God in the pledge
He’ll keep God on our bills and coins
(and not just on the edge)
He’ll keep God in his platform
And he’ll keep God in his heart
Mitt’s bound to win — God’s helping him!
(I wonder when He’ll start.)

Understanding Atheists: Two Churches Try

A bit of a strange contrast today, in my aggregator. Clearly, Christians have taken notice of the growing numbers of atheists, and have seen the need to… do… well, something. Our first attempt comes out of San Antonio, TX, where they ask the musical question

Ever wonder what atheists truly believe and how you could be a better friend and witness to them?

Not a bad start, actually. This could be an introduction to a presentation by actual atheists, don’t you think? Which would be a real first step toward understanding. Let’s read on!

Join us for our Unpacking Atheism simulcast with Lee Strobel, Mark Mittelberg, and William Lane Craig.

Oh. Three Christian apologists. I have to wonder, even if they are being scrupulously honest, what sorts of differences exist between their view of “what atheists truly believe” and, you know, what atheists truly believe. Anyway, you can show up for a live simulcast, for fifteen bucks, if you are among the first 300 to register.

Oh, look! If you click to the registration page, the description of the event changes–no more being a better friend here:

Atheism is on the rise. If you haven’t been confronted by it yet, you will be. Your children are already being challenged by it. The effects of it are seeping into our culture and, increasingly, into the church. We must confront this challenge! We need to be ready–and help our church members become ready—to not only “give an answer” (I Pet. 3:15), but also to “take every thought captive” for Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

Yes, these are precisely the people I want to tell me “what atheists truly believe”.

*sigh*

But you know? There is hope. Our other example of an attempt at understanding atheism comes from the [D]mergent blog; it’s a thoughtful essay by a Christian minister, whose first response to the New Atheism was… to read up on it, and on science.

Over the past several years I have spent a lot of time becoming acquainted with the New Atheism and the critical responses to it. My bookshelves, and more recently my Kindle’s memory, are full of books about this matter. A topic closely related to it, the relationship between faith and science, also occupies a good amount of space. I believe for the church to move faithfully into the future the matter of the relationship between science and faith, and the growing number of those who claim no faith or belief in God, is something we must try to fully understand and engage.

Atheism is also a personal matter for him; he has lost a couple from his congregation, because they now consider themselves atheists/agnostics. Another member of his congregation, who attends regularly and participates, is a declared atheist. Having an atheist as an active member of his congregation has framed the question differently for this writer.

I won’t take the space to critique the new atheism, or present any of the critical responses to it. ( To clarify, I do believe in God and have some philosophical troubles with atheism.) It is simply true that more and more people in the Western world are identifying as non-believers, With such people, if they want, is it even possible for them to have a place in the church. I guess I am asking, can someone who doesn’t believe in God find room to live among the people of God?

Twenty years ago, I would have firmly answered, “No. It is not possible.” But over the past two decades, because of my studies and my life experiences, my own understanding of God has changed a good bit and I have become more grace-filled and understanding toward those who don’t believe like I do and toward those who don’t believe at all.

Recognizing a change in the culture, he could have reacted against it as today’s first example is doing, but he accepted it as part of a new reality.

I have come to understand the Christian faith no longer as adherence to a certain belief system, but primarily as way of life rooted in the teachings of Jesus, a way of life rooted in love, grace and the struggle for peace and justice.

Understanding the Christian faith in this way, allows us to partner with any and all people, who wish to pursue the same kind of world. I may call it the realm of God, they may call it something else, but together we call it hope.

His essay is worth considerably more than the fifteen bucks a head the simulcast is going to charge, but it’s freely available right there at the link.

You Know, Deviants–Like Rapists, Murderers… Gays…

Franciscan University
Says homosexuality
Is much like rape and robbery—
That is, they say it’s wrong.
It’s different from the norm, you see;
Disordered, yes, intrinsically
(Though clinical psychology
Now sings a different song)

In Social Work, class three-fourteen
What “deviance” is meant to mean,
(So says the statement from the dean)
Is “different from the norm”.
Franciscan’s academic scene
Is filtered through a Catholic screen—
What makes it through is squeaky clean,
Selected to conform

And those who live a different way—
The thief, or rapist; whore, or gay
The people who’ve been led astray
In this course, they’re addressed.
And those who cluck with loud dismay
Whose first response is just to pray
Whose numbers shrink each passing day
Will they be on the test? [Read more…]

Projection, Of Historical Proportions

I remember when believers
Showed a missionary zeal
They would meet you at your doorstep
Just to show you God was real
They would go to other countries
Cos they had to spread the word
They might learn a different language
To be certain they were heard
They attended church on Sundays
With their families in tow
They thought Jesus was the answer
And they had to let you know… [Read more…]

Some Thoughts On Faith-Healing

… because I saw The Atheist Pig’s cartoon today. It takes something I don’t have to be able to convey so much in 4 panels with simple drawings.

Anyway, it reminded me of an old verse of mine:

(Every word of this is true.)

A friend of mine, some thirty years ago,
The eldest son, a farming family’s pride,
Was gone from school, about a month or so
Before we heard the truth—the boy had died.

He’d fallen from a tractor in a field,
Though whether he was dead first, we don’t know;
The coroner’s exam? Too late to yield
An answer; there was nothing it could show.

His parents tried to cure the boy with prayer–
They brought him home, and put their son to bed.
Devout and faithful, hope turned to despair;
It broke their hearts, admitting he was dead.

Their church—to whom they turn when times are rough—
Blamed them, and said they had not prayed enough.

Now, from the comments there, I have to include here another bit–I could edit it to make it a bit clearer, but I’d rather not take the time today.

oddly enough, what is bothering me right now is that I cannot remember his name. For some reason, that really saddens me. I remember his sister was named Sarah; I had a real crush on her. He had a younger brother too, who was also my friend; the younger brother was going to be the first in the family ever to go to college, until my friend died. The younger brother understood that it would now be his duty, as it was to be his brother’s, to stay and take over the running of the farm.Brother and sister both kept going to school for the month while their brother, my friend, lay dead in his bed. They simply did not talk about it; I am sure they must have been asked where he was. Perhaps they just said he was sick… it was 30 and a bit years ago, so details are fuzzy.This was a good family. Nobody deserves something like this, but it is particularly hard when the family is this good, and so reliant on their faith, and their church takes their devotion and uses it to crucify them.Podblack, you know that I am absolutely of the belief that one can be a skeptic and be religious. Skepticism is a process, not a result; the results you get from critical thinking will (and must) depend on the available evidence. This family was doing what they fully believed was right. They were not stupid; they were not gullible; they were not bad. They were fed lies, from people who had earned their trust.And dammit, he deserves for me to remember his name.

What I’m wondering today is, how many of us have some similar story, of a friend or relative? I lost an office-mate to ovarian cancer; toward the end, she got all sorts of advice, and took most of it (just in case), no matter how bizarre it seemed (“drink everything out of a blue glass”). My sister turns to her prayer groups (fortunately, also to her doctor) for her many illnesses.

With my friend, it was really by accident that we learned the truth; his family wouldn’t have broadcast the information. With my office-mate, you had to be close enough to be one of the people she opened up to (quick test–did she feel she had to put her scarf back on and cover her bald head? If so, you’ll never hear all the details) to know how many desperate cures she was willing to try, and how many more she turned down (she had no shortage of people telling her to quit chemo, but chemo is what bought her more years with her young son).

In other words, the cases we know about are not the full picture. But how many do we know? How many do you know?

On Original Sin

Because of what happened in Eden
When humanity toppled from grace
Every man, every woman, each baby
Bears the sins of the whole human race

Now, I know there are men who are wicked
And some women have evil within
But I cannot see damning a baby
Cos it’s born with original sin… [Read more…]

The Ground Zero Cross… Again.

For some who’ve experienced losses, the cross is
A symbol of grieving, of heartbreak, of death;
They’ll flock to a church or museum to see ‘em
Defending their presence with all of their breath.
The tomb of a great many heroes, Ground Zero’s
A place to remember who answered the call;
The cross stands for good Christian brothers, but others
Have different symbols—and some, none at all.

The privileged among us will fight for the right for
Their privileged positions to carry the day;
The Christians assume God protects, and expects them
To honor His care, in the usual way.
The cross at Ground Zero is holy, but solely
For Christians, as others have quite clearly shown;
The atheists, Muslims, and Jews are just losers—
They want it to be there for Christians alone.

I can take my pick of sources… David Silverman is in the news again, fighting the Ground Zero Cross.
As always, the comments vary across sites, and as always, it is a display of Christian privilege.

Silverman is forced into the position of looking like an utter dick. The “cross”, a bit of wreckage from the ruins of the twin towers, is such a trivial thing–who could oppose its inclusion in the 9/11 memorial? Like “in god we trust” on money, it’s ceremonial deism, religion diluted homeopathically, something that should be opposed more by religious believers than by atheists…

Except.

When you read the writing on the wall, and the absolute zero of religion’s future is compared to the statistical irrelevance of ceremonial deism, suddenly the trivial battles are worth fighting, and silly crossbeams are now religious icons of the highest order. Seriously, the most common juxtaposition of beams in a heap of rubble is now worth going to the wall for. Because God, that’s why.

David Silverman does not have my stamp of approval. But he does have my sympathy. I would not take his job for a pile of gold. I doubt very much that he wants to take most of these cases, but he is in the position of taking them or ceding another few inches of territory, each and every time. So he is forced to fight.

The fact that we are fighting over more and more trivial notions is testament to Silverman’s success. The real estate we are quibbling over is smaller and smaller, and as a result, the skirmishes are more and more nasty. I mean, seriously–two bits of girder? In a building that was constructed of tons upon tons of girders welded at 90 degrees to one another? Three thousand deaths, and a couple of girders are a symbol worth fighting for?

Fight, David Silverman. Fight, Christians. The big battles are already decided.

Crosses are sooooo two years ago.