Craig Keefner homepage

I remember reading my history books and in there they talked about the Crusades and the all the other "religious conflicts". Even in modern times with Israel (setup in the middle of Muslim nations), I still felt other than a momentary rise in the gas price at the pump, I was still abstracted away from all.

I remember back a few years when Bush was first running for election and the concerted effort to use the religion right as a driver. We will appeal to the right and engage/awaken their idealism and they will be our army. Our defender. Our supporter...We'lll do the right thing.

The believers would be without compromise, they would be totally committed to achieving the cause whether it was a sympathetic judge in the Court or in the court of public opinion. You would be on our side or on their side.

To me it was a horrific manipulation of those people. The Bubba vote. The mostly not-college-educated NASCAR Saturday night. Worse, it would take Jesus and in a profane way, use and redress him as not the defender of the poor, but purely for politics.

Our spiritual leaders either led the charge or became invisible. They believed what Rove told them. We allowed our political leaders to lead/protect us in whatever way they determined was best, whether it was right or not.

I remember in the old days, religion stayed out of politics and in the community. Slowly as culture telescoped and became (and becomes) ever more ruthless, we became the silent majority. Twenty years later it is us electing the President/Republicans.

Now imagine you are God and you have these people claiming/misusing all of these things in your name.

Bad enough that we only have ourselves to thank for electing people that let oil companies write energy policies, bankers determine charity, and allow people to be in power that endanger children. That wasnt the plan as I remember it.

Do we think we have some sort of final immunity which eliminates any discretion by God to instruct? Are we without doubt "on Gods side" and fighting the forces of Evil (or Evil Doers as Bush as declared).

Could this be a sublime form of self-arrogance?

What if God disagrees, or considers it might be instructive to refine our misdirection?

Are our opponents Evil? They talk to God, they get instruction from God, they strictly measure their actions in relation to their laws regarding God. They pray more than we pray.

Some years later the U.S. suffers a horrific attack from Muslim extremists in which thousands of people die.

Is God on our side, or is he trying to teach us a lesson?

Or is God inflicting an instructive irony upon us?

God is all things -- not just what we prefer he is.

Somewhere in North Carolina and other states, strangers walk into farm supply companies and buy 200 lbs of amonia nitrate without any question. Profit overriding safety?

In its own "impossible to totally fathom" way is God responding to our misuse of his name, and his cause.

-----------------------

And in asking/debating this question, what percentage of the American populace would consider doing this to be unpatriotic?

Why is it that I have to wonder whether or not I can say something?