Thursday, January 17, 2008

To All My Politically Minded Evangelical Friends--RANT WARNING!

With rare exceptions, I don't usually write about politics at The Owl's Song. That doesn't mean I don't pay attention or that I have no interest in politics, just that I don't want to write about it. I have rarely told anyone who I am voting for, and I know there have been at least two occasions when my husband and I voted differently.

In my sidebar are a few links to individuals who frequently write about politics. I'm thinking of two in particular. Their views differ widely. They are both intelligent and thoughtful, both believers in Jesus Christ, both people who seek to practice what they preach, both people of integrity who have my deepest admiration and respect. One is quite conservative. The other is quite--shhhh-- liberal.

I tend to agree with one more than the other. Not saying which. Both of them make me think, and that is enough. I don't have to agree with people to value their insights.

Sojourners has a bumper sticker I'd like to acquire. It says;

GOD IS NOT A REPUBLICAN...OR A DEMOCRAT!
Could the "evangelical" community PLEASE stop sniping at people in (at best) mean spirited ways, or (at worst) with outright lies and slander? Are we so stupid that we really think any piece of trash that arrives in our email is truth? Have you not all received a sweetly worded "Christian" attempt to get you to hand over your bank account information so that some lovely brother or sister far away can give you millions of dollars? Did you believe it? Are you still forwarding the email about Jane Fonda? Or the one that claims Microsoft is going to track email and all involved will receive money?
The more I receive horrid pieces of writing about Hillary Clinton, the more I like her. I note that none of the numerous emails I have received, some shocking in their hatred, discuss her position on issues. That is because, contrary to popular belief, she is far less "liberal" than some of her competition. We just like to hate her. It's so nice to feel superior.

And as for Barack Obama--yesterday I received one more email warning me that he won't even salute the flag. Oh, the horror of it! And he is a secret radical Muslim with terrorist backing. After all, that name says it all, don't you think? Both facts are, in fact, lies. Since when is it okay to gossip, to slander, to repeat any amount of damaging "information" without checking to see if it is actually....um....true?

Last time I checked, "Thou shalt not bear false witness" was still one of the Ten Commandments.
STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!
It's a long time till election day. Sigh. Put this link to Snopes on your desktop. Pay particular attention to the POLITICS link. And if you send me one more piece of information trashing someone, I may vote for them out of spite.

13 comments:

tali said...

awesome!

Alex said...

Amen, Sister! That Obama one has come to me a number of times from family members and I've had a hard time keeping my anger in check...

Jules said...

Preach it, sister!

Jeannie Babb said...

Great post! Snopes.com is a must-have link this election season.

Jeannie

LoieJ said...

Why aren't we as open to good news as we are to bad news?

Do the liberals put out this *crap* too?

When I was first blogging, I made a great effort to find conservative sites that good, rational, understandable arguments for conservative Christian viewpoints. I was very disappointed to find so many with poor arguments and bad logic, ie name calling, etc, rather than true explanations. [I blogged about this back then.] No readers helped me find good conservative sites. I also tried the more liberal faith sites, but they weren't as categorized, so harder to corral. Maybe that makes me a moderate??? I thought that following Jesus was radical.

Ruth said...

I agree wholeheartedly. Thank goodness I don't have people emailing me that kind of thing anymore. They've all given up on me. I think voting for someone just because someone else doesn't like them is as good a reason as any others I've heard. Go for it!

Psalmist said...

Mine have given up on me too, Ruth. It hurt my aunt's feelings terribly when I told her that I deleted every one of her "must send on" political smears. Oh, well. She was incensed that a Christian would disagree with her (sometimes very mean-spirited) political opinions, as though they came directly from God. Uh, no.

Singing Owl, you are spot-on with this. I'm sick to death of people sniping at the "liberal" candidates, and I've gotten so I don't really care a whole lot about the religious persuasion of either so-called conservative OR liberal candidates. I care more about their history, their consistency, and the fruit I can see evidence of in their public service. Thus, I'm not especially overjoyed with any of 'em. :( (grouse)

Psalmist said...

P.S., I'm trying to wrap my mind around Jesus as a political candidate, but it doesn't compute.

I believe that public service can be an honorable vocation, and for many politicians, it probably is. But by the time politicians get to candidacy for national office, it is so mind-bogglingly expensive that the ways of this world invariably compromise the candidate. Not that they want them to, but when there's that much money involved, there WILL be shady people who muddy the integrity of the campaign. Call me jaded, but that's how I see it.

Rev SS said...

AMEN! I haven't received any of these ... guess people know me well enough to know I would just hit "delete" without reading.

(I'm thinking the religious establishment (liberal and conservative) in Jesus time would have been sending these emails about him if he were a political candidate)

Crimson Rambler said...

Dear Owl, that was a VERY fine rant! And Psalmist (hi there!) Jesus' enemies did put out the word that he was a glutton and a drunkard, right?

Psalmist said...

Hi, Crimson. Yes, indeed they did do that to Jesus.

I've been discouraged lately by the general tendency toward bashing of other Christians in general--by our fellow Christians. I guess it's the season for rants, SO; I did one on "mainline-bashing" after somebody stepped on my last nerve by assuming it was OK to hurl the "L" word at fellow Christians. Guess we're a lot of us a bunch of grumps, eh?

Psalmist said...

Talk about the Department of Redundancy Department:

"...general tendency toward bashing...in general"

Sheesh on toast!

zorra said...

Amen and amen.
The Obama one has been so thoroughly debunked that I am amazed it's still going around.
Hooray for snopes.com, a source of information to which I often turn (and annoy people by replying to their moronic e-mails with the relevant link).