Back to my reformation

For Lent this year I gave up judging Christianity on the basis of the behavior of Christians, and on trying to define myself spiritually relative to my experiences with my family. Lent is over, so I suppose I could go right back to my old behaviors. But I think the point of these "sacrifices of the flesh" is to grow spiritually as an individual, thus to indulge after Lent was over seemed out of place.

This week, however, has been a hard one. The world seems to be full of Christians behaving badly, and being quite confrontational while doing so. I've been thinking all week about whether to write about this stuff. I just didn't want to react; I wanted to inspect my own self in light of these headlines and see where I was in my own growth.

The leading headlines that are relevant to the topic at hand:

• Miss California, Carrie Prejean, after boldly speaking out against same-sex marriage during the interview portion of the Miss USA pageant, becomes a spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage. Only days later it is revealed that she posed semi-nude as a teenager for a modeling photo shoot.
• President Obama chooses to recognize National Day of Prayer in United States and has his press secretary to announce the recognition in a press conference, acknowledging that the president begins each day in private worship. The stark contrast of this private recognition of the role of prayer in one's personal life to the spectacular and very public way that President Bush recognized the day during the previous eight years drew great criticism from conservative Christians and conservative Christian groups.
• Bristol Palin, the teen mother of her own 5-month old son and daughter of the governor of Alaska and former Vice Presidential-hopeful Sarah Palin, gave a series of interviews and made several appearances as the teen ambassador for the Candie's Foundation which works towards the goal of lowering the incidence of teen pregnancy in the United States. Her peers note the discrepancy and relative hypocrisy in her message, as well of contradictions in her statements at various times during the last few months. Some even say she is just a tool of her mother, spitting out rehearsed lines that comport with her mother's political agenda of abstinence-only education.

It's likely that at least one of these issues has sparked some thoughts in your mind in the last few days. Clearly by listing them all here, I've been unable to ignore any of them. But what do they have in common in my thoughts? Why bring them all together here? What does a beauty queen campaigning against gay marriage have to do with a president praying in private or with a teen mother preaching abstinence? They all have to do with the politics of religion and social issues associated with conservative religion. For me, it is difficult to ignore these things because it brings up many things I dislike about religion.

Still, there's the Lenten deprivation, a sacrifice that I would like to keep up. I'm trying very hard to separate the sin from the sinner. I would like to look at God without God being damaged by the actions I see done by those who claim to follow him.

But I'll say this about all this stuff in the media. It's hit home with me. I don't like the way things are painted as black and white in the world, right and wrong, and anything that criticizes what is wrong must be right.

I see Carrie Prejean and I see someone who is opportunistic, and right now opportunity is being a conservative Christian beauty queen. I don't see depth of conviction, no matter what that conviction is. This isn't right at all. But because she said she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman only, she is considered to be a devout and righteous person, one who is heralded as a hero, a champion, a woman of deep principles.

I see critics of the president as foolishly grasping to his actions this week as being anti-Christian and anti-prayer. Quite on the contrary, his actions are completely in line with the teaching of Jesus Christ. Consider Matthew 6:5-8, the passage that immediately precedes the text commonly known as The Lord's Prayer."

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

Seems to me that President Obama's predecessor, the one being heralded by conservative right Christians right now, was, in the words of Christ, "babbling like a pagan." So no matter how much you want to say negatively about President Obama, if you are a Christian and you want to judge him on his practice and upholding of the faith, you have to applaud him this week.

As for Bristol Palin, I feel so much pain watching this girl. I see her and hear her and I believe that she doesn't understand the words that have been fed to her to parrot back to the public. I wish she could take some time to examine her own thoughts and ideas, that she could reflect on everything that's happened so far in her life. Once she's gotten a chance to do that, then she can begin to form her own genuine values, not the ones she inherited from her parents and her parents' political stances. It may be that she comes to the conclusion that abstinence only education really is the best choice and only foolproof choice in preventing teen pregnancy. But when she comes to that conclusion on her own, it will be apparent from her ability to logically argue for it in public and not contradict herself.

I want to hear the calm voice of a conservative Christian who realizes the truth of these three situations. It's not that Christian values are under attack this week, or that we are witnessing innocents become victims of the vicious words delivered by sinful, selfish liberals, or that the leader of the country is a wolf in sheep's clothing, pulling the rug right out from under the feet of those who herald the moral compass of this country. No, not at all. It's that people are jumping on whatever the latest sensational headline is, listening to a sound bite, and attacking without ever really thinking about the deep truth of the entire situation.