Monday, March 5, 2007

The Right is Right about This

,By the way, welcome to my new blog. I've always been incredibly undisciplined when it comes to journaling, which is what this feels like, and so we'll see how long it lasts. But right at this point in time I'm feeling a need to spout off about a few things. Like the photo on the front page of my paper this morning - Hill & Bill on one end of the line and Obama on the other - marching hand in hand with leaders in the African American community at the front of the procession through downtown Selma and across the bridge where Alabama state troopers attacked non-violent protesters in 1965. The whole thing was broadcast on national TV and people responded to it in such horror that 10 days later LBJ proposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was passed by Congress later that year. Both candidates spoke in the pulpits of black churches in Selma yesterday morning - Obama at the church where the protestors had gathered the morning they were attacked. How come it seems like almost nobody remembers that, once upon a time, it was possible to be a faithful, passionate Christian AND have progressive politics?!? How did we get into this mess? Among other things, I'm going to say that progressives have just been too damn nice. In fact, one charge the fundamentalists level at us that is actually fair and true is that we are too tolerant. We are. We've tolerated them.

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The Bottom Line

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love becomes slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Galatians 5:13-14