CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

(Sixth Sunday after Pentecost June 29, 2008 Genesis 22:1-14; Matthew 10:40-42)

This past week the comedian George Carlin died, and for several days, cable news played and re-played clips of two of his best-known routines: “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” and “Religion is”—well, that one goes on to use a word I cannot say in church! The first posed a question about community standards and whether we really have or should have any at all as a public culture. He provoked a conversation about whether certain words "really mattered, at a time when every other word out of other comedians’ mouths did NOT begin with F.

Is it his fault my kids have grown up in a world where those words do? Or were we headed that way so clearly that he was simply naming the truth?

I think it’s probably more likely the latter. His social commentary pointed out a gap between generations that has become more profound in some ways. Younger people, and I include my own age-group and younger, tend to use more casual language, more often and in more situations. The old rules about what you can say where no longer seem to apply.

Except, perhaps in church.

But more importantly, in his later routine about religion, George Carlin raised questions that many other people share, probably most of them not sitting in churches this morning, and because they are not here to talk with us, it feels all the more important to give some thought to what they are thinking.

This past week, Dr. James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, used his organization’s radio broadcast to criticize a speech on religion and politics given by presidential candidate Barack Obama two years ago. Before commenting on Dobson’s remarks about Obama’s speech, I must admit that I stopped paying attention to Dobson a long time ago. While I had been introduced to him when I grew up in a fundamentalist church, a church that took every word he said as “gospel truth”, I came to find his rhetoric often divisive, unreasonable and unhelpful for making real contributions to the common good.

Yet this past week, when I learned of his criticism of Obama’s speech, I took a few minutes to listen to Dobson’s program and to re-read Obama’s speech. On the broadcast, Dobson and Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family’s Vice President of Public Policy, played snippets of Obama’s speech on religion and offered their observations. What is interesting is that Obama made this speech in June of 2006 and Dobson is just now publicly commenting on the address. What drew Dobson to make his remarks, however, is even more interesting.

Obama referenced Dobson’s name in his speech along with making mention of Rev. Al Sharpton in the same context. Obama referred to the two religious leaders as a way of demonstrating the diversity within the Christian faith in America. Dobson and Minnery, however, accused Obama of attacking Dobson, even suggesting that Obama equated Dobson with racial bigotry. Yet, no common sense person who reads or hears the speech would understand Obama’s mention of Dobson as disparaging of him. Obama does not come close to attacking Dobson.

Note:
Larry Vaughan was once the pastor of a church. He now does the Lord's work in an institution working with the sort of kids the Church cannot handle. He is a marvelous writer, and what follows is a great example of the kid of things you'll find at his blog, Ad augusta per angust.This piece was originally published there on June 4th, 2008.

When a patient comes into our hospital they bring bags with them. When they get back to our unit we have a staff person go through their belongings and check each item for safety (you can’t have your own razors or knives), appropriateness (your shirt can’t glorify drugs), and contraband (we’ll be flushing that blunt you have hidden in your shoe). Then we do a skin assessment. That’s a fancy term for getting nekkid in front of a nurse so she can record all of your scars, bruises, piercings, and tattoos. We do these two things so we know exactly what you are bringing to our facility.

Unfortunately we don’t have a secret detector.

In addition to their belongings our residents bring in another type of baggage. This one is invisible to the naked eye, yet the impact of its contents are deep and real.

Christianity has a heavy presence in the United States. You can feel the weight of it like a quilted cloak draped over the people, bending their heads forward and pressing on their shoulders. The air is thick with Christian words. Bible phrases fill our literature and are baptized into our culture, peppering our speech with feeble reminders of a lost faith.

- She’s the salt of the earth.

- He has the patience of Job.

- It’s only a drop in the bucket.

We have completely redesigned the CCblogs site. The new site is powered by Drupal and was developed by www.jethroconsultants.com. The new site has many new features, including better RSS feeds and full postings by our bloggers, including short bios and photographs. We launched the new site in June of 2008.

It is good to have the new site up and running. I'm excited about all the new things we can do with this site to showcase bloggers. You can easily find the latest postings by our bloggers on the right menu or using the links at the top.

Some of the things you can expect from this site include:

• I will continue to write reviews of blogs.
• I will be posting some exclusive content here from time to time.
• We will be having guest writers dropping in from time to time.
• Comments will be enabled on all blog entries, allowing you to talk back to us right here.

Take a look around and see what you think. Let us know if you have ideas for the site.

thanks,

Real Live Preacher