After spending a glorious Sunday afternoon watching the best Ice Hockey game ever (and I've seen many), I posted a tongue and cheek comment on my facebook page, indicating that Canada had both the gold medal and health care.  The comments that ensued were a reminder that Christians are as deeply divided and entrenched on this issue as everyone else.  We're red Christians and blue Christians - big government Christians, and small government Christians, and we're good at pushing each other's buttons.  I'm pretty certain though, when the comments were done being posted, nobody had changed their minds, or changed anyone else's mind either.  Perhaps the only thing that happened was a little bit of grace and charity was lost.  

All this leaves me wondering if there's value in the dialogues between blue and red Christians.  I think there can be, but only to the extent we hold these truths to be self-evident:

There are many followers of Christ in this world who don't think much, if at all, about the connection between their food choices and their theology.  For many of these, there's a good chance they'll be eating a big slab of meat tonight, cooked over a fire, complemented by a pesticide laced salad, enhanced by an Italian Red, and washed down with coffee that was utterly affordable thanks to the rainforest that was cleared to increase the crop size.  None of these foods are seen as making a statement about their faith, but I'd argue that they do.  If I thought it was all going to burn up, especially in the near term (as I've been told it will, any day now, for the past 35 years), I'd join them in buying the most food for the least money.

Instead, I'll be having a slab of meat, a salad, red wine, and coffee, just like them, except utterly different. My meat will be grass fed, my salad organic and local, my wine from a local winery, and my coffee shade grown.  That is, at least, what I'll be eating when my food choices match my theology.  Believing that God's people are called to make God's good reign visible here and now in some small measure means that I need to make choices that exalt health, justice, and ecology (among other things) in all areas of my life, including "what's for dinner?"

This morning's BBC report discloses that the French government has refused to grant citizenship to man because he is forcing his wife to wear the 'full veil'. Because she is not free to 'come and go with her face uncovered', this man's values place him a category of person to whom the French government denies citizenship. It is recommended by the French government that anyone showing signs of "radical religious practice" be refused citizenship.I'm interested in your thoughts on this subject so I'll just toss some questions out:

1. The phrase 'radical religious practice' seems ambiguous. Isn't 'eating the flesh and drinking the blood' (see John 6, or your weekly communion table) also radical? Or living in community? What are the risks that this ruling becomes precedent setting for all manner of religious persecution? On the other hand, isn't the state obligated to protect the powerless (Romans 13), and isn't this woman being rendered powerless? But what if she wants the full covering?

There were many in the evangelical world of my youth (read: James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, et. al.) who decried the 'liberal courts' for overstepping their bounds by using the court as means of legislating, rather than limiting their responsibilities to 'upholding the constitution according intent of its framers'.  They viewed Roe v Wade as an example of, not merely ruling on a case, but of using a case to create and impose a new ethos that was far beyond the scope of the case at hand.   How dare those liberals do that!  If only conservatives ruled the court, such nonsense would cease, right?  

 Apparently not.  The court used the case of "Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission" as a means for overturning a century of campaign finance laws, ushering in an era whereby corporations (both American, and foreign ones with US subsidiaries) are granted the same freedom of speech rights as individual Americans.   The McCain/Feingold law that sought to limit the degree to which companies could influence elections (and thereby, influence elected officials) was overturned with this ruling.  

I recently read a survey that indicated 90% of American men self identify as being "above average fitness" compared to their peers.  When you do the math (and even I can do this math) it becomes these men don't have self image problems; but they are delusional.  Their problem comes, I suspect, from one of the oldest tricks in the book: confusing intention with action.  They want to exercise, want to eat right, want get enough sleep, want to cut back on coffee and alcohol.  They watch bow-flex commercials, drink low carb beer, and declare themselves 'fitter than average'.  Intent gets confused with action.   What's actually needed are objective measures of health; things like body mass index, resting heart rate, and the good/bad cholesterol ratio.   The harsh numbers tell the truth.  

Our church staff was looking at this article yesterday, which articulates some data from the Barna research people about how Christians are perceived by those who are not.  I wonder if the real Jesus, not the one conservatives and liberals have fabricated, would be perceived as boring (remember when he walked on water, remember the accusation that he went to the wrong parties, the ones with unreligious people), or judgmental (remember the women caught in adultery who, in accordance with Levitical law should have been stoned, and he found a way to forgive her?), or insensitive to others?  The people who hated him the most were the religious experts – seminary trained, with big Bibles that they used to prove to themselves that Jesus was a heretic worthy of death  (John 5:39, Acts 13:27).  They’re the only people Jesus angered, at least until those people nearly incited a riot in their efforts to get him killed.  Then Rome stepped and helped put him to death.