Ticia and I live in the center of Columbia SC, what a Re-Max realtor might call a “developing area.” You know, “those buildings are boarded up now, but I hear there’s a Pop Eye’s Chicken coming!” Lots of homeless people standing quietly on our block all day; the Rescue Mission kicks them out at 7am. And, in keeping with the “Developing Locale!” theme, there are two competing Loan businesses on the first floor of our building, both offering quick cash with no credit check. “Just give us your car’s title papers, we’ll work out the details later.”

Ticia and I have a hard time with these loan places. They further poverty by offering a quick fix at great expense. Sure, you have cash in your pocket, but in reality, you just bought a very costly distraction.

I have to admit, the loan guys are smart. We all like to live this way, and they know it. There is something intrinsically human about focusing on the immediate and evident in order to ignore the deep and difficult. Do email and don’t think about the checkbook. Work longer hours and tune out the difficult marriage. It’s part of being human.

And I wonder, how does this apply to our theology? Robert Wright just wrote a New York Times Opinion piece on the Koran and the Bible. He focused on the human capacity to embrace one thing in order to ignore something else. On both sides! Emphasize “infidels” while ignoring peace, hate on “others” while neglecting love.

Wright asks, “Why do people tend to hear only one side of the story? A common explanation is that the digital age makes it easy to wall yourself off from inconvenient data, to spend your time in ideological “cocoons,” to hang out at blogs where you are part of a choir that gets preached to. Makes sense to me. But, however big a role the Internet plays, it’s just amplifying something human: a tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.”

I thought about the whole anti-Islam thing that’s happening in the United States today, the Tea Party Protesters, the general discord and anger, and that many of the people at the front of the protests, carrying a white poster board sign stapled onto a stiff wood stick, are committed Christians. The rhetoric is often biblical and the passion is real. I wonder if they are being duped.

It is so easy to focus on something simple, something obvious, and make that obvious thing the point of our righteous Christian wrath. But as we focus on political and religious “enemies,” Jesus says “sell everything and give it to the poor.” “Can’t be rich and get into the kingdom of heaven.” Fat rich guys trying to squeeze through an eye-of-the-needle kind of stuff. But we avoid. We shrug, blink twice, scream “Islam is of the devil!!!!!” Repeating the extremist mistake ourselves.

Is Islam more of a threat to Americans than consumerism? Why are the potential deaths from a terrorist attack scarier than the current deaths caused by global warming? Are we focused in order to avoid?

Maybe we steer clear of real issues by focusing on what’s obvious and easy. It seems to me that if we took the scriptures seriously that deal with possessions and justice, we might have to change our lives. Sell something. Give up a piece of the “American Dream.” Change.

It's far easier to be angry at Muslims.