The power of God bad theology.

I'm an active reader and commenter on the Blog of a very successful (i.e. filthy rich) former wedding photographer, and photographic equipment inventor. It seems that a good majority of other readers are Christians.

This blogger regularly posts hot-button topics, in an openly admitted attempt at generating a lot of traffic through comment debates. A respectable maneuver for any serious blogger.

During some issue, which are always Christian in nature (though he is not, but knows our buttons are most easily pushed), an atheist lady mentioned her 6 year old daughter who has cardiomyopathy, and needs a heart transplant - SOON. One young christian posted his experience with healing and miracles, eyewitness accounts of limbs regrowing, nasal passages opening (uhh yeah) etc. along with an over all healthy percentage of healings to non-healings. So the next day, the obvious happened; The blogger offered to fly Christian healer guy across the country to heal this little girl. Christian healer guys accepts. Christian readers salivate over the thought of showing this atheist what's up. I know, I know - tale as old as time.

Healing seesion took place yesterday, with blogger guy and wife in tow. Blog is filled with comments about how amazing God's power will be manifested, etc.

Family takes girl (who is adorable by the way) to the Hospital for a check-up. Condition had worsened.

Roll out the email forward, coffee mug cliches!

"God has bigger plans than most of us can even ponder."
"...in His own time and His own way."
"Sometimes, God's answer is no. God's answer is not always "yes", but sometimes it is "...be still and wait."
"Many times praying is like planting a seed, when you plant a seed you have to water it for it to grow and flourish..."
"instead believe God is already doing a work on Julia's heart."
"Sometimes the prayer that God answers isn't the one we asked him to answer."
"i believe He does have a plan and though we can't understand, we still need to have faith. "
"She might not have been healed immediately, but that doesn't mean it won't happen"

Man they just kept coming. Finally blogger guy put a stop to it.

"Everybody- I need to say this. So many of you were saying that "Oh well, Julia's heart did not get healed, and this is

1) PROOF that God exists!" - or -
2) "He works according to his plan....
3) "She already has healed, she has come before Jesus"

Let's say I am a car salesman. And I say - this car is awesome! And I start the car and it goes bang with a puff of smoke and I say - "See, that's proof that the car is great! It blew up, and that is the way it should be!" "Just because the car doesn't run doesn't mean it won't run someday!" - would you believe me?"

I must say, I too was a bit ashamed of the one-off platitudes my fellow Christians threw this woman's way. We always have an answer for everything, and most of the time - they're dumb.

I felt like I needed to point out the fact that biblical miracles were not for believers -it's not a matter of faith and waiting. They were to prove Christ's power to those around him, who didn't believe, or were ignorant to who he was, empirically and IMMEDIATELY. It's not a matter of faith. Jesus sent out the disciples with the power to heal, to change people minds, to visibly SHOW them, "Look, here's what's going on". So in that context, Nate healing the heart of a child of an atheist, would have been the perfect use of a miracle.... So why didn't it happen?

I'm flustered, and it isn't helped by people's bad theology. So many times on this blog, I should go pull them all up, I read all of the "I believe that ... [insert some cutesy flowery saying with no biblical reference here]".... It's just somewhat ridiculous. It's time to put the cliche one-offs aside. Stop with the crappy email forwards and coffee mug answers. It doesn't help. It hurts - and is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS.

Wrestle your faith to the ground and learn why you believe what you do. My faith in God isn't shaken, but my Faith in fellow 'Christians' is a bit.

I ❤ Huckabee?

Perhaps it was the, although somewhat trite Chuck Norris Endorsement. Perhaps not. Although it still feels somewhat conciliative, Mike Huckabee has a good chance at my vote. Why? Ok it was the Chuck Norris thing.

NPR seems to love Huckabee. A "Progressive Conservative" they call him. Is Huckabee the Moderates' candidate? I think he might be, and people smarter than I seem to think so too.

Huckabee, an ordained minister (nothing supplements Gubernatorial paychecks like officiating weddings), will be the first to tell you he's a Christian, but he's just "not angry about it." Under the faith and politics section of his website, I found the following:

"Real faith makes us more humble and mindful, not of the faults of others, but of our own. It makes us less judgmental, as we see others with the same frailties we have."

"The First Amendment requires that expressions of faith be neither prohibited nor preferred."

Man I think I really like this guy. For far too long, bumper sticker Christianity has prostituted itself to politics, and mucked it up for the rest of us. Cut and dry (aka BORING and FRUITLESS) Churchy platitudes were responsible for Bush's second term in office.

I think Huckabee sees both sides of the equation - i.e. No to Abortion, but also No to leaving woman who have kept their child to fend for themselves. Mike's tag I've heard a couple of times has been "Life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth."

And here's a kicker:

"My faith is my life - it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them. For example, when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth. "

Yeah. You read that right.

"The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term."

Who doesn't want that?

Huckabee, and here's where my concession comes in, has a few non moderate stances. Namely overall support for the War in Iraq, the continuing operation of the Detention Facility at Guantanamo, and Opposing Same Sex Civil Unions, but what can you do? At this point, Huckabee is a good lead for me. We'll see how it goes. Maybe more Chuck will seal it for me.

[don't] Take me to Your Leader.

It's getting hairy out there in the political world. Polls, debates, primaries, caucuses, kissing hands and shaking babies.

One thing I keep hearing is how both sides are clamoring for a leader (israelites 'we need a king!'). Well I'm not. I'm not desperate for someone to get in their and lead the country. At least, leading for the sake of leading. I'm not ready for complete health care overhauls, or amendments against this or that... yet.

I'm ready for someone to quietly go into office, and do a good job at running the country. You know, the day to day stuff. Make sure we are eating our veggies, and no one is trying to kill us. I'm ready for someone to actually go in and change the tone of discourse in Washington. Leaders get in the way. I want a worker. A public servant. Someone just to do his job, fix the stuff that shouldn't be broken in the first place, and head home in 4 years. Someone like that will do more for the future of this country than any 'leader' ever could.

Foolishness.

I recently an article in NY Times Magazine entitled "The Evangelical Crackup" that featured local pastors' (including mine!!) thoughts on the state of Christianity in regards to Politics, left vs. right etc. Great article I thought.

They interviewed one pastor whose well, one of those. Christian and mad as hell about it. Uses the old "The Idea of the Cross is offensive to people" to be utterly obnoxious. Obviously, with this phrase in his back pocket, the more folks he pisses off (not mind you, by calling out sin, but by simply being an arrogant a-hole), the more jewels in Heaven he gets.

The idea of the Cross is offensive to people. I don't know about that. It wasn't to me. It wasn't to him. 1Cr 1:18 says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Foolishness. The Message of. What's the message? You're a sinner (with all that entails - maybe this is where he gets caught up in the message, "offending" people), and the Son of God, took the weight of your sins upon his back and died. I could see how that might seem foolish.

So if that message is foolishness to 'non-christians', what do we have left to offer them? If they don't or can't hear us, what do we have left? The actions of the cross.