Apparently, the World is Ending Tomorrow...

... at 6pm, by the way.

What, you didn't hear?!  Oh, it's all over the place, even in the New York Times!  Like, see, this guy Harold Camping? He taught himself the Bible? And decided the world would obv start ending Saturday May 21 at 6pm with the rapture of all the Christians and then the rest of us/you would be left to, like, endure five months of plagues and stuff.  Gross!

This whole world-ending-tomorrow thing is throwing me for a loop.  I mean, I have so many questions that no one is answering!

• Am I going to be raptured if I was "saved" or "born again" as a child, but no longer practice Christianity in the traditional sense?
• Should I cancel my date for tomorrow night, or at least inform my poor suitor that I may not show up for our 9pm reservation because I'll have floated up to heaven 3 hours prior?
• Do I get points for acts of goodness, like the cat I saved from a raccoon trap yesterday?  (And by "save" I mean found and told someone else about who did the actual releasing from said trap?)
• Do I get extra points for acts of goodness that would probably be considered more Christian by Camping & Co, like when I handed out flyers condemning abortion in 4th grade?  Thanks for letting me do that, parents!
• What about acts of goodness that hearken back to what the Bible actually talks about Jesus doing and telling people to do, like when I volunteer or donate to those in need, or you know, show love and kindness to people whether I want to or not?  Doesn't count because I don't go to church though right?
• I'm registered as a Democrat, is that going to hold me up at heaven's security gate?
• Should I write a quick will and some goodbye emails or will it just be total chaos anyway, nullifying legal contracts and Google accounts?
• If all my dreams come true in heaven, can all my pagan friends join me?

I need answers, people, and for some reason, none of the doomsayers are bothering to tell me!

Because let's be honest: these people do not a) believe the world is ending and that they are really being raptured tomorrow, or, more to my point, b) give a shit about anyone else (the Bible refers to this as loving others as you love yourself; the American Christians often translate this to trying to save non-believers).

Because if a) were the case, they would be going way more crazy and being way less or way more responsible in these final days.  If you really, truly thought you had 24 hours left on this earth, what would you be doing with your time?  Surely not reading this blog, for starters.

And if b) were the case, they wouldn't be walking past me on the street with just a tee shirt and a smug look.  They would be begging, pleading, crying, not sleeping, to save everyone they love and probably everyone else they could possibly talk to from the horrible alternate, permanent fate.

Because, let's be honest: this is all a marketing campaign for FamilyRadio.com.  So, as a fellow marketer, I will hand it to Harold Camping for his brilliant strategy to get tons of free advertising and publicity and new audiences.  But as far as marketing ethics are concerned, I hope that as of 6pm tomorrow, he's indeed not heard from again.

In Which The Mayoress is Once Again Reminded Why She No Longer Attends Church

Oh guys.  I am going through one of those periods where everything I encounter in the news just makes me want to give up on every level.  It's all so frustrating and seemingly impossible.  So here we go with a few of the most upsetting.

One commenter summed it up quite succinctly:

"Bishop Long can actively shit on women and use "prosperity gospel" to bilk poor people out of their money and no one really gives a fuck. 

I strongly suspect that church folks wouldn't be NEARLY as upset if his alleged victims had been female, either. "

Read more: http://jezebel.com/5649005/relationship-advice-from-the-molesting-megachurch-pastor?skyline=true&s=i#ixzz10lTCavXb

On a positive-for-the-American-Christian-church note, I watched the film "Lord Save Us from Your Followers" the other night, and though it was a bit hokey, I thought it was a great treatment on the contemporary PR mess the church has created, and presents the best solution I've seen.  No, actually, the best I've seen was put forward a bit more subtly in Blue Like Jazz, but this builds upon it directly.  (Go Portland.) Definitely add it to your Amazon cart/Netflix cue.

Another Glowing Example of Exemplary Christianity

In case anyone ever needs to vomit voluntarily, I highly recommend this interview in Christianity Today with former Miss California, Carrie Prejean. You're welcome, swallowers of turpentine and glue!

Get such insights as...
* The appropriate age to release a sex tape!
* Why gay people are acceptable as hairdressers!
* That God approves breast implants! But not gays!
* Why honesty is always a foolproof policy! Hey, you know who else was honest? Hitler!
* How the pros train you to answer pageant questions!

If only it explained why pageants are acceptable at all, on any level, in this day and age! Awesome!!

Why My Christianity Makes Me Lean Left

In doing my verse-searching for the previous post, I came across this site: http://www.zompist.com/meetthepoor.html. The author puts it this way:

The Bible on the Poor, or, Why God is a liberal

The Bible contains more than 300 verses on the poor, social justice, and God's deep concern for both. This page contains a wide sample of them, and some reflections. It's aimed at anyone who takes the Bible seriously.

As you read these passages, you will very likely feel a good deal of resistance (possibly at first manifesting itself as indifference). American churches have departed strongly from Biblical values in these areas, and even created a rationalization-- "prosperity theology"-- for rejecting them. It takes time and reflection to get past this misteaching.

But try to get past the resistance. Spiritual growth doesn't come from what goes down easily, or what we like to hear and read. It comes from what's different, and even difficult.

To add to this well-put sentiment, from my reading of the Bible, God talks a whole lot more about helping each other tangibly than about abortion or gay marriage, the things that currently make the mainstream American Christian church apoplectic. I just can't imagine that denying health care to everyone regardless of status, taking care of the environment, fighting racism and any institutionalized inequality wouldn't be at the top of a Christian's priority list.

My dear friend Emily is the Christian I respect most, for being a living example of being an active yet thoughtful member of her religious community and drawing a very reasonable boundary between her religious beliefs and how they ought to impact all Americans politically. For example, she believes the Bible is very clear about homosexuality as a sin, but doesn't believe that gives her or the church the right to oppose gay marriage as a right. While I personally choose to read those verses as more contextual than literal, I support her argument because it's built on logic, study, discussion, and a belief that all people are inherently equal. By the way, Emily and her church spend their extra money and energy helping the less fortunate, not battling Prop 8. If our country had more churches like that I think we'd be much better off.

To me, Christian (and "family") values are tolerance, feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick and less fortunate, listening to and hanging out with those who are not like you, not placing your value on material things, sharing, compassion, treating others better than you want to be treated, humility, and donating your money, time, and talent in accordance with what you've been given. To me, it's pretty obvious that these values more closely align with the initiatives backed by the left and our Democrat elected officials. Pretty simple, really.


(For more on the effort by some in my generation to make Christianity relevant, sincere, and less manipulated by politics, I highly suggest the writings of Donald Miller, especially his book "Blue Like Jazz." He's kinda like the CS Lewis of Portland, well worth a look. Whoa, now that I'm seeing he's way hotter than I pictured him, definitely worth a look.)

What it Means to Do God's Work

By now you've heard the utterly preposterous assertion by Goldmine Sach's CEO Lloyd Blankfein that he and the banking industry are "doing God's work." Oh yes, it's true.

Read about it on Huffington Post

Or in Maureen Dowd's column

That's funny. Mostly based on my Christian upbringing and the fact that I've read most of the Bible multiple times, I was under the impression that doing God's work includes:

• Loving one another (John 13)
  
• Taking care of the poor (Luke 4; James 1)
• Healing the sick (Luke 4)
  
• Paying taxes fairly (Matthew 22)
• Sharing with one's community (Acts 2)
  

None of which I see the banks doing in the spirit Jesus (incidentally, pretty much the gold standard of what it means to do God's work here on earth) taught, which was to give according to your means. This, one of my favorite Bible teachings, comes to mind:

Mark 12:41-43 (New Living Translation)

⁴¹ Jesus sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds dropped in their money. Many rich people put in large amounts. ⁴² Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins.

⁴³ Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. ⁴⁴ For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on."

But then, what do I know? I'm just one of the taxpayers who helped bail out the financial industry.

Do Atheists Need to Market?

After church on Sunday, Flora brought up the subway posters up lately that essentially advertise atheism. She thought they were pretty unnecessary - what's the point in advertising an opt-out? I somewhat disagreed, bringing up how much religion, primarily Christianity, influences our laws and elections, and so atheists need a seat at the table. Ironically, Flora is an atheist and I grew up very Christian. And we went to service at a Unitarian church.

This blog post by Randy Cohen, aka The Ethicist, on discussing religion touches on what I was trying to get at:

My political beliefs, my ideas about social justice, are as deeply held as my critics’ religious beliefs, but I don’t ask them to treat me with reverence, only civility. They should not expect me to walk on tiptoe. It is not as if religious institutions occupy a precarious perch in American life. It is not the proclaimed Christian but the nonbeliever who is unelectable to high office in this era when politicians of every party and denomination make a public display of their faith.

What do you think? Should religion be sacred? How about when it crosses over into politics? When it affects you, your children's education, your community?

Justice for All

This week's Savage Love column is brilliant of course, but the comments section in particular has some great thoughts on the gay marriage issue. I especially liked this one:

@27--"Isn't marriage fundamentally a religious institution?" Simply put, it isn't. There are a whole host of legal rights and responsibilities that a modern civil marriage grants. Off the top of my head: Next of kin benefits, the right of the spouse to be the one to make the crucial medical decisions when one becomes incapacitated. Survivor benefits, when you die, most workplaces have to pay your spouse some bucks. No spouse, no $$. You can't just unilaterally call it quits on your husband or wife and leave him or her out in the cold. When you marry, your spouse's kids more or less automatically become your kids, you have a stake in how they're raised.

And there're a lot more purely legalistic reasons why denying gays the right to marry is fundamentally legally discriminatory, and therefore in clear violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution. It's not about religion, it's about justice. Liberty and justice for all.

Furthermore, "religion" itself doesn't unite with one voice to say anything about gay people. Yes, a lot of, perhaps most, discrete Christian sects are well behind the curve in their approach to gay rights, but not all. Unitarians are fully accepting of gays. Some Lutherans and Methodists are getting on board the big gay love bus. My own Episcopal church is busily tearing itself apart over the issue...

Where Do I Begin...

...with everything in this quote that is so wrong it's sickening?

As a life-long person of faith, it has been a long struggle for me to accept that atheists and agnostics - without what has always been for me essential grounding in faith and scripture - can indeed be truly moral and decent and self-sacrificing human beings. But in fact, I have learned they can be, and to a large extent as much as most people of faith. I don’t know if atheism will ever produce a Bonhoeffer, a Sophie Scholl, an Oscar Romero, an MLK Jr, but I have learned through personal experience to accept most nonbelievers as decent trustworthy moral human beings. But this kind of acceptance takes a long time for most normal traditional folks to develop. The same can be said for acceptance of Muslims or Gays. This kind of change takes time - so be understanding! Most evangelicals are sincere, good-hearted, generous, and compassionate human beings - but most have never had much personal interaction with Gays, Muslims, or Nonbelievers. It takes time.

— Ben Self

Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. What is your definition of "moral and decent and self-sacrificing"? Why do you get to decide the societal meaning or value of those things? Most "normal traditional" folks? Normal? Why thank you. And to equate with Muslims and Gays? To even group the two, a religion and a sexual preference? A choice and how you were born? "Most evangelicals are sincere, good-hearted, generous, and compassionate" - which ones, Ben? If you've never had much interaction with the groups you describe, I can't imagine your circle of acquaintances is anything nearing large, so you're describing, what, the 20 people you know from your church who are just like you? How about all those believers that excommunicate those who leave the church, donate little or no time and money to the less fortunate, perpetuate hate, and implausibly think God cares more about abortion and gay marriage than feeding the poor, even though Jesus speaks pretty specifically on the latter in the gospels?

It doesn't take time, Ben. It takes exposure to different people, cultures, experiences. I get it, Ben, I once lived in a mega church suburb. But now I don't, and now my intolerances have shifted nearly 180 degrees. Very few things make me as impatient as Christians getting the beliefs of the mainstream American Christian church confused with actual scripture. You can't have it both ways.