The Hagees, Hard Christian Right & Bad Boy Republicans are taking my party straight to hell. Then there's the spending.

This stinks.

Another Republican congressman, this time from New York, screws up with drugs and alcohol and gets picked up for a DUI. We'll probably find he has another wife and family somewhere.

In the meantime, the Republican Party pays for the privilege of counting the "Christian" vote again with the stupid Hagee and other questionable endorsements.

And the fiscal conservatives are rightly screaming about spending.

First of all, no one's ever heard of John Hagee and secondly, who cares? Hagee and now another Christian unknown has become the news of the day on Drudge and MSNBC and CNN that McCain supposedly is in a deep, right wing conspiracy with, something that could bring him problems. This is another exhausting example of how the lazy media tries tit for tat to ameliorate the devastating Jeremiah Wright connection to Barack Obama. The reports' object of course is to show how narrow minded the Republican Party is and we're all idiots.

Of course, the doctrine of these extreme right wing Christians plays right into the numbskull media's hands. If you have a minute, I'll try to explain it from a mainline Protestant's/Republican's point of view who comes from a Abolitionist Quaker, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciple of Christ Church founders/builders/elders background. Maybe then my Roman Catholic and Jewish friends can understand why Republicans like me go crazy when things like Hagee happen to my party.

It depends on what the meaning of "it" is.
Hagee's extreme interpretation of the Book of Revelation and his equation of the Roman Catholic Church is with a certain frightening character in one of the chapters; however, he is in accordance with other born again Christians when it comes to "it." That is where the problem comes from when it comes to the rest of the human race and the Christian Right.

It. That one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he goes through Christ.

Or as the folks on the panel last evening on MSNBC's Chris Matthews talking about it were doing so knowing full well what everyone really knows and don't want to flat say: the issue does point out a tendency toward this basic tenet in evangelical doctrine. It's a tough nut to crack. And evangelicals can't get around it.

It. Salvation through Christ. Period. The rest of the world are lost. No one wants to say it.

There are probably as many as a thousand groups with as many different beliefs. Hagee's tirade (using John's famous apocalyptic dreamscape scriptures in the Book of Revelation which he wrote while imprisoned on the Island of Patmos) describing Catholics is not representative of any one particular denomination in presentation. This view is not held in the body of mainstream evangelical thought from what I could see when I was belonged to an evangelical church for about six or so very, very long years. (I didn't pass the physical to go any further than a Sunday School teacher in their male hierarchy, not surprising to most readers.)

No, evangelicals, regardless of what they call themselves are equal opportunity believers that Christ told them that everyone who doesn't become saved through Him is lost, not just Roman Catholics. But most evangelicals regard Jews as their new best friends and don't talk about RCs above a whisper and certainly don't announce their ultimate damnation in Hagee's style. They talk around it in classes and in sermons but they don't spread it around. They tsk tsk about it privately. Evangelicals take the Great Commission very seriously, as they should, and go for the non churched, the unbeliever. They seem to be at the top of their list.

It.

Why'd I care? I just wanted to sing
I came from a strong, majorly strong Protestant background so I felt pretty secure in my salvation. I just couldn't accept IT. My ancestors were founders and builders of churches, so it was a sad thing for me to realize when in Southern California, in the back country I couldn't find my own comfortable denomination...where there are the fewest mainline churches, where there are mostly and nearly all nondenominational, community "Christ-centered"or "New Testament" ones, code for evangelical, code for no women allowed in leadership, code for sit down and shut up if your hair is longer than two inches.

Sometimes some of the churches were started up by lawyers, or businessmen or a couple who declared themselves visions. You never knew. It always was an interesting job to find a church home in California where most people stopped going to church once they came here, it felt like. One even had a box of Kleenex on the altar. I thought it was an interesting touch. There were two boxes come to think of it.

Well, I didn't have time anyway to get too involved in a church. I was single, had work and kids. I just wanted to sing in the choir. I closed my ears to the sermons and classes and knew better anyway. I didn't let it bother me until one day a man took me aside and said, "You know, Catholics don't stand a chance to get to Heaven."

Dang. I thought. There goes another perfectly good Sunday and another perfectly balanced Soprano section. They were going to miss me.

How can otherwise normal people turn into weird crazies on one day a week I'll never know. Of course, what I've discovered over the years that most people can't face is that they're being lied to. Lied to by a bunch of punks who have free money coming in the likes of which they've never seen in their lives! Wahoo! Wamu! Keep those lies goin and dollars keep comin in for the new building fund, namely the parson's 4000 square foot "parson-age."

Like my daddy says, "Follow the money, Sister. That's where the trouble always starts." Hard to swallow, but he was right. People do terrible things for money. They always have and always will. And it's taught me not to take God for granted and what I was doing was not for Him but for me and my own ego.

Hey, Newbies. There are other ways!
By the way, the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics, the ones who have been around for two-thousand years or so and have somehow managed to spread the word of our Lord and believe the much same way, although evangelicals won't admit it--except that Protestants have women involved in leading, yes actual Head Ministers (EEEEEK!) and running churches just like we're actual people too.

RCs, believe it or don't, also have women running entire institutions and the men in them. Why do you think they call them Mothers Superior?

Ever met a woman Rabbi? They got them.

Evangelicals, bless their perfect hearts, refuse to acknowledge that Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Christians, the Methodists, the Disciples of Christ and the rest of us have alter calls...they absolutely refuse. Every Sunday. It is part of the worship. Why? Most of them have never been in our churches. They say we're dead churches. Why? "They just don't feel it." Or they've heard something.

Also, they don't like it that some of our brotherhoods, like the Presbys believe that faith without works is dead. I'm not a Calvinist and I don't believe in predestination and that my salvation depends on it, but such ideas do get the Lord's jobs done. What's it to them? America's been built on such Calvinistic thought. They ought to get it straight. Either they believe in this Puritan, interest-bearing work ethic and live by it or they forgive all debts owed them and toss the whole theme out to live out their evangelical life style.

Seriously.

Besides, some mature Christians consider evangelical doctrine as Easy Christianity. Six Flags over Jesus, one of my best friends calls one the mega churches. Nothing hard...just show up, come as you are.

Do any of you people own suits and ties? Pantyhose? Heels? Just kidding.

Regardless of how these few people "feel," compared with the millions of martyrs over the centuries who have given for our Lord, our orphanages, schools and universities have been in operation for many years, maybe a bit longer than their stucco churches, their new ministries of mom's day out. Some have felt the need to love the Lord enough to work.

Yes, you cynical ones will point out the minuscule comparative numbers of abused children as if they're the norm. Go ahead. In that case, let's just stop all operations and let them all starve...a meretricious end to my article. I can't let that happen.

If indeed it hadn't been for those faithful "works" of the monks across the west during the dark ages, the knowledge of all of western civilization would have been lost. It ain't perfect, but it's the best we've got right now. Which is what I love to tell newcomers who've got all these grand ideas for how to better serve mankind...and there's nothing new under the sun, something else I learned from Mom and Dad.

There are the angry and cruel crusades that won back Jerusalem from the Muslims who took it in the first place. But then, we forget that part of the RCs, those dead Christians who gave everything. I wonder. Do you think they all went straight to Hell? Those who weren't born again the evangelical way? All those martyrs? Dead and gone for nothing. This would be an indictment for sure by a bunch of surfer dudes calling out centuries of serious Christian thought. Amazing if Paul Tillich isn't rolling in his grave. Guess some of us might never know.

I guess God just didn't think about the rest of creation until the likes of Billy Graham and Pat Robertson bumbled along. Two southern American white men who are so important that God waited to grant salvation to mankind until those two--southern--men could interpret the Word. Oh yes, and the late Jerry Falwell. What were these dead churches teaching before these young men came along?

Isn't it interesting? They're all, well, southern?

Evangelicals don't like the confession thing. I don't see a thing wrong with it myself. They think once you're saved, that's it. Well, I believe saved by grace is what's is happening, probably the best deal in town considering what's available. But confessing sure helps me to clean up once in a while.

Dang those purty education directors, anyway
However, I'm not about to get into a spitting match about saved by grace with an adulterous preacher. It's just real difficult for people to believe he doesn't have to work that one off. But he didn't. That's the good news. Other than losing his career and his family, he will not lose his salvation. Even a pastor on whom so many souls depend can screw up so badly and he is still forgiven if he asks sincerely for it.

Forgive? Christ forgives seven times seven times seven times... It wouldn't been so shocking had the pastor's wife not had arthritis. Life and people can be cruel, can they not? Confessing sometimes is the only alternative a person has. That's all there is left. Everyone knows. See what I mean about cleaning up? I hear the Ph.D pastor now sells encyclopedias, a hell on earth for learned man, and the beautiful choir director, also a Ph.D who had teen-aged children who witnessed this public disgrace is somewhere, probably not teaching too many high falutin places now maybe. Who knows?

Maybe enough time has gone by that they've paid their dues for hurting so many parisioners and family members. I've forgiven them, although it changed my view of everything evangelical and I'll never go back to an evangelical church as long as I live, nor will I trust another evangelical church again. Four experiences is enough.

Proposition
As as I said, Christ's forgiveness and salvation has always been an attraction, a proposition, and once accepted the best deal in town, as one can clearly see in this instance. I'm not being flippant, by the way. It is indeed the best deal in the universe. I've always said so.

We "others" too have just celebrated Pentecost Sunday. At least that's what I heard. We too are born again. But we don't roll on the floor. We don't raise our hands in the air. Neither did Martin Luther as far as I know, to whom you should send a thank you note. We don't all shout out Hallelujah. What do you care? Why do you take it so personally if we do not? It says more about you than about us. We don't run up to people and demand to know if they're saved. It's a matter of style, you know. We do it our way. Maybe this is my way. That's why we have denominations.

So enough of that. We've established we don't agree on style. What do you expect? We're WASPs and we like it that way. We're not going to change for you.

Okay. I give up. So...where did you put my party? I've looked everywhere for it.
We're sorry if that bothers you Hagees out there. We're real sorry if that doesn't fit the template of the southern male (there I go again, one would think I hated men--I don't, you know--I adore them) dominated church that somehow took over the right wing of our party back then in response to a bunch of California and New York hippies.

We put up with those very odd ideas of yours then. We hoped you'd grow past the regional dullness of your politics. You haven't. In fact your fear factor has spawned more ignorance. We weren't thinking. We should've known. That was a Nixon deal.

But now it's beginning to make a real difference in what's happening in our country. We may lose this election because of how your intolerance has finally affected everyone else who do not believe as you do. It has to stop.

And. We haven't started on your obscene treatment of gay people.

I wouldn't be so hard on the Christian Right if they weren't so hard on everyone else. I really hate coming down on everyone so much lately, but things are way off kilter this year.

Apples and figs
Although the media's preoccupation with comparing Hagee and McCain with the Wright-Obama connection is downright laughable for lots of reasons not the least is John McCain is not an evangelical, they'll use it. He's he's a mainstream Protestant like me. With Cyndi's money, he's probably Episcopal, a Catholic who flunked his Latin.

Secondly, he didn't sit through 20 year's worth of "GD the Roman Catholics" from Hagee like Obama did "GD America" with Wright.

Thirdly, Wright married, baptized and did the family pastoral thing for the Obamas. Hagee sent a CD to the McCain campaign and offered to lend a hand. The relationship started and probably stopped there. It's really a stupid argument...kinda of like the 100 year war thing. But here we are. Again, we don't get the benefit of the doubt from a media waiting to pounce. That's what happens when people say they're perfect in the first place like these folks do.

Enough already.

Now the media is telling people the Republican Party is being pushed around by folks who say they don't "hate" Roman Catholics but say they're going to a bad, bad place if they don't get born again their way. Moreover, those people are disrespectful of the RC religion because it really isn't a religion at all? I don't want people thinking that of the Republican party.

They're going to have a good summer because of the Kennedy events. Get ready for an emotional one. I know how media people play on events.

And now I'm thinking...
We got an old guy running for president who's looking at a southern governor for a running mate. How depressing. I don't know where to go or what to do. I feel like I'm in a time warp and it's the year 19__, fill in the blank.

Speaking of the Trinity, we'd better start praying for a miracle in this election. We've got a terrible perception problem with independents and they are our target voters this time. We have to have them to win.

Most of them don't care about IT or Hagee or me or emotions. They do care about congresspeople getting DUIs on the public's dime. The closest thing they want to get to an afterlife is for everyone to leave them the hell alone and for their elected officials to do their jobs.

Thanks for the read.