Christ and the GOP
Mulan's dad is a colleague in the history dept. One of his students, a devout evangelical Christian who helps teach Sunday school at her church, told him that an assistant Sunday school teacher told her that:
Since John McCain was God's Candidate ... and he lost ... and everything happens according to God's will ... the only reason the Evil Obama one won was because we had sinned against God ... and therefore the next four years of Pure Evil were our punishment.
Don't quite know what to say about people like that. Though I would have thought that the Pancreator, maker of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars and billions of planets that might bear creatures of soul, and who loves and is concerned about every single one of the 6 billion plus homo sapiens alive at this very moment, not to mention the billions that have already passed to their reward and the billions to come ...
... might have other things to worry about than the political fortunes of one man of one political party of one nation state (which, as a creation of sinful human beings, might be unworthy of such attention in any case).
But, I could be wrong. God hasn't been cluing me in on such matters (though I am reading Marcus Borg's Jesus with a bunch of Episcopalians).
but just so you Catholics don't feel left out, a uniformed member of a priestly hierarchy under the direct supervision of a foreign potentate has refused communion to anyone voting for Obama.
Carmen wants to know how he knows.
Labels: religion, Republicans, twits
posted by Clemens @ 10:40 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
*sigh* I was wondering how evangelicals would explain O'Bama's victory after all the prayers. I should have realized. You know, free will does make a lot of sense here -- O'Bama won because we voted for him. But did I detect a bit of God as watchmaker in your post?
PS for Carmen -- how do we know who the priest voted for? Donatism was declared a heresy 1500 years ago. In short, we can't know if the priest is a sinner, so since the grace of the sacraments comes from God, they are valid no matter what. Surely the reverse should be true!!
I don't see why an infinite God can't be interested both in the election and in the operation of the universe, or multiverse. God wouldn't be God, I think, if "he" were "unable" to pay the most minute attention to every aspect of reality. That said, God isn't a "he" and likely isn't "paying attention" in the sense our finite minds understand, either.
Which is not to say that I agree at all with withholding communion from O'Bama voters. I don't see how it meets the criteria for such a thing.
Sadly, Catholic priests have wide latitude for withholding communion, which is why they have been known to withhold it from old ladies who want only to kneel when they receive the sacrament.
I don't think it is questionable because God lacks the ability to keep it all in his head (for lack of a better word) but at the scale he must consider it is impossible for me to believe that which party wins an American election is terribly significant. And if it is, Occam's Razor would suggest that Obama was God's choice since he won.
And yes, I know what you mean about Catholic priests having wide latitude. But not infinite. Carmen's last priest refused communion to an elderly lady because she wouldn't park her wheelchair where he wanted for communion.
A few weeks later the good padre was assigned by the bishop to a new church out in the single most benighted and remote spot in the NC mountains.
Sadly, the current bishop would probably have commended the priest.
…at the scale he must consider it is impossible for me to believe that which party wins an American election is terribly significant.
Again, I don't see why everything that transpires in the universe won't be terribly important to God.
And if it is, Occam's Razor would suggest that Obama was God's choice since he won.
…or that God allowed it, the same way God allows any evil: some greater good will eventually result. (Another Gingrich revolution, say. I don't hold this myself, I'm merely pointing out the different explanation.)
I always liked the Augustinian interpretation of history. I also like the traditionalist Catholics' spin of it, which holds that sometimes God sends bad popes to punish the laxity of Christians.
Clemens spin on it is that we have no more idea of what is in the mind of God, nor how we appear within his eye, than we know of what is happening on the furthest planet circling the dimmest star in the most distant galaxy. We make up interpretations that satisfy "our side."
And keep us from worrying too much.
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