Anne Lamott: God doesn't take sides (Salon)

[regnaD kciN]

I have been on a book tour for a month, and as God is my witness, at every single reading I gave, someone asked how I can "reconcile my Christian faith with that of the radical right." I never quite answered this to my own satisfaction, but would like to try to do so now. And the answer is, "I don't. Why would you even bother?"

(...)

What the right has "appropriated" has nothing to do with God as most of us believers experience God. Their pronouncements about God are based on the great palace lie that this is a Christian country, that they were chosen by God to be his ethical consultants, and that therefore they alone know God's will for us. The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.

I just think Bush and his people have gotten it so wrong.

My response to the second question is that we who believe that a benevolent intelligence animates our lives need to live by Jesus' command: to try to stop killing other human beings, just for today, and to act upon a total commitment to the poor, to the old and to the Earth. Watch, God said, and I don't think he meant cable news. I could be wrong. But what I think he meant was, "Watch for the warning signs of God's presence so you can remember what he said to do -- bring food to those who hunger, bring water to those who thirst, and help through love and showing up to turn despair into hope, swords into plowshares."

More (and you should read the whole article!) here.

[mrgorth]

1. Very nice. Thank you.