As someone who attends an evangelical church but finds myself with traditionally un-evangelical political views, this article is a breath of fresh air:

Before the last presidential election, [Rev. Gregory Boyd of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN] preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

That about sums it up for me.

Just when I was tempted to think that the Republicans in Congress might actually HAVE hearts beating in their chests, they cynically tied the elimination of the estate tax to the minimum wage increase:

The House approved an increase in the federal minimum wage on Saturday, but its future was clouded because Republicans tied the pay change to an estate tax cut that had been blocked in the Senate.

This is what the Republican party which helped the poorest of the poor during the civil war by emancipating the slaves has come to. The party of Teddy Roosevelt, who ushered in Progressive-era protections for working folks, has become the party of multi-generational aristocracy which only grudgingly accepts the idea that the poorest in our society should not simply grow poorer over time.

In the Republicans’ vision of America, we exchange AIDS treatments for Africa’s poor children for trust funds for America’s richest children. We discontinue critical research into cures for killer diseases while we increasingly concentrate wealth into the hands of a few families. We slash the social safety net for the working poor so that we may dramatically cut taxes on the precious few.

“Moral values?” There are few things less moral than this.

Juan Cole puts his finger on the unease most of the world has toward Israel’s war against Lebanon:

What was done to Lebanon as a whole is among the most horrible war crimes of the young 21st century. And that it was done tells me that there is something sick in the heart of the Israeli military and political elite, a sickness of the soul that had better be faced and remedied before our entire world catches the contagion.

If you ever needed proof of the blackness of the human soul and our utter need for redemption, the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict of the last several thousand years clearly provides it. The current war in Lebanon is only the latest display of man’s incredible capacity for inhumanity toward his fellow man.

Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. Stretching our credulity to its absolute breaking point, representative Peter Hoekstra waxes McCarthyesque:

“More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations,” he said.

“I don’t have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility,” he added.

Of course, Occam’s Razor applies here. Is it terrorists, who have managed to so fully assimilate into our society that they have penetrated the highest levels of government, or simply whistleblowers who really think that violating the Constitution and invading people’s privacy is a really BAD idea?

You decide.

More than four years too late and only after being forced to do so by the Supreme Court, the Bush administration is begrudgingly giving prisoners of war basic human rights under the Geneva Convention.

We can only pray that no more justices retire before Bush’s term ends, however, since the two new Bush justices either voted (Alito) or would have voted (Roberts, who had to recuse himself) the other way. One more retirement and torture and kangaroo courts could become a permanent feature of our government.

Last time I read the Bible, Jesus didn’t say anything about harassing and threatening people into following him. Apparently, certain folks who claim to be Christians in Delaware are reading from a different book.

It’s hard for me to believe that things like this can happen in the United States of America. In the 21st century. By people who claim to follow a God who calls them to love unconditionally and think of others as greater than themselves.

Talk about missing the point.