I, for one, am quite willing to join the 'forgive, forget and move on' crowd, but it does make me wonder if Evangelicals are going to sound believable when they say that they tend to vote Republican because of their religious commitments to the family.
So I really would like to see both parties respond to the poor with greater commitment. But I've got to tell you, the Democrats, I feel, are doing a better job in that respect than Republicans are.
Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.
I am relatively sure, from conversations that I had with former president Bill Clinton, that George Bush seldom called upon him for advice.
Religion, for better or for worse, has been politicized in blatant ways that have seldom been equaled in American elections.
There is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is given to both men and women in the New Testament. This is what makes the New Testament a New Testament rather than the Old Testament, in which women did not have such privileges.
Most of my fundamentalist brothers and sisters - and I am an evangelical, so I can say most of my fundamentalist brothers and sisters - are quite willing to pack women off and send them as missionaries to dangerous places where they might get killed.
The two hot issues are the gay issue and the abortion issue. These are the two defining issues in the evangelical community these days. I'm sure that these hot buttons will be pushed, time and time again.
And we've got to ask ourselves some very serious questions as to whether or not certain religious leaders, in terms of raising money - I hate to bring this up - are pushing hot buttons.
I contend that it's impossible to read the Sermon on the Mount and not come out against capital punishment.
Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, 'Why didn't God do something? Where was God when all those people died?'
The traditional spokespersons for the Evangelicals, such as Chuck Colson and James Dobson, have become alarmed about this drift away from the 'Family Values' issues that they believe should be the overwhelming concerns of Evangelicals. They have expressed their displeasure in letters of protest circulated through the religious media.
If marriage really is a sacred institution, then why is the government controlling it, especially in a nation that affirms separation of church and state?
In religious circles, depression is often deemed to be a spiritual condition that can be cured with prayer.
That's what they do in Europe. You go down to the city hall and you become legally connected. You have a civil union there. Then, if you're religious, you go down to the church, and the church blesses the union. That gets the problem solved.
Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed.
If a guy is intimidated by a woman in leadership, he has real problems with his own concepts of masculinity. That's a harsh statement, but I believe it to be true.
When there is conflict between what God requires and the demands of the government, each of us has an important decision to make concerning taxes.
Freud taught us that it wasn't God that imposed judgment on us and made us feel guilty when we stepped out of line. Instead, it was the superego - that idealized concept of what a good person is supposed to be and do - given to us by our parents, that condemned us for what had been hitherto regarded as ungodly behavior.
Protestants so often confuse being Republican with being Christian.
