AMEN, SISTER! “The separation of politics and pew.”

It’s not even the calendar year in which the next presidential election will be held and I’m already annoyed. There are many reasons, but I’m largely annoyed that Christian voters are getting so much attention from election hopefuls. Do they really think we’re not on to their strategy? Oh yeah, they really do.

For candidates, targeting Christian voters is a good strategy, a sound campaign approach. If politicians can convince Christians there’s a special way God wants them to vote, they’ve got it in the bag. After all, who doesn’t want to hold the same political opinion as God?

But every time they pull stunts like attending pastor’s conferences or speaking in evangelical settings, I get angry. News reports of politicians courting Christians underscore the public perception of evanglicals as non-thoughtful, easily manipulated political sheep.

Do you know how many sermons it takes to undo a perception like that? Neither do I, but I’ve been preaching for 10 years and don’t think I’m making much of a dent.

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SOME, NOT ALL: “Evangelicals line up behind Rick Perry.”

From media mavens to grassroots activists, conservative Christian leaders are heaping praise on presidential candidate Rick Perry, an early but important show of support from a vital GOP constituency.

Initially unimpressed with the 2012 presidential field, some of these evangelicals now herald Perry’s late entry as the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

Like Reagan, they say, Perry is a big-state governor, a staunch conservative and, significantly, a fellow Christian.

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MIDDLE EAST PEACE WATCH: “Mideast action at U.N. casts spotlight on Christian Zionism.”

As the Palestinians push for statehood recognition this week at the United Nations, perhaps no group has spoken out more against the gambit—or has been more outspokenly supportive of Israel—than Christian Zionists.

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MIDDLE EAST PEACE WATCH, PART 2: “The Face of Palestinian Statehood.”

In its September 8 report entitled “Palestinians and UN – Statehood or Stalemate?” the U.S. government-funded Voice of America (VOA) informed readers the Palestinians were “poised” to submit their UN petition, but Congress was “demanding President Barack Obama veto” it; that Israel was “considering a nullification of the Oslo Accords” if the Palestinians pushed their “ambitious bid;” and that the U.S. “would be perceived as a superpower crushing the aspirations of the Palestinian people” if it used its veto.

The piece was deemed a news report, not an editorial. But the more striking aspect was the picture that accompanied it — an elderly Palestinian woman standing in front of UN headquarters in Ramallah, holding the Palestinian letter to the UN. The VOA caption described her only as “Palestinian activist Latifa Abu Hmeid.” Thanks to Palestinian Media Watch, we know what the VOA omitted: Abu Hmeid was chosen to launch the Palestinian bid, as Evelyn noted, as the mother of five sons who murdered Israeli civilians in operations by Fatah and Hamas units, one son dead and the others serving life sentences in Israeli prison.

In other words, the Palestinians wrapped their UN petition – a blatant violation of the prohibition under the Oslo Accords on unilateral action – in still another act of incitement, choosing as the face of their UN statehood effort the mother of terrorists, which the VOA failed to note in its “news report” on the “ambitious bid.”

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FREEDOM AND PEACE: “Preventing Another Attack: International Religious Freedom.”

What if Osama Bin Laden had been raised in a Saudi Arabia that allowed for religious freedom? What if, instead of being steeped exclusively in the toxic teachings of Wahhabism and Sayyid Qutb, he had been exposed to other forms of Islam, to critics of Islam, to other forms of religious belief, and to liberal religion-based arguments about justice and the common good?

Would 9/11 have happened?

There are good reasons to believe that the answer is “no.” Religious freedom, the evidence shows, can be an antidote to religion-related extremism, including terrorism. Despite this, the United States has made little effort to advance international religious freedom as part of either its counter-terrorism strategy or its democracy assistance programs in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. Both the Obama administration and Congress have been unwilling to back a serious religious freedom policy, even though the potential benefits are enormous and the costs would be very low.

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BUDGET CUTS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: “Religious Freedom a Low Priority?”

One of the casualties of the latest round of budget battles in Washington may be the U.S Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has from time to time done invaluable work in highlighting threats to this basic human right.  While there are some disputes about the Commission’s approach, as well as some doubts about how seriously the Obama Administration’s takes its activities, it remains important for someone to hold the beacon up high.

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ATHEISM AND AUTISM: “Atheism as mental deviance.” From an atheist author, no less.

I think it seems likely that a huge proportion of high functioning autistics are atheists, but, that doesn’t mean that a huge proportion of atheists are high functioning autistics (though a larger proportion than the general population).

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BROADER AUDIENCE WINS: “Rob Bell to Leave Mars Hill Church.”

Rob Bell has decided to leave Mars Hill Church, the Grandville, Michigan, megachurch he and his wife founded 12 years ago, to focus on a broader audience, the church announced today [i.e., Thursday, September 22, 2011].

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FORM AND CONTENT: “The Pastoral Response to Homosexuality.”

While it seems obvious to me that we can’t simply throw out the moral teaching on homosexuality without completely unraveling the fabric of Christian sexual teaching, it seems equally obvious that we can no longer justify the persecution and castration homosexuals have experienced for much of history. In other words, it is necessary to distinguish between the visceral, emotional reactions which ancient writers—including St. Paul—had towards homosexuality, and the theological doctrine which developed out of a holistic Scriptural vision of sex.

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GOOD ADVICE: “Ministry to the Partially Evangelized.”

…in my experience, embracing the gospel is usually a process. This is not for a moment to minimize the fact that conversion is based upon the regenerative work of God; but it is to acknowledge that God often leads people through an existential journey in which they travel from darkness into the light. What we need, therefore, is to learn how to plant seeds of gospel truth that help the partially evangelized move from the borders of Christian tradition to the center, one incremental step at a time.

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OUCH: “Broken Words: The scandal of a post-evangelical mind.”

Neo-neo-evangelicalism or post-evangelicalism (or whatever) is but nascent, however dispiriting some may find the early years of the movement, if a movement it is. That it currently preserves the best and avoids the worst of its parent movement is less than clear from the example of Broken Words.

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INTERESTING: “Novel explores ‘The Leftovers’ after the Rapture.”

Did writing this change any of your thoughts about the Rapture?

The reason it has so much power to me is that it’s such an amazing metaphor for the way life is. As we get older people start disappearing from our lives. That, to me, was the leap that made the book possible. We are all left behind. We’re not left behind in the way the end times scenario envisions, but we’re all living with the absences of all kinds of people – not just people we loved, but people who sat next to us in school or worked across the hall. But we keep going, because that’s what we have to do.

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A GOOD IDEA: “Gleaning: A Biblical Act of Generosity.”

There are many legitimate reasons (beyond Biblical commandments) why a farm will have food left in its peripheries, vulnerable to being tilled under and they are not necessarily reflections of bad or wasteful farming practices. Frequently it’s situational, such as a lack or loss of labor or severe and dramatic changing weather patterns. On larger farms, mechanized harvesting techniques can skip over produce. Blemishes on tomatoes for example, can deem them as seconds, and hence not economically valuable enough for a farmer to harvest whilst they will be perfectly good, healthy and safe to eat or to process or put up for later. The potential to help feed the margins is all in the farms. It’s a matter of connecting the dots to get it to them.

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FROM MY MAGAZINE: “He Sets the Lonely in Families (Psalm 68:6)” by Scott Hagan.