I am increasingly uncomfortable and pissed off at the amount of time the media is spending on Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

I go to church every week. I have for several years, after about a decade of never going to church. I was raised in a home where I went to church every week.

I have yet to sit in a church and agree with the religious leader speaking. It just hasn’t happened to me.

For 2-3 years my husband and I sat in a church where we, or at least I, disagreed with nearly everything the pastor said. Nearly everything. We kept going back because his brothers and parents went there and we were in it for that communal bond.

The message was even offensive to me most of the time.

We moved to another church where the message was less offensive, but I still didn’t agree with much of what I heard.

We currently sit in a church where I don’t agree with that much of the message, but find it’s the most progressive, and least offensive, of the three denominations in town that we have to choose from.

I guess I take issue with the fact that people are allowed to judge what I believe based on what comes out of the pastor’s mouth. I can’t control what he’s saying, or what he believes, so I don’t want to be judged or condemned by it.

I read an article about evangelical Rev. John Hagee that John McCain was wooing so he could get the conservative vote. That guy, the article said, attributed Hurricane Katrina to God’s Judgement against an unholy and sinful city. He talks about Nation of Islam and going to go to holy war, as if it’s inevitable and desirable. He condemns Catholics and homosexuals. He preaches that the Qu’ran calls the Nation of Islam to kill Christians and Jews (I don’t believe this.) When I read about the guy and his religious-political beliefs I am reminded of Nazi Germany’s religious political propaganda.

The thought of a Presidential Candidate (McCain) wooing any pastor who desires a Holy War with the Middle East terrifies me in a crap my pants kind of way.

I want the antithesis of that – peace and religious tolerance.

Thank God for the Separation of Church and State. It’s the only thing protecting us from all these crazy extremist pastors and their “rightness” and holy wars and prejudiced and bigoted views of “what God wants.”

Post from: Blisstree

Pastoral Input & Elections