Games.  I'm tired of all the politically divisive games.  I used to be able to point primarily at Republican when it came to political and anti-intellectual games but now Democrats are increasingly getting enticed by the thrill of the game.  It's perfectly understandable.  The inverse of the game is very heady, reflective and well (let's face it) a bit nerdy.  When you play the game your emotions get ramped up, you are energized and you have people who give your frustration a face.  You are no longer fighting the nameless, faceless battle of quagmired government, you are fighting the Republicans (or Democrats, or Tea Party).

I can already hear liberals (of which I am one) shouting “false equivalency” at their screens and firing up their post blog rebuttal.  I've already observed this new favorite line of my progressive friends popping up all over progressive blogs and Facebook pages, particularly anytime that it is suggested that Fox News and MSNBC are to some degree in the same business.  “Foul!” “False equivalency!” The whole matter worries me.

I am worried because we are becoming more of a reflection of the Fox Newsers everyday. (I know, I know “false equivalency!”).  Just in shouting “False equivalency,” we are proving it.  Much like the Beck-heads ingest and then regurgitate Beck's talking points (I am intentionally saying Beck's and not Republican's, because the tide has reversed course a bit in that relationship) with little to no thought and manage to do it with the kind of convicted dedication that you usually only see in suicide bombers, we are slowly beginning to do the same.  

As you can see in the video below, the phrase “false equivalency” is one that Obermann, and others at MSNBC, are using to reorient the argument in a way that makes them a clear winner (and quite frankly a bit of a victim as well).  So, not only are we buying into it and using their terminology to defend it (like Beck watchers are prone to do), but we are buying into a false argument that has been artfully crafted in much the same way that Fox News has done so many times.

Here's why it is a false argument.  Those of us who say Fox News and MSNBC are practicing similar 'news' styles and by doing so are hurting the country are not making the argument that the two are the same; we are making the argument that they are similar.  Much like Almond Joy and Mounds are similar – one has nuts and the other doesn't.   

That does not mean we believe they are equal, just similarly inserting divisive perspectives on national issues in a way that negatively impact our overarching ability to engage with the other side in reasoned dialog.  Let's face it, they both are businesses and gain monetarily by putting a negative face on the other side.  While MSNBC clearly bases their commentary more on facts in comparison to Fox's fear based commentary, the demonetization, name calling and false urgency that both sides practice are only serving to further divide this nation and that divide helps halt progress... so, which side of the debate do you think our current approach helps the most?

I'm not saying it is easy to have dialog with the other side (see my xtranormal video). I'm not even saying they want to engage in dialog (not engaging plays to their desired outcomes).  I am saying that relationships are always at least two-sided.  You do not get to simply point to the other side and say it is their fault.  Like it or not, it is a relationship and not only are we in it, but we are partly (not necessary equally) responsible for the tenor of our debates. 

It is all a matter of degrees not a matter of equivalency.  You don't have to be exactly the same distance from “sanity” to be too far away from it to be helpful.  MAD, mutually assured destruction, doesn't require both sides to have the same weapons or an equal number of them.  It only requires for both sides to be far enough away from peace that the other side will be too frightened to make a move. “Would you like to play a game?” (shameless reference to one of my favorite childhood movies, “WarGames”)

Christians are offered a third way out of the false dichotomy that humanity always tries to place on itself.  Theologian Walter Wink calls it, Jesus' Third Way.  I wrote a sermon based on it that you can find here.  This response begins with loving your enemy not villainizing them.  It looks like nonviolent resistance.  It stands over and against any type of violent response.

It doesn't have to be physical violence.  Bullying is violent.   And while we on  the Left are great at standing up and demanding that the world stop bullying teens who are gay, we tend to do it in a Facebook post that is followed by a grown up version of bullying as we call Beck and idiot or paint a Joker face on Bush in response to the one that was done on Obama.  I'm just as guilty as anyone.  The  xtranormal video I made doesn't exactly play fare in the false dichotomy it paints between the mental facilities of the Tea Partier and the member of The Christian Left.  Just because you try to intellectualize the content of your bullying, it doesn't make it any less bullying.

I'm tired of these games we play.  What scares me is the way we on the Left are slowly falling pray to joyfully playing these games, that stand over and against what Jesus taught, just so we can hold on tightly to what want to believe.  If you are on The Christian Left, God calls you to a better path.  For that matter, if you are a Christian, period.

I'm tired of the games - tired of the mutually insured destruction to which these games lead.  It is not what God wants.  God want for us, plans for us, hope...and a future.  The current path is not the path that leads us there.

I'm going to do something that is becoming increasingly unpopular amongst some Progressives: I'm taking Jon Stewart's side on what it will take to help the U.S. move forward - to progress rather than regress by getting stuck in the muck of our current political content and disposition.

The Right would love for the Left to buy into the dialogical framework they have built.  It avoids facts (or manipulates them), does not engage in conversation (more interested in who is the best or loudest bully), answers difficult question with non sequiturs and makes calls to broadly defined archetypes such as 'patriot', 'liberal' and 'socialist' in order to demonize or promote something or someone by evoking an emotional response from the audience rather than being bothered with facts.  The frame work is founded on the perception of being unchangeable and irrefutable.  The purpose of that foundation is precisely to mask the reality that the whole thing is a shell game where everything is changeable and refutable.

In much the same way that parts of MSNBC are becoming a mirrored response to Fox News, the Left is falling into the Right's dialogical framework – and it serves the Right well.  Not surprisingly, progress is antithetical to the goals of the Right.  A system bogged down in name calling, shouting and an 'us vs. them' disposition will never move forward (or will only move forward begrudgingly as we try to pull the nation's legs through the muck). 

They not only want us to do it, but in order to continue to support their agenda of not changing things too rapidly (which insures that those who are currently powerful remain powerful), they need us to do it.  They feed us a message of divide that over-inflates the importance of everything as if the wrong choice will be catastrophic.  People on both sides lap it up feeding the worst part of our humanity.

“But we live now in hard times, not end times. 
And we can have animus and not be enemies.”
-Jon Stewart at the Rally to Restore Sanity

I'm decidedly with Stewart on this one.  Those who will not engage in substantive discourse show either a lack of concern for the truth or a fear that their preconceived 'truth' isn't durable enough to hold up to scrutiny.  Riding under both positions is a general unwillingness to nuance your current belief.

As Stewart said in a recent interview with Rachael Maddow, “My problem is, it's become tribal." Our nation has bought into the framework set up by the Right.  We choose sides, come out fighting and act as if our very lives are counting on it.  I suppose they are, but just not in the immediate fashion our passion would suggest. 

My question is this, if it matters that much, why choose the path of mutually insured stagnation?

Yes, it has been far too long since the Left has had a charismatic, sharp minded leader to both represent us and give voice to viewpoints countering the ones expressed by the likes of Beck and Palin.  We hunger for that person to step up. Olbermann is fine, but he's not the one.  We thought Obama was the one, but the realities of the quagmire in D.C. have put an end to that.  Rachel Maddow may be the rising star, but her admirable commitment to MSNBC may tie her in so closely with the response to Fox that it will hamper her ability to do it with all of the credibility she deserves.

We hunger for that kind of leader so deeply that we are willing to crown Stewart our leader, when he doesn't want to be our leader.  He seeks to be a voice of reason, of sanity, calling out into the wildernesses of political and religious divide.  As you can both see demonstrated and hear articulated in the video clip below, he believes that the intentionally divisive nature of our current national discourse is counter productive to progress.  And I agree.

I hunger for substantive discourse in this great nation and I think most progressive do as well.  But the frustration of banging your head against the wall you meet almost every time you try to engage a hard core Fox News devotee in civil debate has led us to do a most surprising, yet somewhat understandable thing.  We have not only disengaged from substantive discourse with them, but at times with ourselves.  Worse yet, as can be seen in the disappointment some have expressed with Stewart after the rally, we are looking for someone to give it back to the Right utilizing the same tactics and framework they use.

Our fault is in thinking our new leader has to be a progressive mirror image of the leaders on the right.  What we need is someone who is different from all of that.  Someone who can stand outside of the fray, asses the real issues, point to the fundamental flaws in each side's arguments and then bring us to the table for dialog, all-the-while calling BS on us if we start to slip back into fallacious debate or party -line politics.

It turns out that while Jon Stewart might not be the voice we want, he just might be the voice we need.

As a Christian minister, I hope that he is, or that someone with a similar message is just waiting in the wings for the right opportunity.  This divided nation does not reflect a God who created us all equal.  This divided nation would rather demonize the other (see the devil in them) than see the reflection of the divine that God has planted in them – we would rather hate our enemy than love them. Our lack of substantive dialog does not point to a God who delights in wisdom daily. 

While we are not a nation of believers, I can't help but imagine what it would look like if those who do profess to worship God actually started acting like it.

Update: More on the dangers of this dialogical divide from one of my favorite thought thinkers: Dr. Seuss. (Thanks to a friend on The Christian Left for this connection).

I have never really cared for Fox News.  It is even difficult for me to type their name without either cringing or laughing.  I much prefer the more descriptive Faux News because, let's face it, that pretty much nails what they do - by their own admission.


Recently, a convicted criminal has identified one of Faux News' show hosts, Glenn Beck (for whom I admittedly have a distaste), as the inspiration and motivation for his attempt at murder.   With the ramped up hate-speech and fear-mongering that can be heard almost hourly on Faux News, some of which borders on apocalyptic language, it is almost surprising that something like this hasn't already happened.

What is both surprising and totally expected, at the same time, is The Christian Right's resounding silence on the topic. For example, when violence and death are connected to Heavy Metal even in a cursory way, you can count on them to show up at concerts with hate filled signs (even at Christian Heavy Metal shows), voice their disdain news and talk shows to sound their objections and write articles in every medium that will publish them to pronounce the Devil inspired evils of Heavy Metal.

When the same connections are made in their sibling arm of the Republican party, all you hear from them is deafening silence or maybe the random cricket "chirp."  To The Religious Right I say, unless you care to reinforce the growing public opinion that your movement is full of hypocrites, it is time for you to step up and demand that the hate filled, apocalyptic talk of Faux News be brought to an end in the name of the Prince of Peace.

I do have to say, much like I felt when they were attacking Heavy Metal (of which I'm not particularly a fan), I think it is short-sighted and unfair to heap all the blame on Faux News. There are multiple influences (or lack their of) which move a person to that kind of violence, but for the sake of consistency of message (I know, I know, "big fat chance of that"), I am calling out the Christian Right to voice its disdain of institutions that lead people to such deplorably violent actions, in this case Faux News.

From a Christian perspective, inciting violence is antithetical to living the life Jesus taught us to live. Faux News and Glenn Beck make a mockery of Christianity as they continue to imply that they are a Christian network and inspire violence at the same time.  For that matter, The Christian Right make a mockery of their own doctrine when they hold their friends to different moral standards than their enemies.

This is just one of hundreds of examples of why we all should stop taking either group very seriously (many of us already have). Their own actions smack of hypocrisy and biases. It is time to call them out on the ever-shifting and loose moral standards they practice.  It is time for them to stop playing dress-up by putting on airs of Christianity.  It is time for them to stop pretending.  We don't live in Never Never Land.

The Christian Left is much more than a Facebook (FB) page, it is a growing movement. It is the future hope of The Church and the only non-hypocritical way The Church stands any long term chance of being an effective Christian voice in politics. (Wow. I hope I didn't overstate that. Let's see, “ the future hope of The Church and the only non-hypocritical way The Church stands any long term chance of being a effective Christian voice in politics.” Nope, that's about right).

Let me say that while The Christian Left is much more than its FB page, if you want to participate in this very important dialogue, the FB page is a fantastic place to start. It engages head and heart, politics and religion, theology and contemporary topics...it's worth the read and the engagement it takes to be a part of the dialogue will do us all some good.  I might just add, if you do decide to join the dialogue (and I hope you will), it'd be helpful if you were to check out our Code of Conduct.  Thanks.

But let's get on with the whole “We Need The Christian Left, Now More Than Ever” title. Bit of a bold statement, isn't it?  Well, not really.  

Christianity, over the course of a few thousand years, has drifted away from the teachings of it's founder. That man was a walking Heath Care System.  He wisely, gently and unapologeticly confronted hate at every turn. He always believed people could be better than they are and when he met someone, he asked them to change – toward the better person he knew they could be. He loved people and abhorred abuse of power (in both religions and politics). He walked quietly on this earth and yet made a loud impact. He was willing to lay down his life for the love of others.

In a world where big business seems to control everything, even the government; in a time when the Supreme Court is sometimes promoting businesses' rights over individual's rights; we need a guiding principle that reminds us that our Creator wants us to put people first. In an environment when news channels are formed around encouraging people to be afraid and fear people who are not like them or don't believe the things they believe, we need a point of light that beacons us toward acceptance and love. In a nation where businesses' bottom lines continue to be promoted over the health and welfare of the 'least of these,' we need the image of a healing hand that reached out, even to lepers, to heal without asking for or expecting anything in return...other than faith. In a world being devastated by our consumerist attitudes and privileged lifestyles, we need Jesus' life to remind us that we must walk gently on God's Creation. We need the man who hung on a cross for love, to teach us to live our lives for love.

You see, the reason we need the Christian Left now more than ever, is because it is not really 'the left.'  If anything, what Christian 'leftist' stand for is just good theology. If anything, we should be the “Christians centrist” or the “Christian originalist.” Ultimately, we are 'left' only by comparison, relative to what the dominate voice of Christianity in the U.S. claims Christians stand for. The same voice that has left younger generations beleiving that Christians have become, well, unChristian.

We need the Christian Left now more than ever, because we need to follow the teaching of Jesus more than ever.