Mike James (who blogs on Tread Lightly) blogs something I have wanted to say but have thus far avoided , at least on my blog, and that is: Actions speak louder than words, which is a typical sin of the politican, like the student council candidates who vow to get coke machines put in the cafeteria (back in the days when this was unheard of and not to become reality for most schools for years to come). While I have no doubt that religion in general and Christianity in particular has become a lot more prevelant in political campaign language, it is treading on blasphemous boundaries; not because “religion and politics don’;t mix” (which I think they DO and MUST) , but in the sense that “the name of God” has much more to do with “walking the walk” than “talking the talk”.

Mike blogs today on the Dean and Bush campaigns and the willingness to talk of faith.

http://maikimo.net/weblog/sideblog/archives/2004/01/index.html#002866

My oft-repeated point is that talking about faith — but acting in ways that oppose the Spirit of God, as Bush does — is not a sound reason to vote conservative. If faith matters, then you should vote for the candidate where you see the walk happening. (For me that is Democrats, however otherwise imperfect.) Actions count; talk is, well, cheap.

Clarence Jordan often spoke about “blasphemy”, not as “using the word God in conjunction with other swear words”, but as performed by “people who may never say a cussword, but live as though Jesus means nothing whatsoever”. In the mind of Jordan in most of those instances, was the racial climate in and around Americus Georgia (and in the US at large), where, as he put it, Sunday morning at 11:00 was the most racially segregated time in the nation”.

Jordan aslo spoke of a related phrase: “Taking the name of the Lord in vain”. To “take the name” has nothing to do with the use of the word “God” or related terms, but with the identification of one’s self with that community; the “people of God”. To stake that claim, then, is to identify one’s self with the structure that God has called to be The People of God. To conduct one’s self in ways destructive to “this alternative way of life” is to “give God a bad name”. The word blaspheme literally means to “Stink up the name”. Blasphemers are not cursers, but people who claim allegiance to Christ and then live as though the name means nothing in key areas of life (in this instance, the things Mike identifies, as I do, about Bush’s “profession of faith” is his role as an enemy of the Prince of Peace. This is NOT intentional in his mind, of course. I really believe that HE believes the Christian Right’s unholy mix of hawkish internaitonal policy, a nd that America is “chosen by God” to wirld the holy sepulchre, and “punish with the sword”, and exact vengeance.

Sojourners ran an cover article recently on the “Theology of Empire“, which is MUST READING for serious theologians. An encouragement (and at the same time a disturbing reminder and warning) of the kind that the Sojourners commuity has been for me for 20 years, since I first began subscribing. A ringing question for all who see the Church as more “counter-cultural” than “culture-affirming”.