Trippi’s book got the wheels going in my thoughts about the value of a grassroots effort to “Take Back the Church” just as the Dean Campaign invokes “Take Back America”. The journeys of American politics and American Christianity run parallel in this perception amongst their grassroots and progressive communities that their deepest ideals are being hijacked in front of them.

This is not that new for me, or other “old people” like me , remembering how it was at the same time that the Reagan years and the Religous Right arose at the same time in 1980, and the Southern Baptist fundamentalist revolt, spearheaded by Paige Patterson and Judge Pressler staged a “liberal scare” campaign and took control of the Southern Baptist Leadership. That was more of an ideological battle, but it certainly had its association and complicity and “approval of” the Reagan philosophy, with its secret wars and behind the scenes mapipulations and scandals , trading arms for hostages, backing sadistic murdering Contra rebels against what was seen as a Communist threat in the Sandinista government. That secret and decptive war , that resulted in Sanctuary trials charging Church leaders with illegally aiding aliens from Central America, who fled the violence which the United States government denied existed. It was in those years that I first read and listened to Sojourners after hearing Jim Wallis speak as he visited Arizona where I happen to be living for about 9 months.

As I listened to people working in the Human Services in Phoenix, jsut a few short years after leaving Seminary in 1981, I learned of the abandonement of vital services through budget cuts of the Reagan administration (which I heard warnings about those cuts to expect as forthcoming from the Reagan administration), and of the secret covert actions taken in El Salvador. Wallis later was to write a book called “Who Speaks For God?” , which was one of the few vocal evangelicals with social conscience that weas calling for attention to the diverse voices in American Christianity rather than lumping all Christians into the “Ralph Reed/Pat Robertson” mode, which was becoming almost automatically aligned with the Republican party.

Now, with the rebirth of the House of Bush, and the distrurbing addtion of the administration’s expansionist, triumphal, ‘Pax Americana’ conquest ideology (revealed in documents like Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century), the situation for the Church seems to demand a more prophetic role. The problem is, the Fundamentalist Churches and most conservative Churches voice theuir overwhelming support, and the more moderate Churches, or Churches where there actually exists a cross-section of Theological opinion, are too timid or fearful of backlash if their leaders voice concern about the legitimacy of the Bush administration’s campaign and cfarrying out of war plans.

Never in my lifetime has it seemed that there is as much of a need for the Church to speak up as now (of course, this call extends to Churches and the People of God for all time, but the potential for vast evil to erupt on a global scale, with us right in the middle, is rapoidly building.) The “principlalties and powers” that work in creating structural and political evil are flying about the political stratosphere, and none are so blinded as the majority of the American Church.

I invoke the strategy of the Dean campaign to fan the flames of my zeal for online community possibilities in the service of the Church, to help make connections throughout this land and beyond, to let the Church in the worldf know that many American Christians are deeply troubled, and feel we are witnessing a nightmare of horrific and heretical heights for the Church. The “Crusades” are taking a new 21st Century form. This is NOT the Church of Jesus.

What would a Church fashioned after the “Dean camapign” (mainly it’s communication strategy, anbut also it’s questions about the justness and ethical standing of this war) look like? Meetups would be extremely important, as Christian like myself who rarely hear anybody seriously discuss the questions of “What would Jesus do?” are longing to experience. The answers I get to that question, which I often put as a challenge to the “Go and God Be with you” blessing often bestowed by our Churches on the Bush administration, range from looks of disblief at such a “puzzling” question , to justifications of great length at how this will “save lives” in the long run. All THEORIES, which now seem to be be coming from an administration with seriously questionable business ties with oil and the Saudis, which assure us that they know what they’re doing (all ewvidence to the contrary—-no, they know what they’re doing— and they are doing everything they can to SPIN this in a politically “palatable” way in order to “pull it off”; sneak it past. Perhaps it is a supreme act of self-justification, where they have fooled themselves into thinking they can work this politically and internationally, to have their cake and eat it too. I fear they are consumed, convinced and deceived by greed, and that leads to a mountain of lies, unethical buying of and dispensing of political power and privelege, and all of it directed from a group of super-elites (with all their campaign slurs about the “elite” circles in which their political opponents move).

I’m not thrilled at all with what the Democrats have on the table, but I feel that something has to change…..and there are also Christians who, like me, have to be sick to death of the extent to which American Chrsitians and their Churches trade Jesus for the flag. Nationalistic idolatry. Justification of ANYTHING for the sake of , as Mr. BUsh himself calls it “Our Way of Life”. I’m more inclined to think of it as “THEIR WAY” (referring to the House Of Bush and their super-elite constituency. It’s becoming a cruel joke that they continue to criticize their opponent’s “elitism”, all the while working enorormously dangerous ground on behalf of supporters). THEIR way of life the vast majority of Americans wil never see or know. Their own kind will see to that.