I hope anyone reading here will recognize that I am not a “Democratic supporter”,  unless you call casting a vote for what generally amounts to “The lesser of two evils” an endorsement.  After hearing the “faith forum” on CNN,  I was not encouraged.  As long as that entity known as the “public square” remains as tied to so called “rules of political discourse”,  or candidates remain captive to polling and careful crafting of explanations to remain sufficiently abstract,  ESPECIALLY in matters of “faith and politics”,  the world will see nothing of substance from “political debate” or “political conversation” about “faith in the public square”. 

Hillary Clinton seemed to be most interested in keeping her faith talk limited to “personal experience”, so in a sense,  her contribution to the discussion was pretty standard and status quo.   I was hoping that this CNN faith forum thing would have elicited some conversation,  but after the event,  I wasn’t expecting much,  because it just didn’t seem to touch on anything new.  Even the talk of “what to do about poverty” was all about supporting this program or that.  I increasingly get the feeling that more and more people are choosing to outsource their “what to do to make a difference” to the “programs” and to the ribbons, arm-bands, and t-shirt wearing. 

Of course,  I can no longer believe in these “answers”. It is all well and good for government to aid and assist,  but the problems often stem from the inability to break free of the processes that drive the machine of government,  and to see and act on things which only a God who lives and moves outside of those channels, in a “different” Kingdom,  and calls together a diverse church;  a church of diverse gifts and callings,  to “begin to embody the new creation” as Dan put it in the quote I used yesterday. 

I thnk it may be time for Sojourners to print up a bunch of God is Not a Democrat or a Republican with bigger letters for Democrat as a way of saying the same thing,  only equally,  since the Democrats are now supposedly “in control”,  or if they feel that a Democratic White House will usher in The City of God (or its secular equivalent, “Camelot” perhaps)

Of course,  in saying all that,  this administration is so horrible and so incompetent and so corrupt that even the status quo looks attractive (and this administration is far below the curve of the status quo).  It sounds like a cop-out,  and I in no way think an Obama America,  or a Hillary America would be a “remedy” or a “return to glory”.  I simply want some brakes applied and some response in the way of starting repairs to the things the neocons have wrought in their “efforts”.  In the meantime,  seemingly like a broken record,  I continue to long for a church where a belonging is sought and cared for; a belonging that enables us to see something entirely different.