The Fruit Of The Spirit?

Sarah Palin may be good for the GOP ticket but she is bad for the

church.

Sarah Palin may be good for the GOP ticket but she is bad for the
church. As the now most famous Christian in the country, shouldn't we
be seeing the fruit of the Spirit…instead of "hell-raising?" Maybe we
shouldn't bother arguing about whether she's got the experience or
credentials to be VP. But, as a Christian, I just can't let her be the
face the represents me. 

"Andthey'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love – and they'll know we are Christians by our love." That's one of the first songs I remember singing at Mass when I was a kid. 

I
wonder if this song ever made it into the hymn book Sarah Palin grew up
singing out of as she was growing up in that small Alaskan town. I
wonder if her pastor is embarrassed. I know that, as a Christian, I was
mortified on Wednesday night. And things didn't improve much yesterday as her partner on this ticket took the stage. 

John
McCain managed to avoid looking too smug or sounding sarcastic and, for
the most part, kept his rhetoric to the usual mud-slinging level we
expect in our presidential campaigns and which we heard from Denver
last week – actually, I thought he came across pretty darn well – but
he didn't scold his running mate who took the stage before him this
week. And he should have. 

Instead,
he told us that he thinks she's awesome. In fact, it's hard not to
think that Sarah Palin's willingness to go for the jugular on anybody
who stands in her way is THE reason he added her to the ticket. This is
a woman who campaigned against her mother-in-law, who sought to follow Sarah into the mayoral office in Wasalia, because her mother-in-law wasn't
quite "pro-life" enough. Talk about cold. I'm thinking that's all the
folks who vetted her needed to hear. This was no impulsive choice
showcasing McCain's "maverick" side. He needs a woman like this.
McCain's people know he's going to have a hard time beating up on the
first African-American nominee for president in U.S. history. If a
hockey mom from a small town, with a life story – right down to the
pregnant teenager daughter – that makes her seem just like "one of us,"
can't beat upon Obama…nobody can.

And Sarah Palin delivered. She came to St. Paul "wielding a stiletto and a smile," said one report. She is, in her own words,
a pitbull with lipstick. She belittled Obama, throwing down one
scathingly sarcastic line after another, without regard for the facts
(check out this AP report),
attacking his personal character and his motivations with even more
bloodlust than she took on his policies (i.e., "there are some
candidates who use change to promote their careers…"), ridiculing
him for his work as a "community organizer" (?!?!?), ripping into him
like he was a piece of raw meat tossed into her cage at the end of a
day-long fast. For goodness sake, she tore into him for being willing
to TALK to our enemies ("…he wants to meet them…!") and wanting to make sure that when we arrest people we READ THEM THEIR RIGHTS. 

Can you imagine the blisteringly nasty things she would have had to say to Jesus when he started up with that whole love your enemies thing? Or maybe that passage wasn't in her hymnal,either.

To his credit, I guess, Obama brushed it all off yesterday: "I've been called worse things on the basketball court."

Frankly,
I can't say I blame the McCain campaign for adding this woman to the
ticket. And I know darn well that Sarah Palin's words weren't her own.
A Bush/McCain speechwriter gave them to her. They want to get their
boss elected. And the only way that's going to happen is if they can
tap into the fear we feel and, as they've done for the past eight
years, refocus it in hatred and anger. They need somebody who, as Utah
Governor Jon Huntsman said, is ready, able, and willing to "raise a little hell."

But there are two gynormous problems with this:

First
off, in spite of the fact that the Bush-speechwriter who crafted her
debut on Wednesday night didn't think to mention it, Sarah Palin has
just beat out Rick Warren for"most-famous-Christian-in-the-country."
And, last I checked, Christians are supposed to be casting out demons
— not raising them — and certainly not appearing to be possessed by them. I don't remember "biting sarcasm" or "self-righteous ridicule" or "bald-faced lying"
listed among the fruits of the Spirit, do you? In my neighborhood,
where people already suspect that Christian = mean-spirited,
close-minded, science-hating, gay-bashing, blood-thirsting,
planet-destroying, book-banning, wall-building, saber-rattling
hypocrite…Sarah Palin just made their case. She might be good for the
GOP ticket this year. But she sucks for the church.

Second,
she would suck for our country. For eight years we've been led by a
wanna-be-cowboy who shoots first and asks questions later and won't
even listen to the answers then. The last thing we need is a real cowgirl who is, by all accounts, an even better shot. Right now we're watching Russia quoting us back to ourselves as they invade another country because, oh I don't know, that other country might possibly one day get up the nerve and gather up enough weapons
to attack them. McCain's pick of Sarah Palin, a woman who never even
stepped foot out of the U.S. until last year and who knows basically
NOTHING about the rest of the world and said not ONE single nice thing
about anybody outside our borders on Wednesday night, is a big old
McCain "Yippee Ay Yay!" for the Bush-approach to — well, pretty much
anybody who pisses us off. 

Is
this really what we want??? Do we really want to live in a nation that
is mocked by our own Statue of Liberty as she stands silently in our
harbor, reminding us that once upon a time we welcomed the world's
refugees and all those looking for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness? Aren't we finally tired of reports that our government is
wire-tapping our own citizens and torturing our prisoners and sending
our sons & daughters to die in a war that almost no one in America thinks we should be fighting? Isn't it time to say: Stop. Please. There Has To Be Another Way. 

Or
are we OK with living in a nation where the rule of law = the rule of
those with the biggest sticks? Are we OK with continuing to elect
leaders who are so good at making us afraid and suspicious of one
another, so mean and nasty to those with whom they disagree, and so
obviously proud of themselves when they "take down" an opponent that
THIS is bound to happen: 

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN)
— Police faced off with crowds of protesters outside the Republican
National Convention, arresting 396 people after using tear gas and
percussion grenades to turn them back. As a line of police clad in riot
gear andwalking with bicycles approached a woman who refused to get out
of their way, several sprayed her with a chemical agent. She covered
her eyes with one hand and gave the two-finger peace sign with the
other. A man standing nearby yelled, "I love you! Why are you doing
this?" as the woman was shoved to the pavement. Police who were shown
video of the encounter declined to comment. Thursday's arrests brought the total for the week to 818, authorities said. (Readthe whole story and watch the horrific video here.)

This is a picture of what happens when Americans make heros out of pitbulls. 

The lipstick isn't fooling anybody, Sarah. And the fact that you don't even want it to makes you all that much scarier.

John, you should be ashamed.

Barack, I hope you plan to do more than just try to ignore it.

And, Church, if you're cheering for this woman, how can you justify it?? 

If you're not, how can you be silent?