God loves you . + This, from a cantankerous old coot who has been griping “I am tired on top of tired of this early campaign! Democrats – Republicans – and Thee, O Lord, let our voters go!” + I am ‘losing it’, perhaps . . . + I quote an article, since a-anchored linkages are proving fragile things. That its coverage is widespread in media and rather generic makes attributation moot, I think. To wit . . .

Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday [June 23] that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ . . . Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said . . . At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ, a church of about 1.2 million members that is considered one the most liberal of the mainline Protestant groups . . . In 1972, the church was the first to ordain an openly gay man. Two years ago, the church endorsed same-sex marriage, the largest Christian denomination to do so. Obama believes that states should decide whether to allow gay marriage, and he opposes a constitutional amendment against it . . . Conservative Christian bloggers have linked Obama to what they call the "unbiblical" teachings of his church. Theological conservatives believe gay relationships violate Scripture, while more liberal Christians emphasize the Bible's social justice teachings.

Hmmm – ‘social justice’ means cutting our own civilized throats? More, though, B.O. is whining because his and his sect’s and other so-called liberals’ elitist ways, impositions and clamor – whether Christian or not is debatable – have been in part supplanted by other voices given more and more hearing. I.e., other voices of Christians can no longer be easily silenced. Permit me to have a voice from experience with the United Church of Christ – ‘UCC’, among the knowing. This church sponsors a large Chicago hospital chain – the so-called Evangelical Health Systems. The UCC dominates the generally do-gooder board. While I worked for them, they quite obliviously supported (can’t say if they still do) a hospital support system (euphemistically named a ‘patient care’ system) that routinely dropped linkages between important data – such as, patient to his medications; worse, then the link to said medications might get linked to the wrong patient! Not long after I left, they were reported to have permitted a baby born live after an abortion in the UCC/EHS hospital named of all things ‘Christ Hospital’ to just die in some closet. This report, by the way, would never have come out except for a whistle-blowing nurse. The above article fails to report that the UCC retains members like a sieve retains water; and, thus does its relevance dissipate (yes, yes - more whining). Their membership is less than half what it was twenty years ago. UCC membership – sometimes in whole congregations: over 250, at last count – is leaving due to the rather total abandonment of Christian dogma and principles being imposed by UCC leadership. So, it seems, the 'seeds of division' were sowed sometime before the conservative bent (if such exists) for it came along. And, thus, too, we can observe the 'heart' of the Christian leadership B.O. would deliver, eh? +

Worse on worse – more to come in another topic . . .

Remember, I love you, too Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, Pristinus Sapienter (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com) PS: Most ellipses in the quote represent paragraph breaks, not text omissions.