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Yes, you heard it right. Jesse Jackson said he wants to cut Barack Obama’s nuts off, or out, depending on which transcript you see as the official record. Some news agencies reported “off” and others reported “out.” Either way, it’s a big, fat “Ouch!”

What did Obama do? He allegedly “talked down to black people.” OMG! A black man talking down to black people? What nerve!

Evidently, the Rev. Jesse Jackson thinks it’s OK for a black leader to make excuses for bad behavior, but if one tells black men that they’ve got to start being better fathers then he’s “talking down.” But Obama isn’t the first black leader to make such remarks. Comedian Bill Cosby said it first, but I don’t remember Jesse Jackson ever saying nasty things about him. Of course, the once voice of Fat Albert wasn’t running for president on the Democratic ticket. Well, I guess it just goes to show that if preachers don’t tell it like it is then politicians should know better than to do so as well.

Poor Obama. He gets no respect.

This is a tale of two presidents. One past, one future. In the words of others.

First, George W. Bush. I say he’s history though he is the current chief. Some have called him a lame-duck president. That’s too kind. It doesn’t do justice to the English language and it’s an insult to other lame-duck presidents of the past. Imagine how Jimmy Carter must feel being equated to G.W.B. What a real slap in the face!

In actuality, George W. Bush is a dead-duck president. His entire administration has been rocked with scandal, stupidity, bad judgments, and just plain ridiculous thought processes filled with non sequiturs, leaps of logic, and synaptic misfires. His war may have been based on bad intelligence, but his legacy of one of no intelligence and it won’t be hard for the next president to look good.

Hear what Kos has to say:

The Congress is about to severely expand the already too-extensive authority of the president in surveilling the citizens of this nation. In doing so, it is ignoring the fact that the government has become a law breaker and made the telcos accessories to the crimes.

OK, so he’s talking about Congress. But he’s inadvertently talking about President Bush, the chief lawbreaker in the land. But he isn’t the first. FISA itself was passed as a result of abuses perpetrated by Richard Nixon. It essentially replaces the Fourth Amendment with a new law of the land with a stamp of approval by the legislative body and the courts.

It’s hard to believe that Congress could actually be less curious and more secretive than than the Bush/Cheney administration in trying to keep this information from ever seeing the light of day.

No, it’s really not hard to believe. Look at their track record.

President Bush has done nothing but subvert the law and replace it with his. Of course, he could not have done that had Congress not fallen asleep. Do I expect changes? No. Not in this lifetime.

And, now, on the future President Obama:

Obama has long been comfortable talking about his moderate to liberal Christianity, and has long been very much at ease with the social Gospel and mixing religion with politics.

Brilliant observation. And the result?

If that happens (and I can’t see how it will because of Obama’s abortion record), we’re talking about a historic landslide. But if only a fifth of them move over to the Democrat, we have a serious realignment - and possibly real movement in a few Southern states.

Yes, if Obama is elected it will be because evangelical Christians have decided that’s who they want to be the next president. But what kind of record does the Church have on picking presidents? Well, let’s see:

• Richard Nixon (criminal)
• Jimmy Carter (ineffectual)
• Ronald Reagan (Iran-Contra)
• George H.W. Bush (liar)
• Bill Clinton (scumbag)
• George W. Bush (warmonger)

Is there any reason to be optimistic?

Here’s an interesting read on religion in politics. Daily Kos says we’re more diverse than Pat Robertson puts on (my words, not his).

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has an interesting demographic chart that compares the various religions, their adherents, and their attitudes toward politics and social issues. Interestingly, these are the majority attitudes among Catholics for specific questions asked by Pew in a poll:

• 33% Democratic, 23% Republican
• 38% Moderate, 36% Conservative
• 51% want bigger government and more services
• 32% believe abortion should be legal in most cases
• 58% believe society should be more accepting of homosexuality
• 49% believe government is too involved in morality
• 60% want more environmental regulation
• 55% believe we should not be too involved in world affairs and focus on issues at home

In contrast, here are the same results for evangelicals:

• 38% Republican, 24% Democrat
• 52% Conservative, 30% Moderate
• 48% want smaller government and less services
• 36% say abortion should be illegal in most cases, 25% say illegal in all cases, and 24% say legal in most cases
• 64% say homosexuality should be discouraged
• 50% want the government to do more to protect morality
• 54% want stricter environmental laws
• 54% want less role worldwide and focus on issues at home

Now, how about black churches?

• 66% Democratic (big surprise!), 12% lean Democratic, 7% Republican
• 36% Moderate, 35% Conservative (as in “not liberal” - very interesting)
• 72% want a bigger government with more services
• 29% believe abortion should be legal in most cases, 23% split between illegal in most cases and legal in all cases
• 46% believe homosexuality should be discouraged
• 48% believe government should do more to protect morality
• 52% want stricter laws on environmental regulation
• 68% say we should focus on issues at home

Very interesting statistics. There are a lot more. When I read these, I draw one conclusion: The Bush Administration is severely out of step with the majority of religious people in the country.

Barack Obama actually makes an interesting point, to which James Dobson accuses the presidential candidate of “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview.” Oh, like conservatives have never done that.

Religious conservatives, including Dobson, are the ones who have turned religion into a political winner-take-all game. It seems to me that Dobson, Pat Roberts, and other white evangelical leaders are the ones who have deliberately distorted Scripture to serve their own political and economic purposes. Obama may not have his religion 100% right, but conservative religious leaders like Dobson have no room to talk when it comes to distorting the Bible. Even worse than Dobson is Pat Robertson, who has made some outrageous comments in the name of Scripture.

When it comes to politics, Christians should not engage in partisanship. I’m not sure that this is what Obama is doing. He borders on it, but I think his real purpose is to reach out to conservative evangelical Christian leaders to engage in discussion about the role of government in religion and politics. That’s what political leaders should be doing. It’s something that George W. Bush hasn’t done at all.

Whether Barack Obama has the right Biblical understanding or not is a question for somebody else to answer. But I think he right political motivation in discussing it. Dobson does not. Even if his view of the Bible is the correct one. But I’m not sure any of us can say that either.

Williams reports complaints from Egyptian Christians that their churches are being denounced — or, he hints, threatened — by Muslim clergy because of same-sex relationships, even though the local Christians themselves have never accepted their validity.

Dr. Rowan Williams is in a difficult position. It is one that I would not wish upon anyone. On the one hand, he believes that homosexuals have a place in the church that Christ built and that they have a place in its leadership. It is an un-Biblical position, but a postmodern and widespread one. On the other hand, he doesn’t want the church to split; he is committed to keeping it together. His position might be likened to the position that Abraham Lincoln was in at the outset of the Civil War.

I have been very critical of conservatives who want to keep homosexual illegal and punish them politically for their sins. I believe gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military and if they want to get married then no one should stop them. While sinful, they do have the right to pursue happiness as long as their actions do not injure others. That is the argument.

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Graham urged his audience to pray for Presidents no matter what they believe, saying all Presidents needed wisdom. He spoke of his love for Clinton and Carter as well, his “longtime friends. I love them all, regardless of politics and regardless of who stands for what.”

If Graham’s spiritual message was always consistent, a message of gospel love and Jesus’s saving grace, his political message changed profoundly. There had been a time where he didn’t hesitate to speak out on the issues of the day, on foreign policy, the economy, court decisions. But he had come to see the cost about discussing the issues that divide people.

Jerry Falwell’s death brought many reminders of what happens when preachers take sides; long ago, Graham had decided to go down a different road. He had gotten way too deeply involved in his friends’ campaigns, and he resolved to try and stop diving in. Ten days before his good friend Ronald Reagan was sworn in, Graham told Parade Magazine that “evangelicals can’t be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle, to preach to all the people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.”

If anyone deserves a library dedication it is evangelist Billy Graham. There is no religious leader in America more respected, past or present. Eleven presidential administrations have adored him and relied on his spiritual advice. The one fact I find striking and have never known about Graham before is that he skinydipped at the White House with LBJ. I don’t know if he actually got in the water or just watched from the sidelines. Either way, it gives you an entirely different picture of the man many presidents have relied upon for spiritual guidance.

Graham has been criticized, even by me, for his changes in doctrine over the years. He seems to have softened up on what some would call key Christian issues. Perhaps he has and perhaps that’s not all bad. I certainly do agree with him in his philosophy that a Christian, particularly a preacher, should remain publicly neutral on many political issues. Not all, of course, but the goal of Christianity is to draw people to Christ and anything we do or say that detracts from that is divisive, counterproductive, and anti-Christian. Too many political aspirants who claim to be Christian have forgotten that - or never knew it.

It is refreshing to read about Billy Graham in his old age looking back at his life and reflecting on his mistakes. That is something we never saw in Jerry Falwell and likely will not see in Pat Robertson. Graham has been a voice every generation of American could count on from the early 20th century until now. May he live another 20 years.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - A hundred residents of a Russian village have refused to switch to new passports because they believe the documents’ bar codes contain satanic symbols, state television reported Wednesday.

Proof that the rock idol Sting was correct - the Russians love their children too, which is to say that their nut cases are about as whacked out as our nut cases.

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In an interview with TIME, Mohler said his statement on gays does not change his views on the morality of homosexuality. “There has been among evangelicals a fear or a misunderstanding that if a scientific causation of homosexuality were discovered that that somehow removes the moral responsibility of the persons making these choices,” he said. “But that is not true. The Scripture doesn’t say we are responsible only for the temptations we choose. The basic sinfulness of homosexuality, that wouldn’t change.”

Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, renews my respect for that denomination. As an Episcopal convert from the non-denominational generic flavor tainted with Southern Baptist and Independent Baptist leanings I have grown increasingly discordant over the Church in the modern world - particularly the evangelical branch. With its stick-in-the-mud approach to science, politics, art, religion, culture and anything intellectual, I have sought to maintain cordial relations while remaining spiritually distant from my spiritual family. It hasn’t been healthy.

Mohler adds an element of intellectual honesty to the role of spiritual leadership. There are likely theological points of discussion with which we disagree, but Mohler’s assertion that we are born with predispositions toward certain sins is something that has been on my mind lately. Who’s to say he’s not right?

One thing is certainly clear: We are all sinners and God makes it perfectly clear that no sin is preferred over any other. Yet most Christians treat homosexuality as if it is unpardonable. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” has been the sanctimonious mantra for far too long. It is intellectually impossible to separate the sin from the sinner; that is true if one adheres to a Biblical world view. We are what we do.

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Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ have been through the ringer - sometimes separate and all alone and sometimes together.

They’ve been accused of being star-crossed lovers, Mary having birthed Jesus’ children, Jesus of being gay and it just keeps getting worse. The skeptics who want to destroy the story of God in the flesh will stop at nothing to create magnificent tales of Biblical errancy.

The latest is one of the lamest of all:

The BBC has more news on the claims of world-renowned theologian James Cameron that he has proved that Jesus never rose from the dead.

Cameron believes that he has proven that the tomb filled with ten 2,000 old coffins was actually that of Jesus’ family. What’s his proof? Even though all of the names carved into the ossuaries were common Jewish names at the time, he’s putting all his cards on the fact that “Mariameme” (Mary Magdalene, apparently) was buried with “Jesua” (Jesus).

The interesting thing is that this story appeared on Wired Magazine’s blog, of all places.

Cameron previously announced that he discovered Jesus’ DNA, thereby proving that he never rose from the dead. I guess trying to prove the Shroud of Turin is a hoax isn’t enough for him so he invented Christ’s DNA. Evidently,Wired isn’t buying it either.

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As I have traveled around the country, one line in my speeches always draws cheers: “The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has now begun.” We have now entered the post-Religious Right era. Though religion has had a negative image in the last few decades, the years ahead may be shaped by a dynamic and more progressive faith that will make needed social change more possible.

In the churches, a combination of deeper compassion and better theology has moved many pastors and congregations away from the partisan politics of the Religious Right. In politics, we are beginning to see a leveling of the playing field between the two parties on religion and “moral values,” and the media are finally beginning to cover the many and diverse voices of faith. These are all big changes in American life, and the rest of the world is taking notice.

Far be it from me to disagree with the great Jim Wallis, but I’m every bit as leery of the new dialogue as I’ve been angry at the old monologue. We can’t forget that the tactics of the Religious Right have been borne out by the liberal tactics that came before them. Liberals started the bullying back in the early part of the 20th century. Many Christian denominations have been tackled and ramshackled by the bullying and badgering of the liberals and completely taken over such that the Church in those denominations is no longer recognizable.

While I agree that living in a “post-Religious Right” world might be desirable, I’m not certain that it has come to an end. I think it is more likely that we will get a temporary reprieve. But what we will be subjected to from the other side of our culture during the absence may be just as frightening. I doubt very seriously that it will consist of very serious “dialogue.”

And “better theology?” Who’s he kidding?

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