A House Divided

So Barak won. I have been really surprised by the reactions of some of the christians I know. I have like three different friends from my church in jersey whose status was something along the lines 'america you made the wrong decision and you get what you deserve." Like seriously? Does God really call you to rejoice in the future suffering of this nation? And can you really be a Christian and believe you got what you deserved? How is that helpful?

Today my mom forwarded me an e-mail from Dutch Sheets explaining why Obama's election was not God's will. Well, I know God (which is not to say that I know what his will was for the election). But who the fuck is Dutch Sheets? Because he wrote a couple of books on prayer he gets to tell me what God's will is? THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!!!!! Everyone is listening to someone else. We should just burn all the bibles because apparently no one can read them for themselves. I would say that 99% of the conversation that I heard leading up to the election from christians were "Well my pastor says this." Well guess what? I really don't care what your pastor thinks. what do you think? what does God think?

The thing that this election makes me wonder the most is whose pastor was it who decided that the only way to stop abortion was through presidential elections? Anyone who knows me knows that I make it a point to never talk about my personal political beliefs. This is in the most part due to the fact that I think it's usually more useful to listen. But here's a freebie: I am pro-life. With that said, I honestly believe that the day that abortions are no longer performed in the United States will be the day that Jesus comes back to earth. Even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I personally have had conversations with medical professionals who have said that if it were illegal they would still perform them. And I think that anyone who has grown up in a super liberal state such as NJ or MA will admit that there would be more than enough doctors who believe so strongly in abortion rights that abortion could never really be outlawed more than just on paper. More importantly, the Supreme Court has the most direct impact on the legality of abortion and all the president does is appoint people who might be pro-life (or who might be willing to say whatever it takes to be on the Supreme Court!). And even if they do not decide in favor of abortion rights, they can simply drastically reduce the amount of cases they hear like the Rehnquist Court did.

I'm not saying to give up but what I am saying is evangelicals need to stop pretending that they don't personally play a role in the amount of women having abortions. Women don't just chose to have abortions because they like to kill babies. How many christians actually go to churches that have used their benevolence funds to help a single mother or even have day care services? And even in the case of women who have been raped and get abortions, when have you ever heard a sermon or a christian friend speak out against sexual violence? I have been to dozens of churches over the course of my lifetime and i cannot recall ever hearing a sermon speaking out against rape. not one. So why should it surprise us that women get abortions when they're raped when we as a community don't even provide a space for them to address this trauma!?!?!?

Basically what I'm trying to say is maybe if people took as much time actually living out their beliefs as they did bitching about how Obama is leading our country towards godlessness this nation would be in a different position. If you actually believe in God, I think he deserves more than this inconsistent passivity.