:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

I live next to the Battenkill river in southern Vermont. It’s a shallow, rocky river down in our town of Arlington, so we typically tube down from the covered bridge in West Arlington and hop out at our neighbor’s beach. It’s a pretty sweet set up. However, June in Vermont isn’t always very warm, and the Battenkill can be quite cold. On the warmest August day we still drink hot tea after exiting with our tubes.

Enter the kayak solution.

We purchased two nice kayaks worth $5000 for a ridiculously low price two years back. We found them at a yard sale and couldn’t pass them up. They are fiberglass and work well in lakes, ponds, and the ocean. Not so much for a shallow river that would destroy them. We use them all of the time up at Lake George and other lakes around here, but we can’t subject them to the punishment of the Battenkill.

Enter river ‘yak solution.

I found a dirt cheap, plastic river kayak on Craig’s list. We just purchased it, and yesterday, on a warm and clear late afternoon, I took the river yak on it’s first trip as our river craft of choice.

Julie is away this week taking a class, so I had to devise a plan that would enable me to kayak and still get back to my car in a timely manner. So I planned to drive the kayak down and leave my car at a parking area. I then kayaked down and pulled out at our neighbor’s and dragged it to the house. Once home, I would then hop on my bike and peddle back to the car.

So I hauled the kayak from behind it’s grassy hide-out behind the tiger lilies. I pushed the seats down in our wagon since I didn’t want to bother with the kayak rack straps. Before shoving it in, I noticed something odd on the kayak.

Peeping through a hole at the front end of the kayak was a mouse, a very still, dead mouse head. It could have been a mole I suppose, I didn’t look THAT close. I whacked it with a stick and couldn’t dislodge it. If anything, it slid further into the hole. Resigning myself to the gross task ahead of me, I used a wire to poke his 5 ” frame into the kayak. And this is the point where, if whacking the kayak with a board didn’t make me look absolutely insane, I sealed the deal.

I dragged the kayak onto the lawn, tilted it so the dead mouse slid to the middle, and then flipped it really fast. No mouse on the ground, since he just nestled under the top lip of the cockpit. I tried this over and over again. No dice. Alright, I thought, I need to get on some gloves and pick up this dead mouse. And then I had one last idea that would make me look even more imbalanced to my neighbors. Tipping the kayak upside down, I rocked it back and forth as fast as I could.

The mouse ker-plopped onto the ground. With a sigh of relief I set to work clearing out spiders, crickets, and the other nasty bugs who had set up shop in the kayak as well.

Once I settled into the river five minutes later, I quickly caught on to steering such a small kayak. It’s about 9 feet long, whereas our other kayaks are 13 and 15 feet, so I deftly whipped past rocks and enjoyed the beautiful river bank, setting sun, and birds flying all over.

Now if there’s one thing the Battenkill River is famous for, it’s fly fishing, and fly fishermen always come out in the morning and the early evening. So I was paddling through prime fishing time. Fishermen gravitate toward the deep pools at the river bends, and there’s a huge one on this stretch of the river. Of course there were two of them in my sights, casting out into the deep part that I wished to navigate.

Trying not to ruin their time, I aimed for the shallow shoreline on the inside of the curve. They were settled in the middle of the river. As I paddled over, the river unexpectedly pitched me toward shore and I nailed all kinds of rocks. While the front floundered, the back end spun around and I was just about to start going backwards right into the fishermen! I flailed my paddle and even reached my hand into the water to push off on a rock. No matter how often I straightened myself out, the river pushed me back on shore. Risking a collision with the fisherman, I managed to back away from the shore just enough to paddle between rocks and men. We didn’t say anything. They just stared.

Things went pretty smooth after that fiasco. There’s nothing like zipping through the swift rapids and your bow splashes into the waves sending a spray of water up. It’s the perfect mix of relaxation and excitement. That is, so long as you don’t have a dead mouse along for the ride.

It’s not every day that you run into a book on theology written for adults that addresses the questions brought up by children in such a way that both children and adults will benefit from it. Then again, Jim Speigel, the author of Gum, Geckos, and God is not your ordinary theologian, philosopher, professor, writer, or father for that matter. In fact, it’s the way he balances all of these roles that makes this book so good.

In July I’ll be posting during the book’s blog tour, so I’m holding off on my review until then. However, I thought it would be helpful to post on what I know about Jim because any time you can make things a bit more personal, I think it’s easier for readers to connect with the author (knowing Spencer Burke through several ETREK courses meant I had a VERY different take on his book A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity than many other Evangelicals).

Jim Speigel is a Philosophy and Religion professor at Taylor University. I took a general education course with him on ethics and theology with about 40-50 others. So I didn’t know him personally through that. However Jim was one of those profs who connected easily with students, performed at student venues (with his guitar that is), spoke at chapel, and stayed in touch with alumni via e-mail. When I was looking for guidance for Coffeehouse Theology, he was one of my first contacts, and he has been right there for me providing his take and even sharing an endorsement. I know many others keep in touch with him via e-mail as well.

Jim is very down to earth, and one of his most beloved rituals was bringing his wife and children into class with cookies. Just that is enough to show you what kind of guy he is and why he’s writing a theology book answering his kids questions. These may as well be our own questions since it sometimes takes a child to ask such bold, basic, and essentially mysterious questions. I think I’m afraid to ask someone, even Jim, “What is God like?” Call it pride or lack of child-like wonder, but I think I need to follow the lead of his kids.

Having dug into the first chapter so far, it’s been a quick, insightful read. I’m looking forward to whipping through it and posting on it in July. Stay tuned. If you want to pick up this book, which I think is an excellent idea since you won’t be disappointed, it’s available at Amazon.

According to NPR, conservative religious leader James Dobson has critiqued Barack Obama’s take on theology as playing favorites with the text in order to advance his own agenda. He said on his popular radio show:

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,”

Now let me first take a sip of wine… there, that’s better. I always enjoy blogging about conservatives with a little wine in the system. It’s good for the stomach Timothy!

Now that my tummy is settled, I’d like to dig into this statement that Obama is playing favorites with the Bible for his own purposes. I’d like to start by saying that theologically I’m probably closer to Dobson, as Obama is a theological liberal. I have a lot of respect for where liberals are coming from, learn from them, learn from their cousins the Neo-Orthodox, and think we should not dismiss them out of hand, but when it comes to my view of scripture and such, I’m probably closer to Dobson if you put a gun to my head. I know it’s fashionable for moderate bloggers to kick Dobson to the curb, so I’ll do my best to behave.

So Dobson’s flap concerns some statements Obama made about the Bible. Obama stated,

“Would we go with James Dobson’s (interpretation) or Al Sharpton’s?” Obama asked the cheering crowd, referring to the two widely different religious leaders. “Which passages of Scripture would guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus which says that slavery is OK but eating shell fish is an abomination… Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?”

Does that sound like distortion, or an acknowledgement of complexity? Is Obama dumbing the issue down or raising more questions? Is he discrediting the Bible or asking us to look at it more closely?

Time for a big gulp of wine.

It’s a classic attack style in theology to reduce your opponents views to a self-serving interpretation. The implication being that you are the defender of the truth. I have to admit that conservatives love this. We snap up books about defending the truth and such from people who want to distort the clear, literal, easily interpreted truth of the Bible. Sadly enough it seems the truth is being distorted plenty when we think we have the only valid view.

So the irony here is that I agree with Dobson in the broadest of terms. He probably wouldn’t accept me where I’m at, but I’m cool with him even if I wouldn’t say things exactly as he says them. And that is the problem. The Evangelical hierarchy spend way too much time trying to determine who’s in and who’s out, rather than seeking truth, building truth, and learning from the truth in the views of others, even if we think our way is best at the end of the day.

Curiously a group of pastor’s started a site called James Dobson Doesn’t Speak for Me. They dig into some of the specific statements in depth.

At the end of the day I hope Evangelicals can keep some of their wonderful gains in theology and service, but drop this combative stance to other perspectives. We really don’t need to make more enemies. That doesn’t mean we wallow in a postmodern relativism, but simply learn how to listen and evaluate, even if we hold on to our views when the smoke clears.

And if you’re looking for some comic relief here, Dobson didn’t let us down. Dobson actually said that Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law and president of the Harvard Law Review, made a “fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.” Now it’s one thing to critique Obama’s theology, which Dobson is more than qualified to do provided he plays fair when presenting his opponent’s views, but does he really think he can take on Obama on the Constitution?  I laughed out loud at that one.

That about does it for now, and it’s just as well–I’m thirsty again. I think there’s still enough wine left in the fridge for another glass. For more info see link, Obama’s faith, and yahoo.

I have been feeling kind of left out lately with the rise of sub-groups within the emerging church conversation. There are presbymergents, anglimergents, submergents (anabapists), and who knows what the heck else. What’s an independent Baptist to do?

Now there’s Baptimergent. They admit the name is a touch on the cheesy side, but if anything, it’s accurate. I really like the way the emerging conversation has allowed Christians from a variety of theological backgrounds to embrace their roots–in my case it’s my independent Baptist roots–while still contributing to the contextual theology conversation and living the Gospel missionally. The mission of God and our orthodox core create plenty of common ground that we need not conform everyone to one “emergent” branch of theology.

In reality, I think this is the only option for the emerging church. If we can’t embrace diversity in the same way of our Evangelical forefathers, then we’re bound to just create another divisive congregation. As it is, everyone can stay put, but change their theology, practice, and possibly even ecclesiology.

Balancing unity and diversity may in fact be the greatest contribution of the emerging church when we look back at it. All of the hubbub about postmodernism, absolute truth, and the other issues that cause controversy may very well be forgotten when future generations look back and marvel at the tremendous Christian unity of the emerging church in the midst of theological diversity.

If you’re interested in this group, as some of my Baptist friends may well be, I’ll post the info from the Baptimergent “About Us” page below.

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Churches in the North, particularly in America and Europe have shown an increasing tolerance toward homosexuality among its clergy and homosexual marriage in general. The Episcopals in America approved an openly gay bishop, while the Anglicans in England have permitted, though not officially approved, homosexual clergy and unions.

We’ve heard the various sides in America and Europe on this issue and I’ve provided some analysis of the main Biblical texts that speak against homosexuality, but today I’m most interested in the perspective presented by the most Rev. Peter Akinola of Nigeria. Ankola has spoken out against the approval of homosexuality. It is important to note that:

“Akinola is motivated less by a desire for schism (or even any distaste for homosexuality per se) than by a sorrowful conviction that Robinson’s ordination in the U.S., along with support in other provinces for gay unions, is the last straw in a series of offenses indicating a massive Western disregard for the authority of the Bible. They say he is not so much trying to blow up the communion as force it, by negotiation and a certain degree of brinkmanship, to rein itself in.” Time Magazine

Therefore, we need to review his comments concerning the homosexual question in the light of the broader debate concerning the authority of scripture. For example, his statement regarding the homosexual issue he shared:

“There is no longer any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion … Now we confront a moment of decision … We want unity, but not at the cost of relegating Christ to the position of another wise teacher, who can be obeyed or disobeyed. We earnestly desire the healing of our beloved Communion, but not at the cost of rewriting the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend. We have arrived at a crossroads; it is, for us, the moment of truth.” Time Magazine

What I’m most worried about is the effect of potential conservative boycott could have on the Anglican Church. I’m sure they have a strategy, but it seems to me if they truly want unity and to uphold the authority of scripture in this church, then it makes much more sense for them to attend their conferences. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback with these theological controversies, but it is concerning to see the divisions that arise concerning biblical interpretation when it comes to the homosexual question.

I believe the homosexual question is one of the most important issues the church faces today. While we never want to be intolerant, hateful, or homophobic toward people who are just like us, we can’t simply sweep the relevant Bible passages under the carpet of cultural trends. When a large body of Christians from continents such as Africa speak against the theology set out by Western Christians, we would do well to take note of their criticism.

For more on this issue, see my link to the best blog post on homosexuality.

About a month ago I reviewed Matthew Paul Turner’s book The Hokey Pokey: Curious People Finding What Life’s All About. I wasn’t a fan of the title or cover, but the book is an entertaining and insightful read. Shortly after that I looked up his blog.

If you like Purgatorio, then you need to swing by his blog Jesus Needs New PR. It’s a fantastic collection of Christian oddities, reflections on Christian sub-culture, and thought-provoking posts. I especially enjoyed his post on “Jesus Hates.” The image of White Republican Jesus is worth the trip over.

Turner is churning out books and has a nice narrative style. I think you’ll find his blog is a fun read and well worth adding to your blog reader or bookmarks.

Blogger’s Note: I wrote the following in response to a conversation I overheard the other day.

I have a secret about the end times that you may not have heard from those concerned with the current events today and the various signs that point so clearly toward the imminent return of Christ. There is a secret underneath all of the different theories abounding amidst the fears that the UN, the rise of Russia, the promulgation of national “unions,” and all of the other “signs of the times” such as earthquakes and floods signaling our world is done for.

Are you ready for the secret? You’ll be blown away by this.

Here it is: Every generation since the time of Christ has thought “Jesus is coming back very, very soon!”

Have you read the New Testament epistles? Paul is absolutely convinced that Jesus is coming back any day now.

During the persecution of the early church people thought God would show up soon to deliver them.

During the rise of Constantine people thought that God would return now that the empire was on the turnaround.

Barbarian invasions, Muslim attacks, the crusades, comets, and anything else you can cook up over the years served as signs that God was returning to earth very, very soon.

Yawn. So much for all that.

Uptight Christians eager to see God return have been freaking out their children with tales of the world ending for ages. And still some persist that the events of today are unique, that all of the scriptures are being fulfilled right before our eyes, and that the news headlines fit with scripture like the perfect puzzle deciphered by skilled Bible scholars.

And guess what, the odds are that we’ll probably be wrong and have gotten all worked up over nothing.

Having said that, keep in mind that the Bible tells us to always be ready, that the Lord will come as a thief in the night when we’re not ready, and that we should not mock the thought of Jesus returning. Rest assured that Jesus is returning. We should think about it, we should be prepared, and we should be aware that he may well return soon.

Can we just drop the rhetoric and stress levels a bit? I’m thinking we need to stop trying to figure out the ways the news and the Biblical prophecies fit together. Chances are most Christians have absolutely no idea how to interpret a prophetic oracle, let alone that the prophets wrote “oracles” in the first place.

So let’s relax a little, love God and one another, and keep in mind that Jesus will return sometime in the near future. We just don’t know when or how it will happen. Being ready for the return of Christ means living a holy life, not fretting over the news headlines.

I was getting kind of nervous that a Boston team hadn’t won a champsionship for like… oh, eight months. I mean those poor Patriots lost to the lowly Giants. How would Boston ever get over it?

The Bruins? No, they only made it into the play offs. Poor guys. They didn’t even make it to the conference finals.

No, it’s the Celtics who brought a championship to this poor town deprived of a winning team for lo these 8 months. Maybe they can make until October when the Red Sox win ANOTHER World Series.

Oh, I’m not bitter. Us Philadelphians don’t NEED a winning sports teams. We’ve given up all hope for that.

Sports are stupid. Just an excuse to put off mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage so we can drink beer and eat greasy food. I’m above all of this sports championship business really. Why if Philadelphia’s, oh I don’t know, hockey team made it to the conference finals I probably wouldn’t follow every detail on espn.com like I did this Spring… I mean, I wouldn’t do it again…

Can anyone figure out a way to curse the Red Sox again?

Sometimes the hardest discussion you can have about religion is with someone convinced that every religion is correct or that all paths lead to God. If we’re talking about the merits of one religion over another, then we can compare and contrast. However, when one person is absolutely convinced that every path works, then we run into an impasse.

On one hand the beliefs of a Christian will be accepted by a universalist (my working word for those who believe all paths lead to God). However, the universalist will be ticked at the Christian because the Christian thinks his beliefs are the only way to God. The universalist will say, “How do you know you have the right way?” The believer will say, “How do you know all ways lead to God?” Both are convinced of their positions, and the universalist may feel slighted because he’s working so hard at being open and accepting, but the believer is ruining it all.

I’ve been trying to dissect this conversation a little, looking at some of the assumptions. I have to confess right off the bat that I’m not sure what a universalist bases his assumptions on other than the fact that no one can prove definitively that one religion is correct. If we can’t show some kind of data or proof, then we’ll never be able to say for once and for all that religion A is the one to follow. Hence the statement, “How can you say you’ve found the right way?”

And here is where the Christian responds with some points the universalist will be unwilling to accept. First of all, Christianity, and many other religions, are based on some kind of experience of God. It’s all about God’s revelation. Jews believe God spoke to Abraham and the prophets, Muslims believe an angel spoke to Muhammed, Christians believe Jesus came to earth, and so on. Most every religion is rooted in some kind of revelation of God that changes people. As a Christian I believe that God was revealed in Jesus and continues to be revealed through the Holy Spirit. This is something experienced both personally and in community, but ultimately it is an unscientific spiritual experience. Even if someone claims to have been healed physically, cured of an addiction, or to have been given a desire to live a holy life, these are all hard to prove to the skeptic or universalist who thinks that all ways lead to heaven.

The other part of Christianity is the content of the revelation itself as recorded in scripture. There is a particular way that God has chosen to reveal himself in contrast to other religions. In other words, God is on the record as saying that his way is correct and all of the others are shams. We see this tension in the Old Testament where God’s people are constantly turning away from the worship of the true God, continually violating the command that there should be no God before the God of Israel. In the New Testament Christianity spreads amidst controversies about its differences from Judaism and Greek religion with its many gods. The New Testament writers were trying to preserve the integrity of God’s revelation in Jesus, contrasting his teachings with the other religions that would have added on to, distorted, and changed the message of Jesus.

And so our universalist friends may ask, “Why do we have to keep Christianity separate from these other religions? Aren’t all paths valid?” This is the point where Christians have to insist that they have had a religious experience with God and therefore are trusting in his revelation, including scripture that presents a picture of the correct way to worship God–a way that excludes other religions. In addition, Christianity has existed as a fairly stable consensus over the years in the forms of the various creeds such as the Nicene and Apostles Creed. Our scripture manuscripts are a bit of a hodge-podge, but on the whole are consistent and reliable even if some scholars today can pick apart some passages. So historically speaking, Christianity is on relatively solid footing.

All of this will most likely not be good enough however for the universalist. They may persist, “But how do you know your experience is valid? How can you say that your scriptures and revelation are the only correct ones?” And then you can respond, “How do you know that every path leads to God?”

And now you’ve spent a lot of time explaining yourself only to arrive at the point where you began. Maybe it was a waste of time, but hopefully it wasn’t. At this point the debate is basically over so far as I can see. Hopefully you can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Technorati Tags: religion - God - Christianity

I’m getting sick of the Google ads on my side bar. I won’t mention what they’re about, lest I encourage them. We’ll just say one of the words in this blog’s title leads to ads for a product you typically find in your bathroom, closet, and bed room. So I’ve tagged on “Theology and Culture” in a half-hearted attempt to train Google to stick with my main subject matter.

Of course I have also blogged about Hillary, and of course an ad for “Hillary Clinton soda” has been popping up. Ack! How stupid. Who would click on such an ad? OK, maybe the curious, but I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton soda. What does it do anyway? What makes it different? Does it taste sweet at first and then turn bitter in your mouth? Does it only appeal to older women and blue collar voters? Does it stand by you even if you’re trying all of the other sodas on the market?

All that to say, if the top of my blog looks a little crammed right now, I’m just working on a little experiment. We’ll see if it works. I’m open suggestions from the designers who may know of a better way to train Google to get ads up there with a slight bit of relevance.

About a month and a half ago I had an absolutely amazing experience that confirmed my desire to stick with this theology and culture writing thing I’ve been committed to of late. I had just finished discussing my writing, especially my commitment to generous, ecumenical, missional, gospel-centered blogging at a local conference. After speaking a number of people shared with me the hope they found in my talk, both Christians and non-Christians. It was nothing short of exhilarating.

To think that my writing could really help people make sense of God, strengthen their faith, or perhaps take them one step closer to knowing God in a more personal way set me on cloud nine for the rest of the day. I thought that I could get used to this.

And then a few weeks ago I met with the other half of this writing and theology thing: mean Christians. This lady was most likely an extreme theological conservative or fundamentalist, but being a fundamentalist does not automatically make you mean. She was just mean and happened to be a fundamentalist… though some fundamentalist beliefs make it easy to be mean and judgmental (I know this from personal experience, but that’s a discussion for another time).

I’ll keep it general, but basically I was on my way to somewhere else. I ran into someone who said, “I told my friend over there about your book and she wanted to talk with you.” Though I was mentally moving on to where I had to go next, I’m always happy to chat theology.

Now keep in mind that Vermont is not Southeastern PA with hordes of Presbyterians, Evangelicals, and Mennonites (among many other denominations such as Catholics, etc.). If you dropped a water balloon on a crowd at a sports game you’ll probably soak a few conservative Christians. The odds of meeting a conservative Christian jump exponentially in the mid-west and south. In Vermont the conservatives are few and far between, and so I generally assume that everyone is a theological liberal. It has worked every time until I met this lady.

She was very interested in my book and asked a lot of questions about my beliefs. When I talked about theology and culture, how culture affects our theology so that we can speak of “American” Theology vs. “Latin American” theology, she grew suspicious, which I took for confusion. I now know she was probing me to see if I agreed with her theology. I explained my fairly ecumenical approach that has been the hallmark of Evangelicals throughout history of focusing on the Gospel as a point of unity. If it’s good enough for Billy Graham, it’s good enough for me. As we talked she asked a rather out of the blue question, “So can God contradict himself.”

Now, if I’m talking with a conservative, I would carefully parse out my statement and never say anything that implies God can make mistakes or errors. When I’m distracted by something else to do and thinking I’m talking with a liberal, I drop my guard a bit. I replied, “Well sure, God changed the law to let Gentiles in…”

She recoiled a bit and said, “Oh, I’m going to pray for you. I mean it. I’m really going to pray for you.”

I can’t put into words my shock at the way she was judging me, patronizing me, making a snap judgment on me based on one sentence, and categorizing me based on laying a little trap in polite conversation. Oh, and the way she was using prayer as tool of judgment. I back peddled and said, “Well it’s not like God makes mistakes only that his revelation changes over time as he moved from Israel in the Old Testament to the New Testament.” I tried to convince her that I’m not some kind of heretic, that I hold to orthodox Christianity.

Realizing that she wasn’t listening to me, only looking down on me severely I asked, “Where do you stand on your theology?”

Her answer? You won’t believe this.

“I used to believe what you do, but praise God I’m not that way anymore.”

The conversation, which was never much of one from his perspective, was basically over. It is terrible to be judged so swiftly and to know that while you share your beliefs in good faith, the person listening on the other end is looking to trap you, to judge you, to insult you. She didn’t think she’s doing any of that, but as the one being judged and patronized, it’s a horrible feeling. It threw me for a loop for a solid day or two. I’m going to stick with this writing and theology thing, but I have a renewed sense of how careful I need to be.

I read the headlines last night and nearly fell out of my chair:

BBC: Clinton will quit and back Obama

NYT: Clinton Ready to End Bid and Endorse Obama

And then I heard a report on NPR that threw me for a loop this morning. All Things Considered reported that Clinton did not technically quit. She did not technically endorse Obama. She did not let go of her superdelegates.

What is she doing then???

She’s suspending her campaign as of Friday, “supporting” Obama for the sake of party unity, and holding onto her superdelegates to keep all of her “options” open for the fall.

I’m thinking of Jesus saying, “Let your no be no and your yes be yes.” Is she quitting? Kind of. Is she still holding on to her bid? Kind of. Is she confusing us and giving Democrats an ulcer? Well, that’s the only thing that’s certain.

Technorati Tags: politics - election - Hillary - Clinton - Obama

I somehow thought it would be a great idea to schedule two major events on consecutive days. What was I thinking? Not only do I have a major event to lead this morning and again this afternoon, I will be hosting a major fund-raising seminar (hosting, not leading that is) on Friday morning, well into 11:00 AM. Talk about crazy.

It isn’t like hosting events is my main job. They’re just side projects more than anything, and so that means I’m still trying to do my regular work while managing the logistics for events. One major event a week is plenty. I hope I can remember that for next time…

Technorati Tags: events - planning

Speeches are lovely things. There may be no greater orator in America than Barack Obama at this point, and he can sure deliver a fine speech. While listening to his address last night in Minnesota, I kept thinking of that scene in Braveheart where William Wallace has just delivered his masterful speech that will propel his rag tag troops into battle against England’s northern army. He returns back to the ranks and his slightly insane partner from Ireland says, “Fine speech. Now what do we do?”

It was kind of a deflating moment. Amidst all of the chanting, cheering, and brandishing of weapons, the fact remains that Wallace only delivered a “fine speech.” He hadn’t won anything or accomplished much. He had merely gotten his men in the mood to die for their country. Nothing to sneeze at no doubt, but still… it was just a speech.

Obama made a lot of great points last night. Points that I agree with such as:

“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon - that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize.”

That makes me want to shout hallelujah. Death to the exploitation of religion for political gain, I say. In one sentence he condemned the fear mongering used to pass the Patriot Act and to sell the Iraq war, while also vowing to avoid the shameful exploitation of religion so popular under Bush. McCain is already using the terrorist threat as a major reason why people should vote for him, but Obama claims he’ll keep away from this.

We’ll see. Fine speech Mr. Obama. Fine speech.

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“Well it’s about time” is all I have to say.