Soccer Mom: Unplugged

This morning I had the dubious privilege of listening to Day1, a radio program out of Atlanta that touts itself as "the voice of the Protestant church" bringing " inspiring sermons from America's finest mainline Protestant preachers".  Unfortunately, my listening experience was more of a political rally than a spiritual one.

Today's guest preacher, The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers, of Oklahoma preaches an unabashedly liberal form of Christianity.  The pre and post sermon interview referenced Bush, American policy, and Meyers' fears that Oklahomans are too far right leaning.  The Reverend likened American fundamentalists to Timothy McVeigh.  Hypocritically, Meyers sandwiched a comment about the dangers of blurring religion and politics between his lines of partisan rhetoric. 

Dr. Meyers accuses many Christians (we can be sure he means the socially conservative, politically right leaning variety)  of exhibiting a lack of empathetic moral imagination.  Meyers believes we cannot imagine what it is like to suffer under the title "the axis of evil" or lose a child to the evil and oppressive American military machine.  Perhaps Meyers is correct.  I'll admit my preference is to face down real, rather than imagined, problems.

Permit me the luxury of providing an example. 

As Saddam Hussein rose to power, he was forced, as is the burden of the tyrant, to instill fear in his people.  A program called (if memory serves) "My Iraq" that aired Friday night recounted an event that even my limited imagination could grasp and it filled me with empathy.  In a brutal form of housecleaning, Hussein and his henchmen violently removed threats to their power including anyone who supported political opponents.  In one such instance, the armed minions of Saddam entered a house and forced a man to his knees at gunpoint.  They demanded to know his political affiliation. 'I support no one in particular.  I'm just trying to be a good Mulsim.' was his response.  Again and again they demanded his 'confession' of being a subversive.  When he refused to admit guilt, they stripped his newborn child from the arms of his wife and threw the child into the stone wall of the house. The blood and brains of their infant splattered all over their faces, the sobbing father still refused to confess, and was killed.

Dr. Meyers,  I ask you, why is your Christian responsibility to to this widow and her orphaned children impeded by your moral imagination.  It is wonderful that you can imagine being gay and you can sympathize with the horrible infringement of not being allowed to marry.  Now can you close your eyes and see the horrific remains of a shattered newborn cranium.  Can you see that some things must be stopped and that there is not a luncheon over which you can convince men bent on evil to repent and turn away from such depravity?  Can you imagine, Dr.?  Can you?

Can you imagine your grandmother aborting your mother?  Can you imagine the impact of a world without Mozart, Einstein, Ghandi, Mother Theresa? 

In fairness, Dr. Meyers and his congregation work serving meals and reaching out to locals in need.  Those are worthwhile endeavors on which we can agree.  They address actual, not imaginary, problems.  But the naivete of believing that Christianity can only be selectively applied to feel good circumstances belies a simplistic faith.  Discipleship requires doing the hard thing as well as the warm and fuzzy one.