Talking About... Something

Okay, I do not normally spend time examining the foibles of various candidates for political office, but this is just too tempting to pass up, partly because I have a niece who lives in Minnesota. I’m very fond of her, she’s even more liberal than I am and I just have to ding her once in a while about Michele Bachmann.

To begin with Bachmann’s opening line here is not quite as horrible as it sounds. “White People” is the name of the band that played before she came on. One does, of course, have to question the judgement of the campaign staff who signed up that band for a political rally.

"I'm here to talk about the creator of the universe, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Well, given the theory of the unified nature of the Holy Trinity she may be technically right, but the Son of God is seldom thought of as the Creator, but more often as the Savior, so she seems a little confused. The Trinity is usually referred to as God the Creator, Christ the Savior and Holy Ghost the Redeemer.

Now I'm an Episcopalian, so maybe fundamentalists have different roles for the Trinity, but if the Son is the Creator, what role does that leave for the Father? Even for someone who denies evolution you’d think it’s difficult for the Son to create the Father. It’s usually the other way around.

Later in the piece she says, and emphasizes, that “God is not partial,” and then, as part of the same topic, describes how God helped two soldiers defeat an entire army. I think her definition of “not partial” may be just a little bit different than mine.

She also says that she became religious because a bunch of people prayed for her to do so and that changed her, which reminds me of a guy I used to know in Atlanta. He told me that a mutual friend had recovered from an illness because he had prayed for him and, when I questioned further, insisted that the guy would not have recovered had he not done so. In other words, he told God to make the guy well and God saluted smartly and did what he was told. Awesome.

And any person who takes to the stage for the avowed purpose of talking about Jesus Christ and starts by cheerfully declaiming "Who likes white people?" without qualifying that question has most certainly got a screw loose.