[OBW]

Jane,

I will agree that we, the people of God, need to repent. We always do. And we mostly don't want to. There was probably a lot you could say that would have been clearer, but you tied your thoughts to Cahn which probably did not truly express your thoughts.

In a different context (both secular and religious) I have this problem. I hold to a number of positions that a lot of others do as well. Positions such as on abortion, homosexuality, immigration reform, racial issues, and on and on. What I find most unsettling is that people who would stand up as spokespersons for many of those positions do not hold them in the same way. They are smug, nasty, belligerent, and even downright hateful. And I'm not just talking about the politicians trying to win favor with the "right" but also the leaders of so-called Christian organizations. And that means that if I open my mouth to talk about one of those positions, I get branded as "on of those kooks" rather than considered in a rational way.

Whether it is Rush Limbaugh, or the latest leader of some Christian coalition, they are too prone to demeaning and demanding rather than arguing positions.

And, unfortunately, you had something you wanted to say (that is probably very important). But you let someone who is pushing a ridiculous position say it for you. And as a result, you didn't say what you thought you were. You said what he said. You said all those things about "Christian Nation." You may not have intended it. But you did. And the only part of what he said that you really seem to have been aligned with is a need to repent.

And I will agree with that more than many would think. In fact, we need it so much because our typical worship has only a slight dusting of repentance. While I still would not want to be a regular participant in a church that is excessively liturgical, there is something about a liturgy that reserves time to stop thinking about what God as done for me, and how glorious everything is and think about how I do not deserve any of it. Even after doing this day after day, week after week, year after year, I still need to repent regularly. And so I do. A "worship service" could bookend the time with singing or reading, but the song will not be "I'm trading my sorrows," but "Lord have mercy on me." The reading will not be from the Psalms of praise, but of contrition. "Have mercy on me, Oh God, according to your steadfast love."

Sometime we just don't have the way to express what we want to say. Find a better stand-in than Cahn. It's like letting Rush Limbaugh give the altar call. "You sorry sinners better repent because you don't even deserve to stay in the country and vote if you don't." (That was hyperbolic but kind of typical of things he has said in pushing his agenda. And Cahn, Jewish or not, has become deluded with a false god — the United States of America.)

Despite my seeming harshness in posting, I am moved to repent. Repent that I too often say and do things that are not charitable to my "neighbor." And in this day and age, virtually everyone is your neighbor. That I want desperately to be righteous, just, and loving even with those that I would call sinners. And since I don't like people loving me in harsh ways, I try not to substitute so-called "tough love" for love since I would not love myself in that way. And since I generally fail at that, I get to repent a lot. We shouldn't need a revival to do it. It should be part of daily, or at least weekly life. Like those mooing cows that follow a liturgy. Those people that we learned to despise so strongly. Maybe they are more likely to be the "neighbor" in the story about the good Samaritan than any of the rest of us are.

That sets me to considering my need for repentance much more than someone laying the blame for 9/11 and so many more "ills" in our society at our feet for lack of repentance. Rain falls on the just and the unjust. Job did not "deserve" what he got. But he got it anyway.