Joel Hunter taught me a course at seminary on church organization. Joel's backgroung is Methodist but was allowed to teach a course at RTS. I had interviewed and had been accepted as an associate pastor at his church at Northland to help in counseling and marriages etc. I decided to go to a service as I had not actually attended one at Northland.

This particular Sat. evening (about 5+ services/weekend) as part of the service in passing, Joel told the audience that SDA's did not celebrate Christmas and did not allow Christmas trees. Upon pointing out the fallacy of this later to Joel, I got merely a weak apology.

I withdrew my application from the position with regrets.

Joel was too informed not to understand what he was saying and I lost respect for his intellectual integrity. However Northland does many good things.

I will not be attending though within 50 miles of my home.

regards,

pat

Thanks Pat

For that insight. Integrity is critical 24/7 and at any place of our limited frame.

I do agree that the face of evangelicalism is changing in both directions. Tom

Pat, thanks for your support.

We provide free online space. We try to gather in person for conversation and the first thing you do is slag off our speaker with a pretty weak anecdote.

Everyone gets stuff wrong, particularly about the weird mixes of history in denominations (in fact, some Adventists didn't celebrate Christmas, for precisely the pagan tree reason) and Dr. Hunter is actually good friends with several Adventists in the area, so he certainly didn't mean any harm. What did you want? A hard apology? I think that we've all been in situations, which, upon reflection we might have been clearer. He apologized, but you're publicly questioning his intellectual honesty?

That just seems ungentlemanly, particularly when Joel can't share his side. Is this really how you treat your conversation partners?

Come on Alex, you know as well as anyone, that the broad brush is the tool of someone trying to simplify the complex. Yes there are wackos that feel Easter is "evil" because Sunday gets attention at that time. We Adventists are afraid to worship at a Sunday sunrise Easter service for fear we might get the wrong spirit, right. Anybody that clumps all SDAs like that ought to be chastised, and offer how he arrived at such conclusions, was the person representative of the "tribe"?

Your fumbling to defend him is unbecoming. Let him do it!!!

Hunter weakens his influence, IMO, with the environmental issue. When you look at 100 years, there seems to be cause for alarm, when you look at 2000 or 6000 we going through a phase. We as Christians should act responsible on the short and long term of this issue, but don't contribute to the alarmists like Al Gore and his ilk.

Alex,

The event took place 12/02. I saved our email discourse but will not share his. A portion of mine quoting what he said in the sermon is, "I discovered something tonight that I did not know as a fourth generation Adventist, from your opening comments. That we "Adventist have a problem with Christmas due to a Catholic plot." I have celebrated Christmas all of my life, Joel...at SDA churches, at SDA church schools, and in my home."

I said to Joel that I would accept his apology if I ever got a tape of him setting the record straight during a service at Northland.

Sorry if I have offended you Alex.

It is hard enough defending us on what we do believe sometime without having this type of false information at the time from one who should know better!!

pat

May I add a PS.Alex.

I like Joel. He has a ministry at Northland that serves many and that was the reason I applied.One that does that has something to say. He gave my commencement address at RTS.

I also believe we must as Christians be careful that our characterizations of other beliefs are accurate before stating them.We are responsible for our words. His comment was foolishness from someone who should have known better.

Perhaps in the last 6 years he has corrected that foolish SDA characterization publically in his church where he delivered it and if so I will most readily accept his apology and consider it genuine.

I encourge always the hearing of other opinions. I have never met many that could not offer me an insight of some kind. I will be out of the country that weekend or I might come to meet the other members and panel discussion. I know Joel's position already.

regards,

pat

I have found that whenever we invite qualified people of influence to speak to us we learn from them but in turn they learn from us. This doesn't always happen, though usually it does.

It is really remarkable how much more willing thoughtful people are to listen to us when we are willing to listen to them. And it is so easy!

Dave

Joel Hunter owes Adventists an apology.

I earlier intended the following quote published in the Winter 2007 issue of Harvard Divinity Bulletin for another thread in this same site - Who are... [Jesuits?]:-) It's from an interview of Krister Stendahl, professor emeritus, who died recently at age 86.

'I would apply the same rules for good leadership that I often do for effective interfaith dialogue: let the other define herself ("Don't think you know the other without listening"); compare equal to equal (not my positive qualities to the negative ones of the other); and find beauty in the other so as to develop "holy envy."

http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag/articles/35-1_stendahl_inte...

Alex and David,

I read Pat's original post entirely differently. Pat was saying he got a job offer from a man who used the pulip to distort the congregational view of Adventism. Pat, naturally felt there was not common ground for cooperation in that environment. I was offered a job at the University of Southern California and was required to be interviewed by the most powerful man on that Board of Trustees. I spent two hours with him. As I drove out of his parking lot, I knew that we were miles apart with no possibility of getting any closer together. I declined the position. Later me met on many neutral occasions and found sufficient
mutural topics to keep the air pleasant. To find two Dutchmen to agree on anything for an hour's conversation is a feat to be remembered Tom

The only apology I want is from the people who put the conference in Florida. (I say that in jest, just to be clear)

It looks like it will be a good conference - a good chance to interact with people and extend the conversations that have been happening here.

I'm sorry that I won't be able to make the trek. I can barely afford to smell gas these days, let alone use enough to get to Florida and back.

When is the next Left Coast AAF conference?

I have to admit, Alex's tone of defensiveness of Joel Hunter seems to not be in keeping with Spectrum's spirit of open dialogue. I agree, these blogs should be respectful, but a lack of honesty will lead to groupthink.

Pat's experience was obviously not a "weak anecdote" from his point of view. I don't think Pat was trying to slander the guy, but to offer his experience as a reminder that people who speak for others need to check their facts and be willing to "listen" before they generalize. This also goes for some Adventists who like to make broad assumptions about "Sunday-keepers" and other groups.

Thanks,
Kris

I'm not convinced that anecdote reveals any sort of deep-seeded bias against us. I think it points to ignorance on his part and Larson is right- these conferences provide attendees and speakers alike with opportunities to learn and grow.

It's a shame you'll be out of town Pat. It sounds like it would be good for you to be there!

Bias or ignorance, either way, it deserves an apology to people concerned, don't you think?

Dave and Alex of all people know the broad "spectrum" of views on holidays from "pagan" origins held by "some" Adventists, and should take to task those that broad brush us.

In the Adventist church I use to attend, there were "wackos" every Christmas that brought out the same tired arguments and the same group who knew they were "wackos" and ignored them and put up their Christmas tree and enjoyed Christmas with the kids. Apology needed, IMO. He knew better, just like my observation, he probably has a similar one that he knows is not indicative of a doctrinal position of Adventists.

As someone new to the Adventist faith, I want to remind you that the rest of the world, even the rest of the Christian world, does not have a very clear picture of what Adventists believe and stand for. I'm actually impressed Hunter knew even a mischaracterization of Adventist beliefs - I know that most people simply don't know anything. That's a tough realization to come to, I know, that principles we find core to our identity are not all that important to other people, and things we might remember for 6 years were forgotten by others in 6 seconds, but that's a necessary realization for interacting in the big, wide world.

I would encourage all of us to use these cross-denominational experiences as two-way educational opportunities. We must enter into them with the humility to know that we do not know the 'other' as well as we know ourselves - and the humility to know that we don't even know ourselves as well as we think! ESPECIALLY in a conference devoted to engaging the role of Adventist faith in the public square (i.e. beyond the world where everyone knows what Adventism is), it is CRUCIAL that we enter these conversations with humility and generosity.

This conference sounds like a great opportunity to continue these conversations on identity and witness in a world much bigger than ourselves.

A few more comments,

I know Joel Hunter as a once Professor of "Theology of Ministry."

Joel is well informed. He allowed my friend Des Ford to have a place for several meetings in the 90's at Northland. I assure you Des did not tell him that.

We live in Orlando, Fla.where perhaps the best knowledge of a large number of SDA's exist perhaps outside of LLU and the W.Coast because of Fla. Hospital.

The "motives" of why Joel said that I do not know...but I suggest it was not out of ignorance.

I do like Joel. I like many people I don't agree with on various subjects. When you speak to as many as Joel it is my belief that he should be careful about the facts for his own credibility.

My point was that for me it is more important that he give an apology to his hearers at Northland than me or necessarily SDA's for misleading them. Then I would accept that indirectly as an apology. The venue for apology to SDA's is not readily availiable.

This was not bridge building but bridge destruction by the comment.

Thanks and I hope the conference is beneficial to many.

pat

Bravo Audrey. Thanks for that! I like anabaptists :)

Pat,
I think it's a mistake to not assume the best. After all, he did accept the invitation. I look forward to spending time in Central Florida!

Well, from this quote, he shouldn't be offended by the Adventist Net 19-- or 20-- way of broadcasting a unified message. Wonder why there is only one hub that can put out the "truth"?

"In order to more fully realize the potential of a truly distributed church, Northland opened its new facility in August 2007. The multimillion dollar, 3,100 seat building used much of its budget on technology that enables it to be a hub capable of transmitting enormous amounts of data each weekend to multisites around the world. With this new capability, Northland's InSite Webstream[2] has become the first fully interactive, online worship service in the world. The 8,000-plus attendees that come to the site in Longwood, Florida each weekend no longer worship alone. Every weekend, along with over 1,000 plus worshipers in Central Florida at several multisite locations, thousands more join in the service from over 1,500 locations across the world for interactive, concurrent worship."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Hunter#The_Distributed_Church

The "cookie cutter" approach as one thing going for it, one preacher, one message, but why can't more than one preacher get it right?

I don't want to take away from the "distributed" concept, but on Sunday it's Hunter only, whether in the church or by TV screen. Somehow that seems very Adventish.

Well, here we are arguing over an anecdote of an exchange and as usual we're really talking about larger issues.

It seems to me that these include, but are not limited to, misunderstandings about Adventism (which can be frustrating, but are rarely just the non-Adventist's sole fault), the propriety of relating a personal dispute publicly without the other person being present, a bit on climate change, and Jared's clear regional self-centered preferences. : )

Going to school and working in a multi-faith context, I get to be around lots of folks who I don't understand as well as they'd like and vice versa. I've made mistakes about Islam, Catholicism, and the Disciples of Christ. I've had folks make some pretty gross generalizations about Adventists too, which I've set straight, sometimes with a good theological argument.

As a pretty privileged straight, white, male, one thing that I've gained from seeing misunderstandings about Adventism comes from experiencing how pretty limited evidence creates assumptions which can be blow in much bigger stereotypes. This has helped me empathize more broadly with folks from differ by socio-economic experience, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, as well as religious beliefs and practices.

Pat, I'm strongly sorry for my initial reaction. : ) Although I object to questioning a person's intellectual honesty (and motives?) from a personal anecdote, particularly when that person is not present, this does give us a chance to think about how we pass around personal impressions of human identities.

I know that Joel has had folks proffer uncharitable stereotypes of him due to his evangelicalism and out-of-the-box variety of issue positions. It seems to me that in Christian community, not to mention human solidarity, we work to inform others, not make them publicly embarrassed for the mistakes that we all make. Perhaps I could do this better?

In fact, today I was talking with a new person in my office who had spent four months on a student exchange program with an Adventist family in South Africa. The first thing she heard from them was the question: do you worship on Sunday or Saturday? She said Sunday. The parents were warm, but their young son turned away in disgust. While she became good friends with the family, the kids did call her a Jezebel for wearing earrings.

Something like this is even more complicated. Prohibiting "outward adornment" is still part of our fundamental belief number 22. To say Adventists do wear jewelery can be both true and false at the same time, since folks have differing ideas about what "outward adornment" means and plenty of Adventists in good standing don't give it a thought.

The theologically trained especially, but all of us have a duty to push beyond media stereotypes, small sample generalizations, a couple of proof texts, and the general negativism that links behavior to identity. Of course Joel shouldn't have concluded that just because some Adventists do something that all do that or that it's a general, cultural or official practice. But all humans are too complex and operate in too many spheres to have our intellectual honesty and motives questioned.

One of the worst things that we can ever do is to ascribe motives without asking others to put their views in their own words. The giants of humanity that I admire always assume the best about Others - and in return, foster it.

One last comment from me. I SAID I did not know his motives but his comments were not out of ignorance.

You said, "Pat, I'm strongly sorry for my initial reaction. : ) Although I object to questioning a person's intellectual honesty (and motives?) from a personal anecdote, particularly when that person is not present, this does give us a chance to think about how we pass around personal impressions of human identities."

Joel's comments were made in a public forum without SDA's knowingly present...thought about that? Send him my comments, you have my permission. I am not ashamed of anything I said and it is exactly what occured.

pat

When I emailed Joel back after his response I said. Joel there are "some" dispensationalist that worship there at Northland. How would you feel if I said they teach dispensationalism at Northland? Would that be an appropriate characterization? Reponsible accurate info is all I am after from the pulpit.

Alex

I read Pat entirely different. I read Pat as saying two things: 1. Joel's comments to his congregation lead him to reconsider working with Joel. 2. With pat's experience one can expect that Joel tends to fashion his remarks to the audience which may or may not represent his true beliefs.

I think those observations are valid and probably true to most speackers paid to please as well as inform. I don't think Pat said, cancel Joel. He either said or implied that Pat would probably not attend. I think those comments were well within the pale of Spectrum's threads.

Because of age and distance, I will not attend. However, I believe, Joel would have somethings I would personally find enlightening. Thank you for selecting a wide range of speakers. Tom P.S. I personally like a guy like Pat that tells it as it is without caustic intent. Tom

Alex, come off your high horse. It wasn't too long ago you were encouraging me to go start my own blog, due to your personal feelings about me.

RDS: that's a pretty funny acontextual misrepresentation of what I said. My feeling there was with your own blog you would then have the burden of actually articulating pro/con arguments, rather than merely complaining about the gay marriage discussion we were having at the time. The context was you attacking this blog for being too extreme, so in that blog definition context - not over who can comment - I suggested you create a more appealing, thoughtful "mainstream" site. One doesn't obviate the other.

I find that particularly interesting in light of Michael's complaint about some who should stop trying to broaden their church as members, suggesting that they start their own. This happens in any community, the ol' "love it or leave it" chant. But that's not my philosophy.

It is because I love and respect the people in my country and religious community that I'm committed to engagement for mutual benefit.

I'm all for open discussion of the issues raised, but complaining on the Spectrum Blog that the issues are raised, which is what you did regarding gay marriage and dismissing this discussion as well is actually a way of trying to stifle open conversation. This happens all the time when folks can't actually articulate winning arguments and so they just resort to trying to attack people or shut down the discussion. One doesn't have to like the topic or me to stay here, but we do ask for a modicum of personal consideration and substantive retorts.
_____

Pat, I do notice that you keep implying that "he should know better." Or that "his comments were not out of ignorance." I know Adventists who should know their own faith better, so I'm willing to give a non-Adventist some slack here, particularly without a smoking gun like him telling someone that he just wants to spread falsity about us. In saying that someone should know better, the evidence lies with you to show it beyond assuming that we would rub off in Orlando. Having lived in Loma Linda and Berrien Springs, I know that we haven't been that great about actually sharing what we believe. Notice that most witnessing stories happen on airplanes to anonymous strangers, not to the people in our own communities.

All this, especially since Adventists have a pretty bad history of making up all kinds of things about Catholics. Speck in their eye, beam in ours. . .

You write: "I said to Joel that I would accept his apology if I ever got a tape of him setting the record straight during a service at Northland."

And you withdrew your application.

Don't you think that an even better correction of the record and a more broad representation of Adventism would have been you serving at Northland as a Christmas-loving Adventist?

I could see, after a few weeks of your winning spirit around the church, Joel bringing you onstage and saying, here's a real live Adventist. I was wrong back then, but Pat witnessed to me. . .

But through the demand for a public apology (rarely works with even the most self-aware male egos) the deeper result, that folks in the church get beyond the anecdote, wasn't achieved.

I would have thought that Joel's remark was fair comment. My perspective would be that there are a few who get hyper about the connection between pagan origins and Christian Tradition, but most of us recognise and join in the cultural trappings of Christmas and Easter, our churches will celebrate the season on the closest Sabbath but relatively few Adventist churches will be open on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, if they are, they would be less well attended than a typical Sabbath. The reverse would be true in other christian churches.

The main question related to our relationship with Evangelical - ism. I have found that I can learn from all kinds across the spectrum, but need another -ism like a hole in the head.

Evangelicalism is itself very broad, and seems to include groups even more fundamentalist that Adventists on some issues and obviously vice versa. The classification is unhelpful.

I prefer to evaluate people and their contribution as they come. Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed, they all have something to say.

Staying non-aligned suits me better.

The program looks interesting, just not far enough east!

If the objective of Hunter is to meld evangelicals and human secularists, it ought to be interesting what is "spit" out. A better community maybe, more understanding about what saves, doubtful. Can't we all get along, seems to be the question he is asking, and the answer is yes if we are tolerant of differences. Does humankind do a good job at that, Rodney King and the brick to the head of a truck driver totally innocent of wrong doing was a demonstration of that.

The objective of the church is to outreach, yes, to get melded with the secular humanists, with what in mind? A better world, or a greater understanding of what saves.

Alex, just remember, it wasn't a discussion about gay marriage it was "Why SDAs should support Gay Marriage", right?

If the Democrats waiting to get a Democrat in the White House before anything is done, so it doesn't look like they like George Bush or wish to make it look like he got anything done in his last 6 months, with gas at $4.00 a gallon, and supposedly global warming a crisis, is any indication of how the secular humanists (left wing religionists) will respond to this melding with right wing fundamentalists, it should be interesting in the Board Room of Northland.

An SDA Conference President once told me about church politics, "He who has the gold, rules."

Victor writes "Staying non-aligned suits me better."

I agree, both in how Adventists identify with the larger faith world and in politics.

Seventh-day Adventism is just too rich a mix of traditions and cultures to ever pin down.

And as many interesting Christian leaders say: we don't endorse their agenda. We set it and if they want to get elected, they endorse our values.

Alex

Would it make a difference that Joel responded to me saying that he was speaking of "extreme Adventist" that wrote him yet made NO such reference in his sermon to that effect? It followed mentioning that JW's don't observe xmas and have trees.

really all for me this thread........

pat

Why doesn't someone write Joel and tell him that the Seventh-day Adventists in Augusta, Ga not only have decorated Christmas Trees but following the holiday season then purchase a cement block tie a none decaying cord around the base of the tree and take it out to the 300 foot deep portion of Clark Hill Lake and drop it into the lake so that it sinks to the bottom. Small baby fish use it for protection until they are big enough to be game for the annual Bass Fishing Contest in which the top prize is $50,000. Sometimes a portion of that prize money ends up in a Church offering plate. After all Peter and friends were fishmen without power boats even. The bottom-line is Seventh-day Adventists like Green in trees and in money just like Joel's church..

I remember teaching at Marquette and walking daily past St Joseph the Worker Catholic Church recalled E.G. White's warning that in the deepest recesses of Roman Churches the torure would be repeated. I didn't see anything down there that didn't look like any other basement but I always walked just a little bit faster. I still get they quarterly Alumni Journal seems they are more interested in basketball. If Joel said what he is alleged to have said, shame on him--it is not proper pulpit talk. The pulpit is a place to tell the story of Jesus with or without trees. Tom

Sounds like a broadbrush picture was painted out of a kernel of truth. (How's that for mixing metaphors?)

However, within my own home church, within the last decade, there was controversy over a Christmas tree in the sanctuary, and candles in the windows. Members could do what they wanted at home, we could maybe think about putting a tree in the church basement, but forget the sanctuary. Talk about inconsistency! But, there was no tree the next Christmas season. Made me think we should observe the 1,521 regulations around Sabbath observance while we're at it.

Christmas trees anywhere in the buliding of my wife's former church in Bucharest? Absolutely verboten! No questions asked!

This is some of the 'straining out gnats' stuff in Adventism that has made me want to scream. Maybe Joel Hunter hit closer to home than more progressive Adventists think.

Thanks...

Frank

We've really have gone off track haven't we!

Thanks Bonnie for posting this article that allows us to familiarise ourselves better with one of the speakers at the upcoming Adventist Forums conference in Orlando, Florida!

From that article-

Hunter believes that the coalition of social, economic, and foreign-policy conservatives that made up Bush’s Republican Party cannot last. He claims to be undecided about whom he will vote for in November. “It’s going to get very nasty,” he says.

How true those words have turned out to be! From the Evangelical Manifesto to the EnVision 2008 conference at Princeton and more, many Evangelicals are looking beyond the broken promises of Bush and embracing Obama who knows their concerns well. From a revamped faith-based initiatives office to the beginnings of healthcare as right not privilege, creation care and beyond, McCain and Obama can both be said to be actively trying to court disaffected members of the coalition that elected George W. Bush.

We know about nasty... I wish he was wrong about the latter part of his prediction although I'm quite pleased with the former!

Thanks again!

Johnny,

Be careful of a strong delusion my friend.

Post-Millennialism in modern garb and a secularized myth of redemptive history...the exchange of hope "from original sin to human perfectability and replacing Christ as our substitute with Jesus as the model of the new human, the triumph of this worldliness was complete and the way was opened for the church to join the secularized millennial vision." Stanley Grenz, "Millenial maze."

pat

Johnny said,

" many Evangelicals are looking beyond the broken promises of Bush and embracing Obama who knows their concerns well."

So which broken promise do you suppose a melding of left and right is going to get solved by Obama, Johnny? Which broken promise is it that concerns you? Seems to me there is grid lock in DC. I think I would sit it out too and just collect my Presidential retirement and see what Obama is able to do with Reid and Pelosi. Maybe gas will be $6.00 a gallon by then, due to inaction by the opposition. Oops, those in Congressional power aren't the opposition, they're in the driver's seat, I forgot? Did you?

Anybody heading to this AF Conference should read this interview on PBS with Prof John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion about the "new generation of evangelicals". Just as Prolife, and just as anti Gay Marriage but apparently the Global Warming and the AIDS in Africa have got their attention and George Bush's "Compassonate Conservatism" wasn't compassionate enough. What an informative interview:

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/404/evangelicals-politics.html

Between Rick Warren and Joel Hunter, look out, Obama is our next president, probably.

Thanks Bonnie for posting this article. I'm sorry this thread got so off track by one person's anecdotal encounter and another person's vociferous defense of it--it's funny to me how the entire tone of a thread can get thrown off by one or two people who seem to spend their entire day on this site.

Clearly there will be more education happening on both sides at the conference, as it should be. I have no doubt I've said something really stupid or ignorant (in public) without thinking, and I'm glad most folks seem to extend grace and realize we're all human at times. There is a lot of misinformation about Adventists out there. My parents just got back from vacation, and when they tried to visit the local SDA church three different people gave them directions to the Mormon church in town.

I appreciated Audrey's comment (especially since she's new to Adventism). "I would encourage all of us to use these cross-denominational experiences as two-way educational opportunities. We must enter into them with the humility to know that we do not know the 'other' as well as we know ourselves - and the humility to know that we don't even know ourselves as well as we think!"

I don't want to make this too personal, but Stephanie is a good example of SDAism obsessed with assumptions and time. Stephanie doesn't know me, whether I work at night, part time, retired, yet she makes remarks about MY time on this forum, which really is none of her business. Contribute, when you can, be part of the discussion, but follow Alex's rule, as he has charged me. [by the way I don't see Alex running to tone down Stephanie as he did Pat...] Read the first chapter of Hunter's "A New Kind of Conservative".

http://www.nacdweb.org/files/ANKC/ANKC_Chapter1.pdf

Are you ready to solve Africa's problem with AIDS, or work with Extemist Muslims that have vowed to kill us. Hunter is to be lauded for his motto:

“vote with your life”

With India and China unwilling to protect the environment like the US or other courntries that have put up, are we willing to have further deficit spending to do India and China's share. Very idealistic, I just hope it can be more than rhetoric without breaking the "bank".

Have your meeting and learn from it. Does ones going mean endorsement or seeking? Tom

P.S. I can recall The Brinsmead era. People would go just to count heads to see who they could tell on. We have freedom of assembly, thank the Deists. Never-the-less, prior knowledge of the speaker's previous comments would be helpful in placing his current words in perpective. Tom

Hunter was the first influential minister in evangelical circles to publicly refute the notion that Jesus was a white, republican and that the ultraconservative wing of the party was the chosen vehicle of his agenda. While I can't speak for the entire NAD, I can state that this was the commonly held viewpoint among my fellow Adventist educators in the southwestern union in 2006 when I retired. (Of course it was also understood that Jesus was an SDA)

Hunter along with other evangelical luminaries like Rick Warren has challenged the Christian community to adopt a hands-on political and personal mission whose focus more closely mirros the actual ministry of our Lord. So far, they have made modest but shocking gains.

Our church seems to be struggling in a similar fashion as we face the new millennium. Do we continue to direct the lion’s share of our efforts and resources evangelizing the world, or do we choose to make a more direct and palpable contribution in the communities in which we live.

Pat,
Good comment. I agree.

RDS,
I'm all smiles at your, having read my comment on trends predicted by Hunter in the New Yorker piece, assuming that I'm an Obama hack.

To be perfectly honest I've already observed the campaign of a candidate promising change while pandering to Christian voters. I was interested in Bush for a whole month. And my love affair with Obama barely outlasted my reading of The Audacity of Hope.

Nope, I am sorry to disappoint you but then again you'll have good company because all my friends don't get why I'm not gaga over Obama. Like Pat suggested, not only do my hopes lie outside of politics or anything of this world but I simply don't like politicians who pretend to be more than what they are. That is, power-hungry compromised pragmatists.

I thought my generation was supposed to be cynical. Or was that the past generation. I know that many baby boomers have a knee-jerk aversion of authority....

whatever.

Now the question is which lying politician is most palpable? They all taste bad but some less than others... Obama doesn't taste that bad.

My favourite politicians are the ones who promote an agenda I can support and don't pretend to be anything other than what we all know they are. I love Jerry Lewis.

/echoing Stephanie's sentiment, and sharing a desire for this conversation to be at least somewhat related to the post, I would agree with Hunter that this election is one which can serve as a watershed moment. I think that the fact that Evangelicals are, having been disappointed by one too many Republicans, considering voting for Barack Obama points to such a watershed.

I'm getting my husband, who happens to be more cynical than me, this bumper sticker:

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/you-asked-for-it-you-got-i...

He's pretty disillusioned by all politicians needless to say but still faithfully votes.