It’s not by accident that the sermon on the mount addresses anger and contempt as serious problems.

Contrast this with the quote attributed to Martin Luther King: “If you would change a man, first you must love him, and he must know that you love him.”

What would happen if we stopped calling the opposition names and started actually loving them?

I’m willing to bet we’d find out that lots of important truths are hidden by our contempt, and both sides would discover that love reveals truth in the same way that contempt blinds us not only to the truth, but also to our own blindness.

It seems to me we have a long list of media entertainment (and politicians) that we should turn off if we use the Sermon on the Mount as the guide. As someone who spends many hours on the road, having something provocative and funny to listen to helps pass the time and keep one alert. I think most Christians can separate the wheat from the chaff.

I have found that church (not unlike good salesmanship) is always better if you keep politics out of it.

I admit I’m a genuine “ditto-head” and student of Advanced Conservative studies, with professor Rush . . . but you need to relax and only allow him to offend you if it fits. ;o)

People have often accused me of being too instense (especially with my faith–or politics), but I enjoy a good laugh and a hearty poke at a liberal. (Relax, I’m just trying to get a rise out of you).

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Well then after leaving one of the most liberal universities and town in america….I rediscovered that the Jesus I fell in love with in 2000 in my dorm room each night while reading through Matthew, then Mark, then Luke and then John…started to come alive again. I couldn’t believe the words I was seeing and till this day I am a little intimidated by the message in those books: one that clearly states that those who follow Jesus are to care for the least of these and how it’s easier for a rich man to travel through a really really really small, all most impossible size hole in a needle. Snap…so one of the first things I did was send a message to my old college roommate and apologized for my outlandish statement that to be pro-Jesus, one must be pro-Republican as described by those on Fox News. As I started to grapple with Jesus’s message in the gospels I started to be moved in the area of social justice and environmental awareness and even a little animal rights..and this was due to reading the bible, not turning on CNN or reading the NY Times. It was clear that I was being pulled away from one side of the spectrum and encouraged by the views of the other. As I struggled with my new perspectives and new convictions to care for the poor and the environment, the believers around me still stood firm and confidentially on the right. I remember blurting out at a Christian men’s retreat after the conversation went astray on politics (i.e. bashing democrats) that “I am a liberal” and I left the room to make a point that I didn’t fit into their conversation, and I was actually embarrassed by what was being said. When I returned to the room moments later I was told by some of the folks that I wasn’t liberal. Well of course I thought, to be a christian is to be a republican…oh man I was a fish out of water.

To cut things short and leave the blogging to Ken, what has helped me lately move forward in discovering more of who I am and the life I am being called to live by the father, is to view the political landscape and religious landscape as separate entities so they can be viewed in their proper light. Leave the politics to caesar and the media, and continue to shed the fat in my life in pursuit of what is good. I still hope to be a voice for the marginalized and ultimately Jesus, but for me that means to turn the radio down (except for my new found love of NPR) and the t.v. off.

-Founder of White Collar Hippie Jocks for America Party