An Unlikely (and Unwilling) Exorcist

It's hard to imagine just what an impact the movie "The Exorcist" had on us in the dark ages of the 1970s.

For those of you too young to remember, "The Exorcist" was a movie about a 12-year old girl who is possessed by demons, and a young priest who takes it upon himself to selflessly save her. It was pretty terrifying stuff, with what were considered pretty complicated special effects for that time period. According to Wikipedia, "The Exorcist" was voted scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 1999,by Movies.com in 2010,by viewers of AMC in 2006, and by the editors of Time Out in 2014. In addition, a scene from the film was ranked #3 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.In 2010, the Library of Congress selected the film to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." "

I was in college when it came out. I wouldn't go see it, because quite frankly the whole idea scared the bejeebers out of me. As a kid, my family regularly hosted missionaries from around the world, and I remember hearing these stories of demons and demonic events in far-off lands.

However, almost everyone in my dorm did go see it. And they came back looking as if they'd seen a ... well, a demon. One guy was so shook up I remember he told me he didn't go to sleep at all that night, but lay in bed reading a Bible.

Many of them actually went back a second time, and like most things, the more they saw it the less scary it became, and soon it became a running gag in the dorm, complete with attempts to re-enact many of the grosser (more gross? grossiest?) scenes.

And then I was asked to participate in an exorcism.

This was later, one summer while I was working a summer job for a billboard company outside of Athens, Ga. It was a summer filled with crazy stories, working with some really good guys who were just hard-working country boys who took pride in what they did, groused about the boss (that they called "Grump"), and slowly included me in whatever they were doing, which in once case included attending a true Southern country Pentacostal church.

They guys knew I was a church-going guy, that I'd gotten the job because the owner of the company was on the board of a Christian campus organization of which I had someone gotten elected president. They were also smart enough to know that just because I said I was a church-going guy, that didn't necessarily mean I measured up to Pentacostal standards of what it means to be a Christian. Fortunately, at the company picnic, I inadvertently "proved" my faith.

While I'd like to say I "proved" my faith to them with my deep knowledge and understanding of Scripture, or incredible acts of self-sacrifice and kindness, or a piousness which reflected in my every word and deed, remember these were good ol' country Pentacostals. What happened was that, at the company picnic, after I went through the barbecue line and got loaded my plate with ribs, corn on the cob, bread, beans, potato salad, and banana pudding, I went to the drink cooler to get something to wash it all down with. I reached deep into the ice, and the first thing I pulled up with a beer (probably PBR, or Falstaff).

Now, anyone that knows me knows I don't drink alcohol (but I do have a serious sweet tea problem). It's nothing religious; I just have never liked the taste of alcohol. I've tried, but it's just not worth the effort. I've never had an alcoholic beverage that comes anywhere close to being as satisfying as sweet tea or a Coke (Diet Coke, these days). So when I pulled up the can of beer, I dropped it and went fishing until I pulled up an ice-cold can of Coke. (We didn't have Diet Coke back then, only something called "Tab," of which my then-college roommate declared "the only difference between Coke and Tab is that Tab tastes bad!").

Later that day, the old man of our crew - a man we called Phillipi - came up to me and said, "Ray, I know you're a Christian. I saw you pick up that beer, and the way you dropped it and went for a Coke told me everything I need to know."

If I had known what was coming, I might have gone back for the beer.

Phillipi was the sign painter. While billboards in those days were mostly paper, they did have some that were custom painted, and Phillipi would free-hand the most amazing signs. He was the only one who didn't leave the shop during the day. While the rest of us were out on trucks, going from billboard to billboard to change signs or cut grass or do repairs, he had a stool in front of a billboard on which he'd paint whatever the customer wanted. He had a radio that played Gospel, and sang along in this high, nasally tenor voice that rang out like one of the Happy Goodmans (google it; but in their day the Happy Goodmans were Southern Gospel music).

One day, for some reason, I was in the shop when Phillipi told me to get in the truck with him. This was unusual because, as I said, Phillipi didn't leave the shop. I could tell this was important to him, so I climbed with him and off we went, heading out across hill and dale, river and woods, to a place I had no idea about.

I said, "Philippi, where are we going?"

He said, "To cast out a demon, son."

Hmmmm, I thought. Is he serious? And if he is, do I really want to be part of this?

He said, "I want you with me, because I know you're a Christian and a God-fearing man. I want someone who can pray with me when we confront this demon."

I said, "Wait a minute. How do you know about this demon we're going to confront?"

He said, "I got a call. Bobby Tom's wife called and said Bobby Tom was sweating and screaming and cursing and thrashing around and she needs help. He's possessed by a demon."

I don't know that "Bobby Tom" was the real name, by the way. I wasn't really paying that much attention.

We got to Bobby Tom's house. His wife had left and taken the kids. Bobby Tom was indeed lying in his sweat-soaked bed, thrashing and moaning and letting out these crazy yelps and calling for Phillipi (once he realized Phillipi was there) to help him. He'd been throwing up, and the room indeed looked like something out of The Exorcist.

Phillipi - who was a Deacon or Elder or something big in the local Pentacostal church - walked over and sat Bobby Tom up on the side of the bed, laid his hands on his head, and said, "Ray, get in the corner and start praying."

He didn't need to say it twice. As for praying - I'd been doing that ever since he said the words, "We're going to cast out a demon."

"DEMON!" yelled Phillipi, bouncing Bobby Tom up and down on the bed. "COME OUT! I ORDER YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS! COME OUT! SPEAK TO ME, DEMON, I AIN'T AFRAID OF YOU! SPEAK TO ME, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE THIS GOOD MAN!"

Meanwhile, I was in the corner, petrified, but I was praying. However, while Phillipi was praying for the Demon to speak and be recognized, I was praying, "Oh, please, Demon, if you're really in there, don't say anything! Just leave! Please don't do anything or say anything!"

I might have been working at cross-purposes with Phillipi.

Anyway, Phillipi went on like this for awhile, calling out to the Demon, ordering him, demanding, bouncing poor Bobby Tom up and down on the side of the bed, slapping his hands on Bobby Tom's forehead and temple, while Bobby Tom groaned and moaned and sweated and started shivering violently, which only encouraged Phillipi even more.

"I SEE YOU SHIVERING, DEMON!" he yelled. "YOU CAN'T RESIST THE NAME OF JESUS! COME OUT! COME OUT!"

And I was in the corner silently praying, "Resist, Demon! Don't say a word! Just go away!"

This went on for what felt like a half hour but was probably ... well, maybe a half hour. Finally, Bobby Tom let out this loud groan and collapsed back on his bed. Phillipi mopped his brow and stood back, looking at him.

"Get me some water," Phillipi said.

I went to the kitchen where, in the trash can, I noticed a bag full of crushed beer cans. Dozens of them. On the corner was a case of beer, half gone. I got the water and went back to Phillipi.

"Phillipi?" I said, quietly. "You need to come see this. I think I know the Demon's name - Falstaff."

I took Phillipi into the kitchen, where he looked around. "Demon Alcohol!" he roared, nonplussed.

We went through all the cabinets looking for alcohol, and loaded up everything we could find in the back of the truck. Bobby Tom was passed out on his bed, and we left him there.

"You know, Phillipi," I said. "I don't think it was a demon. I think it was the DT's (Delirium tremens)."

Phillipi pulled over on a bridge that ran over the Ocoee River and got out of the truck.

"You call it what you want," he said, as he proceeded to dump all the alcohol into the river. "It's a demon either way."

We got back to the shop and the other guys had come back. I told them about what we'd been doing, including dumping the beer over the bridge into the Ocoee.

"Which bridge?" was the question.

There was a second run that afternoon. I didn't go on this one. But I think it had something to do with a truck parked on the side of the road, and a bunch of good ol' boys clambering down the hillside into a local river.

Sometimes, one man's demon is another man's blessing.

Or something like that.

Sticks and stones

I grew up memorizing a saying that perhaps you remember as well:

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

We know, of course, that it isn't true; that words can and do indeed hurt. I've been hurt by words, just as I know that I've used words against other people that have hurt. Sometimes I've said things on purpose, with the intent to hurt; sometimes I've said things inadvertently that I didn't know would hurt. But it hurt just the same.

That's one of the reasons the Bible says a lot about our words.

Proverbs says, "Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." In Peter writes (in 1 Peter), "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no lies."

James writes one of the most profound lessons on the human tongue (and words), "Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison...."

That's pretty strong language in itself, and does a great job of letting us know the power of our words. As Uncle Ben is given credit for saying in "The Amazing Spider Man," "With great power comes great responsibility." Our tongue and our words are a great power; we need to understand and respect the responsibility that comes with language and communication.

That being said ...

While I now understand that the childhood proverb about "words" is not necessarily true, more and more I realize the point of the proverb was valuable.

One, it says words won't hurt me. It implies that I can make a choice on being insulted. If I tell myself that the words won't hurt, maybe I can limit (if not in some cases eliminate) the hurt they cause. We can choose to not be insulted - or, more realistically, we can chose after we've been insulted to not let the insult fester or to respond in kind. It's not easy, but the proverb was one that drilled into my head when I was a kid that because words couldn't physically hurt me, I didn't have to fear what people said.

The second point is the better one; usually we said that phrase in response to something someone said to us that we found hurtful, or was meant to hurt. Maybe the words being said did, indeed, hurt, but by saying "your words will never hurt me" we turned it back on our attacker. There is nothing worse than knowing you don't matter to someone, and to say "your words don't bother me" is to essentially say to them, "you have no control over me, my life, my feelings." When someone offends me, the "sticks and stones" phrase taught me to throw it back at them by not repaying evil with evil but by ignoring it. Refuse to acknowledge it. You know, if you like me or you hate me, at least I know that you know I exist and have some power in your life. But to be not just ignored by you but to be told you don't even think about me? That what I say or do never enters into your thoughts? - that's really powerful. To realize you don't even acknowledge my existence is as if I don't exist, that I don't have any meaning or purpose, that - to you, anyway - I may as well never have been born.

(The better response really is another Proverb: "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head ..." That's the old idea of killing them with kindness, a much better response, to be truthful.)

I think we should go back to teaching our kids that while someone can take sticks and stones and physically hurt us, we have some power over whether their words affect us.

There was another saying I remember from my youth. When someone said something particularly vile, you'd hear someone say, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

That's pretty good, too. It's the idea that we use the same mouth to say hateful things as we do to say (or do) loving things. Or, as James says further along the passage above, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ..."

No, it shouldn't. We do need to be aware to be responsible with our words and how we use them, what we say and who we say things too.

I have always tried to be a strong enough individual not let your words hurt me.

But more importantly, I pray that I become wise enough not to let my words hurt you.

*It occurs to me that sometimes we have to say things that will offend people. That's part of caring for them; "speaking the truth in love." Sometimes really caring for someone is to tell them something they need to hear, for their protection or correction or edification. That's a whole 'nother post, of ocurse, of how we do that.
But when it comes to words, as George Orwell once wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

United by the Friendly Skies

Remember how much fun it was to come off an airplane, make that walk up the “jet way”, and find some smiling face waiting for you at the top?

I think about that every time I come off an airplane these days. It used to be that when someone went to the airport to pick you up, they parked the car, came inside, and went down to the terminal gate to wait for you to come off the plane.

Now, of course, when you go to pick someone up at the airport, it’s like going through a drive-thru at a fast food place – you drive slowly in a long line of cars, looking for the person you’re there to pick up, knowing you can’t stop unless you see them. If you don’t see them, you have to keep going, circle the airport, and come through the line again. If you do see them, you get to stop but you better be quick and get that door open for them while throwing their luggage into the trunk before airport security comes over to tell you to move along.

I used to fly a lot. Most of the time it was for work, so there was rarely anyone waiting for me at the top of the ramp at the jetway. I’d walk through the access door and see those hopeful, expectant faces look at me for the briefest of seconds, then quickly move on to see who came through the door next because I wasn’t the one they were looking for. But it was kind of fun to see all the smiling faces, hear the squeals of excitement from wives or husbands waiting to hug their loved one, the kids running to greet grandma or grandpa who were coming for a visit.

Now, of course, you just come off hoping to get the attention of an airline attendant who can tell you your connecting flight is not at the gate it says on your ticket but is now two terminals – a 10 minute train ride and 15 minute walk – away, but they’re already boarding that flight so you probably won’t make it.

Recently I came off a flight and suddenly thought, “What was the captain’s name?” Do airline pilots – captains – even introduce themselves anymore? I can remember a time when the flight always started with “this is your captain, Ted Stryker, welcoming you aboard …” or ending with “on behalf of Captain Ted Stryker and the entire Chicago-based flight crew, welcome to Orlando and thank you for flying Pan American…”

Maybe they still introduce themselves and I’ve gotten so used to it that I no longer listen.

Not that it really matters. In all the times I’ve begun to ascend into the friendly skies, I never had the speaker come on and hear “This is your captain, Ted Stryker …” and the guy next to me say, “Oh, he’s really good! I always try to fly with Captain Stryker!” It’s not like you go buy a ticket to fly and the reservation agent says, “Where are you going?” and you say, “Well, tell me what route Captain Ted Stryker is flying. I always fly with Captain Ted.”

My parents used to live across the street from a Delta airline pilot. He was a great guy, and a good neighbor. One time he asked me to deposit his paycheck because I was going to the bank. I’m not sure why he asked me to do that; I’d never ask someone to deposit my paycheck for me. Although, come to think of it, he certainly had nothing to be ashamed of. This was the 1970s, when being a pilot was still pretty glamorous, and I don’t know if he was paid weekly, twice a month, or monthly, but I do know that paycheck I deposited for him was about half to a third of what I was making in a year in my first newspaper job (of course, I started out at $150 a week).

But as a sportswriter, I flew quite a bit. And being in Atlanta at the time, I flew Delta a lot. Every time I flew, I listened for the pilot to make his introduction just in case it was my neighbor. It never was. I’m not sure what difference it would have made if it had been, although I guess I could turn to the person sitting next to me and say, “Oh, I know this guy. He’s really good. And you’ll never guess how much money he makes!”

I always thought of pilots as these real adventurous guys, the old “daring young men in their flying machines” kind of image. When you think about it, they are really just glorified cabbies. Their job is to pick you up at point A and get you to point B safely. Unlike cabbies however, you can’t say something like “there’s an extra 20 in it if you can get me there in 15 minutes!”

Pilots do what they are told. They fly at the elevation they are told to fly, and mindlessly follow the directions given them by “the tower.” You know, as in , “the tower tells us we’re No. 19 for takeoff, so settle back for a few minutes and we’ll get you airborne just as soon as it’s our turn on the run way.”

You know what I’d like? A pilot who had been a cabbie, who didn’t care about stop signs or speed limits and could dodge cars, bikes, pedestrians, garbage cans, baby carriages, and knew all the shortcuts to get you where you wanted to go.

Just once, I’d like a pilot say, “the tower tells us we’re No. 19 in line for takeoff, but you know what? To heck with them – we’re not waiting,’’ and the next thing you know he pulls out on the grass between runways and starts accelerating past all the other planes who are waiting in line, making a run for the open run way. We’d all be looking out the window, terrified at first, but then seeing all the other schmucks sitting in the long line of planes being forced to wait their turn. We’d all starting yelling, “Go, Captain Ted! Go!” And at the last minute he swerves back on the paved part of the runway at the front of the line and the next thing you know we’ve got lift off!

I mean, what are they going to do? We’re getting ready to take off into the wild blue yonder, and if he gets us to Point B on time or even early … well, that’s the kind of guy I’d want to book my next flight with, regardless of where he was going. It’s the kind of guy that when he came on and said, “This is Captain Ted Stryker…” you can bet I’d turn to the guy next to me and say, “Oh, this guy’s good. Fasten your seatbelt. You’re not going to believe what we’re about to do …”

Celtic Woman, not to be confused with Laker Girls

I am going to make a somewhat embarrassing admission here: I have this thing for Celtic Women.

I came by it honestly enough. One day I was flipping channels and came across a title on the cable guide that said “Celtic Women,” and I clicked “OK” because I thought it was going to be a show about the Boston Celtics cheerleaders; you know, like the “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” show.

Instead I found that it’s not the NBA Celtics at all; it was PBS. And they don't pronounce "Celtic" like "Seltic" but rather "Keltic." It was a pretty over-produced concert of some kind, featuring this full orchestra led by a guy who looks like the geek sidekick to Flo on those Progressive Insurance commercials, three women singers who continually change into elaborate gowns, and this one blond woman who is equally dressed up but just shows up at random moments to run around stage, twirling and skipping and smiling, all the while playing a fiddle – except on PBS it’s called a “violin.” However, the way she plays it is like some of the guys I’ve seen in Cajun’ bands, who can play holding the fiddle at their waist, behind their heads, or even one guy I saw who got bandmates to hold him upside down while he knocked out some Doug Kershaw tune.

Here’s the thing: when I tuned into the “Celtic Woman” – despite there being at least four of them, they go by the singular title ‘woman’ rather than ‘women’ – I thought I’d tuned in for the end of the show. The song, whatever it was, sounded like a grand finale, like the third encore, and everyone was clapping and carrying on and the ladies were smiling and bowing as if whatever they’d just sung made Whitney Houston’s “Star Spangled Banner” seem like a third grade recital of “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”

Only it wasn’t the finale, or the encore, or even close to being the last song of the concert. Turns out, every song these people do is staged like it’s a grand finale. Given that I was only vaguely familiar with most of the songs they were performing – to say they were ‘singing’ doesn’t do it justice – I wasn’t sure if this was like a ‘greatest hits’ concert or this group was like a highbrow Slim Whitman (who, if you were remember the late night TV ads from the 1980s, reportedly sold more albums that Elvis Presley and the Beatles in England). But you never saw an audience so enraptured, so mesmerized, so enthralled, so old and white (except for the occasional small child – usually a little girl – that came along for a night out with grandma and grandpa while mom and dad went to the casino).

And, I have to admit, I got hooked. The staging, the drama, the costumes, the absolutely adoring way the women looked at each other every time one came on the stage as if it was Michael Jordan coming back for one last title run with the Bulls – it was shear PBS genius.

But it was PBS.

Which means, of course, that the orchestra would start up and one of the women would start to sing “Oh Danny Boy” and then a second woman would suddenly come out and the first one would look as if she were so glad to see her, then the blond fiddle player would come skipping around all of them, twirling and bowing and bowing (that’s “bowing” as in bending from the waist and “bowing” as in using a bow to play the violin; aren’t I clever?), and you’d really get caught up in the absolutely swell of orchestration as they got ready to go into the final verse when …

When suddenly these two old crones appeared on the screen, saying, “Aren’t you enjoying this performance of ‘Celtic Woman?’ Aren’t they marvelous? Wouldn’t you like to hear the rest of the song? Well, we’re about $672 dollars short of our pledge amount, so if you pull out your credit card right now and call this number, we’ll get off the screen and let you see the climactic finish of ‘Oh Danny Boy!’ Operators are standing by!’’

I have no idea what the Celtic Woman do for an actual finale or encore. I’ve always heard you don’t pay the kidnappers in a hostage situation because it only encourages them to do it again.

Now, if instead of “Celtic Woman’’ it was “Laker Girls” ….

"Our Consitition was made for a moral and religious people ...."

First, I love history. I always have. I have a major in journalism but with almost enough hours for another major, in history. I went to graduate school at Georgia State for about a year to get a masters in history (I didn't finish because I was working for a daily newspaper, which seriously cut into the time I had to fulfill the obligations required by graduate school).

In troubled times, history gives me great comfort. I can look back and see other periods that were just as bad - if not worse - than whatever trouble the world seems to be in today. Maybe that comfort keeps me from being as riled up as perhaps I should be about some issue, but it also keeps me from the panic that I'd probably feel if I didn't have some historical context.

Recently I was a news clip of a debate between two talking heads on a TV cable show. They were arguing and one said, "but surely you realize that, historically ..." such and such (whatever his point was). The other person's response was, "No, this position has been held historically too. If you go back to the 1970s ..."

And of course I thought, "The 1970s! All the way back to the 1970s! Why, that's ancient history!" It's also when I graduated from high school, and from college.

See? It is ancient history!

Another recent exchange on social media had someone telling me that the youth of today are not "snowflakes" because they've grown up in a "perpetual state of war" and terror alerts, lost their homes when their parents lost their jobs, watched people get shot in the streets while holding their hands up saying 'don't shoot' .... And while that's all true, it's hardly unique. I could go back to any number of times in history that were just as bad for young people, if not worse. Heck, I remember watching the lottery to see what my number would be, knowing that while I was in high school and wouldn't be drafted to go to Viet Nam, I had friends that could be. I remember National Guard patrolling college campuses, even shooting students at Kent State; not to mention young people getting beat up and killed for voting rights, integration, and education. I read stories of the 1930s when people were losing their homes and parents sometimes were forced to abandon their oldest child because they couldn't take care of all the children and the oldest had a chance to make their own way - and by "oldest" we're often talking about 13 and 14 year olds. Go back to the late 1800s and read stories of the old West, and girls as young as 15 and 16 being turned into prostitutes while young boys the same age were out on the range skinning buffalo or driving cattle or even, in some cases, becoming lawmen or outlaws.

And that only takes us back a 150 years or so. That's hardly a tick on the face of the clock of human history.

I'm not saying one generation had it any better or any worse, just that every generation has faced its own set of challenges and been forced to learn how to deal with it, to either overcome or be "overcomed." That is much of what makes the human race so remarkable.

Even so, when it's your life that is facing whatever difficulties exist, when you're the one in the middle of the struggle, it's hard to take comfort in the idea that people have survived worse. Each of us lives with our own reality, and while we can say "Oh, what I'm going through hardly compares with this or that,'' the truth is that what you are dealing with is what is keeping you up at night, causing you to worry for your safety or the safety of your family, or wonder about the well-being of the world.

A few weeks ago, I had one of those moments when I wondered just what era we're moving into here in the United States. I have talked about persecution of Christians and the church and had fellow-believers tell me they just don't see it, that they don't think things are really all that bad, and that what we see as persecution (at least in this country) may just be brought on by the obnoxiousness and even hypocrisy of Christianity in the U.S.

And certainly some of that is true.

But then a few weeks ago, in a hearing held by the U.S. Senate, a Senator with a considerable national following had the following exchange with a presidential nominee who identified as a Christian.
(I'm not using names, because personalities are not the point here).

Senator: Let me get to this issue that has bothered me and bothered many other people. And that is in the piece that I referred to that you wrote for the publication called Resurgent. You wrote, “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.” Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?

Nominee: Absolutely not, Senator. I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith. That post, as I stated in the questionnaire to this committee, was to defend my alma mater, Wheaton College, a Christian school that has a statement of faith that includes the centrality of Jesus Christ for salvation, and . . .

Senator: I apologize. Forgive me, we just don’t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?

Nominee: Again, Senator, I’m a Christian, and I wrote that piece in accordance with the statement of faith at Wheaton College:

Senator: I understand that. I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that all those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?

Nominee: Senator, I’m a Christian . . .

Senator (shouting): I understand you are a Christian, but this country are made of people who are not just — I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?

Nominee: Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals . . .

Senator: You think your statement that you put into that publication, they do not know God because they rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned, do you think that’s respectful of other religions?

Nominee: Senator, I wrote a post based on being a Christian and attending a Christian school that has a statement of faith that speaks clearly in regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.

Senator: I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.


Several things here. One, this line of questioning may well be unconstitutional, because it suggests that the nominee's religious views disqualify him from holding public office. The Constitution clearly says that no federal office holder or employee can be required to adhere to or accept any particular religion or doctrine as a prerequisite to holding a federal office or a federal government job. While the Senator is not trying to hold the Nominee to a particular religion, he does seem to be saying that holding any religious views whatsoever disqualify him from service in the public square.

Even more surprising is that an elected official openly ridiculed and questioned the patriotism of orthodox Christian teaching, and did so likely knowing he could count on support from many of his colleagues and, I suppose, many of the people who elected him to office from his home state.

If you believe you should have to leave your religion outside when you step into the state house, then you've implemented a "religious test" as a qualification for leadership. It's kind of a "reverse" test, in that it says you have to be able to say your faith won't influence you in making decisions, but that's still a test. And what good is faith if it doesn't affect your judgment?

I'm not arguing for one particular faith or religion here (even though, if you read this blog, you know where I stand). Here is what the Founders said:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams.

"Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society." - George Washington.

"[F]or avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy . . . the only ground of hope must be on the morals of the people. I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. [T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God." - Gouverneru Morris (signer of the Constitution).

"[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be aid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind." - Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

"Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."-Robert Wintrhop, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Still, perspective .... it's easy to see the open antagonism toward the Christian faith and feel we're in a new era of persecution. We're not. It's been this way from the beginning. The New Testament is really a record of the conflicts, both within the church and from without. And rarely is the issue cut and dry; good, well-meaning people have taken difficult sides in matters of church-state, theology-society, and what helping the "least of these" really means.

But we take comfort not only in knowing history, and in knowing the future: God wins. Christianity has faced times of persecution (including today), and has had times of political and cultural power (as it still does in some places today).

What doesn't change is God.

And that's where my hope - my optimism, if you will - resides.