A Time to Laugh

Humans are human because they are conscious of living within a community. When the sense of fellowship is lost humanity is lost.

Giambattista Vico

Symmetry works for me. Not a Jeffersonian kind of decorating symmetry where the left side of your house matches the right. But a symmetry of feeling. It’s almost a smell. A color.

I felt that this week. I haven’t felt that symmetry in awhile — after all the upheaval we’ve endured. I found Monkey Joes — that white-noise-and-air-filled indoor playground over on the Motor Mile. Wednesdays are half-price. The food looks lousy. The clerks seem numb. The TV is always on the Food network which only makes the food look lousier. They have massage chairs you have pay to be nice to you. Wi-fi is free though.

The boys play hard there. Happily jumping and sliding and pretending. If you’re ever there, my children are the ones with the pool-noodle swords. They are always the children with the swords. How can a warrior — even a wee warrior — leave home without his sword?

And I read. I read so much the last two visits that I actually feel like a scholar again. I have about 50 pages of notes on that reading and an outline floating around my head for another book. It’s been bliss.

I know that I am a bit of misfit. I am the Square Peg who never fits in the round hole. And I’ve decided that despite what my previous world told me (that such oddity is probably the result of sin), this is how God made me. I’m supposed to be this way. I’m supposed to not fit. I have the gift not of making people comfortable (hospitality) but of making people uncomfortable. I’m a gadfly.

I sat at the Monkey Joes’ desk right near the action. I scattered my books across the top, got out my colored pens, and my legal pad. I had overstuffed my purse with random thoughts scrawled on post-its. And even though I was periodically interrupted by a runny nose or a lost Pooh hat, I read the whole time!

It felt just like my early months at Indiana University. I was not accepted into their Ph.D. program because my recommendation letters were “a little strange” (they were!) and because I was from an unaccredited school. While Grant was actually in a program, I was just a “continuing non-degree student” — neither fish nor fowl. Another Square Peg.

I didn’t have a study space on campus to call my own back then, so I’d sit in the Union in that beautiful limestone alcove that overlooked the Rhetorical Studies building. I had my articles and stacks of books in my overstuffed leather bag, my colored pens, and my legal pad. And I was occasionally interrupted by a friendly prof or classmate. It was bliss. Because I was doing what I knew I was plumbed to do. Nobody else knew it just yet though.

Now that I’m an “independent scholar” — another liminal fishy-fowl — it feels pretty much like it did then. Stealing moments to read and compare. Finding myself in my own head while my dearest examples of humanity spin and leap around me. This feels familiar. And very, very good.

So my idea is this: Even while Gen-X and Gen-Y fundamentalists reject the term “fundamentalism” qua fundamentalism, the separatist rhetorical forms persist in conservative Evangelicalism. Having reified the American ideal of individualism into a doctrine, these sectarians have shattered any sense of community in conservative Evangelicalism. They attempt to rebuild a notion of the community with their discourses of “biblical” living in order to woo and contain, but these attempts simply mask the egocentric and splintering rhetorical forms. They have become too individualistic to be fully human.

Or something like that. Does that irritate you? . . . Good.

If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

Socrates, The Gadfly

Emotionally, Two seems much of the time to be comfortable and content. Life feels good to him. Emotions do not take over as they do at some other ages. Two can express his warm affections both by the sound of his voice and by his cozy, snuggling ways. There is an easy give-and-take between parent and child. He now seems comfortable with himself.

Ames & Ilg’s Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender?

Two is not terrible. I don’t know who started that idea, but he was wrong! How could anyone say such a thing?

What a delightful companion he can be in the home! He moves around the house with increasing ease. He goes on little errands. His favorite errand may be the fetching of Daddy’s slippers at the end of the day. He loves to go out for a walk and to walk on the tops of low walls. But he always loves to come “home again.”

The world around him is pouring in through his eyes, and he remembers much of what he sees. He knows where things go. He dotes on putting away the canned goods. He loves to watch all household activities.

My Two loves to help. No matter if they are clean or dirty, he will remove the dishes from the dishwasher. If there’s a bug to be squashed, he runs for the fly swatter. If he notices a loose nail, he gets his own hammer from the garage. He helps Brother eat his dinner and reminds him to use soap when he washes his hands. He bellows at the dog “Get DOWN!” He’s my little helper.

Two likes the feeling of having the same thing happen day after day. Routine suits him. “Again” is the oft-repeated demand. In the morning he likes having his bedroom slippers and bathrobe put on and then going in to watch his daddy shave. The sequences is important. . . . He wants everything to be the same. It is not just the order in which things are carried out, or the way they are done that must be the same. It is the place they occupy. He wants everything in the household to stay right where he put it or where he thinks it belongs. And, he wants everything to be appropriate–belonging to go with the people they belong to.

My Two wants his food hot, but not that hot. His jammies warm, but not that warm. His mother available, but not that available. My Two wants his ketchup puddle to be ever-present and ever-complete. It took me awhile to figure this one out. It’s that sameness and completeness that is important. Perfection is the goal.

My Two talks. Boy! does he talk. There’s nothing he can’t say, but that doesn’t mean anyone will understand. Brother usually interprets the most, and I’m a close second. It’s amazing to hear about everything that’s going on in that growing-up mind. Here are some often-repeated statements in our house:

• “I miss Daddy.”
• “No, I’m wecious” [precious].
• “‘Pooky baby? Where ahh ooo?” [Spooky Baby, where are you?]
• “I need ‘nuggles.”
• “I wike you, Mommy. I wike Daddy. I wike Grandpa. I wike Grandma. I wike Iky.”
• “I wanna show you teetum” [I want to show you something].
• “I want some chocolate rilk, cheeee.” [I want some chocolate milk, please.]

Ames & Ilg mention that this age loves to talk about shoes. But please, please do not ask my Two about his shoes. Please don’t. They are firetruck light-up shoes inherited from his brother. And he does so want to talk about them. And he can say “fire” and he can say “truck” separately. But when you put them together, my Two unintentionally talks like a sailor.

Life is also complicated by the fact that the child of this age finds it extremely difficult to take turns.

Turns are hard. They are easier than “sharing.” Sharing is really tough. Developmental experts say that a child really doesn’t understand “sharing” until they are five or so. To Two, sharing looks more like taking, leaving, or saying good-bye. But my Two’s turn-taking is improving. We’re all learning.

This tends to be an aggressive age, and play with children as well as with objects can be quite violent. Both verbal and physical aggression are conspicuous. Some is for the purpose of protecting possessions. Some seems quite unprovoked. There may be much hitting, slapping, pushing, screaming. Or a child may walk up and push another child over and then knock his (block) house down. Children may bump into each other intentionally.

My Two does love to knock over Brother’s big important block house. He loves to pretend to run into walls with his little poochy stomach. He loves to shoot bad guys. He yells a lot.

Now he has matured to the point where he sets up his own opposites. This is how he finds out about the world–by exploring both of any two opposite extremes in quick succession. Annoying as this kind of behavior may be to the adult, it is a very important part of growing up. Soon will come the time when he can make a choice and stick to it.

This is why I love Ames & Ilg. They are an old standard. My mom still sings the praises of their teacher, Arnold Gisell. She bought his book back in the day when my older brother was small. And she gleaned the same sort of information and found the same reassurance from him that I do from his protegés. Reading what’s developmentally normal stops me in my tracks. It’s not that my Two’s behavior is rebellious or willful. His quick vacillating between choices is testing language, not testing me. He’s not a “viper in diapers” — at least no more than I am. No, he’s a cut-up in pull-ups, I’d say.

And this Mommy needs to remember that “this, too, shall pass” all too quickly. He’s learning about life, just like we all are.

Let him begin by treating patriotism . . . as part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the “cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce. . . . Once you have made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.

Screwtape on How to Ruin a Believer’s Faith in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters

I just finished David Kuo’s book Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. In essence, he writes to remind himself and fellow Christians that Faith can never be a means to a political ends. He wants to foil Screwtape’s plan.

Several things struck me. I did notice his keswidispicostalistic soteriology here and there, but that’s not really a big surprise. His story of identifying with an ideology, being dazzled by its powerful sparkle, ignoring obvious ethical dilemmas in favor of power, enduring his own surprising and life-changing personal crisis, and chucking it all (when termination was inevitable anyway) was so familiar. I saw myself in his words.

He worked for the Christian Right in the 1990s-2000s — for Bill Bennett, Ralph Reed, and John Ashcroft. He wrote speeches and created talking points. Eventually, he became a big part of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.”

As a speech writer for the Christian Right and the Republicans, he admits that he propagated flat-out lies about Bill and Hillary Clinton, and he determined to apologize to them personally for that slander. He really didn’t want to, but he knew he should. Then God dropped the opportunity into his lap. It was awkward, halting, and impromptu. Completely uncomfortable. Read:

His apology didn’t make huge, long-lasting political waves. It was just a brief, forgettable sound bite the next day. There were no law suits afterward. But that’s not why Kuo did it. He apologized because it was right, because he was being true to his Faith, and because it was a reminder to him and to those around him about who God is and how much we need Him.

It’s also a way to infuriate Screwtape.

Kuo brings up Bob Jones University several times. My heart sinks every time he does. He describes it as the “ultrafundamentalist” place where “compassionate conservatism” died — where George W. Bush’s catering to the microcultural elements of the Christian Right was more klutzy than “stealthy.” Kuo explains W.’s election strategy: convince Evangelicals that making him President was the only way to advance their social conservatism. “He was born again. He loved Jesus. He hated abortion and loved the family.” But the only way to actually get him into office is by downplaying that religious conservatism.

In other words, W. said to the theo-cons, “Hey, I’m just like you, but I have to play the ‘moderate’ game so that I can get you what you want when I’m in office.” And, according to Kuo, the nation saw that strategy naked and bald at Bob Jones University in February 2000.

It’s chilling to see that event through the eyes of a fellow believer but a BJU-outsider.

The effort at Please-Reconcile.org is coming upon its first milestone. This Wednesday they are sending the letter to the BJU Board and Administration with 400+ signatures of BJU alumni and friends and neighbors imploring the current administration to reconcile their past racist policies. Read the list of signees and their comments. These people are earnest, careful, and prayerful. None of us would be signing if we didn’t care deeply about Bob Jones University’s ministry and its people.

I’ve read the documents at Please-Reconcile.org, and I am stunned and grieved. I’ve said it before — I really had no clue, but that is exactly the problem. Again, I’m sorry.

So if you’ve graduated from, worked for, attended, or been taught by anything Bob Jones University, if you know someone from BJU or if you’ve purchased a book from their Press, if you have ever read about, written about, or heard about that place, if you’ve ever choked on institutional racism, if you’ve ever had to clarify misconceptions about Christ because of BJU’s interracial dating ban, please prayerfully consider signing the letter.

Many theo-cons are working to foreground racial reconciliation as a conservative value in order to heal a very broken GOP. As tempting as it is to emphasize this pragmatic and political reason for reconciling the sin of racism, I can’t forget David Kuo and C. S. Lewis’s admonition. It’s not about the politics. It’s about reminding ourselves that we are each full of sin and that God is faithful in spite of us.

We confess. God takes care of the rest.

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.

I John 1:8-10

In reading about Screwtape, I found this 1947 Time article about C.S. Lewis. Give it a read. It’s interesting to see him in his own time while enjoying our own Sunday morning coffee:

Lewis’ idea of Heaven is not the 20th Century’s watered-down version of ineffable, gaseous ecstasy, but a state as real as Sunday morning breakfast. It’s right there in the New Testament, says Lewis, referring to the resurrected Christ taking food with His disciples: “If the truth is that after death there comes a negatively spiritual life, an eternity of mystical experience, what more misleading way of communicating it could possibly be found than the appearance of a human form which eats boiled fish?”

The inside of the White House doesn’t have the luminous quality that you might expect from television or film; it seems well kept but worn, a big old house that one imagines might be a bit draughty on cold winter nights.

On a chilly January afternoon in 2005, the day before my swearing-in as a senator, I was invited there with other new members of Congress. At 1600 hours on the dot, President Bush was announced and walked to the podium, looking vigorous and fit, with that jaunty, determined walk that suggests he’s on a schedule and wants to keep detours to a minimum. For 10 or so minutes he spoke to the room, making a few jokes, calling for the country to come together, before inviting us for refreshments and a picture with him and the first lady.

I happened to be starving, so while most of the other legislators started lining up for their photographs, I headed for the buffet. As I munched on hors d’oeuvres, I recalled an earlier encounter with the president, a small White House breakfast with me and the other incoming senators.

I had found him to be a likable man, shrewd and disciplined but with the same straightforward manner that had helped him win two elections; you could easily imagine him owning the local car dealership, coaching Little League baseball and grilling in his backyard – the kind of guy who would make for good company so long as the conversation revolved around sport and the kids.

There had been a moment during the breakfast meeting, though, after the backslapping and the small talk and when all of us were seated, with Vice-President Cheney eating his eggs benedict impassively and Karl Rove at the far end of the table discreetly checking his BlackBerry, that I had witnessed a different side of the man.

The president had begun to discuss his second-term agenda, mostly a reiteration of his campaign talking points – the importance of staying the course in Iraq and renewing the Patriot Act, the need to reform social security and overhaul the tax system, his determination to get an up-or-down vote on his judicial appointees – when suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch.

The president’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and I appreciated the wisdom of America’s founding fathers in designing a system to keep power in check.

“Senator?” I looked up, shaken out of this memory, and saw one of the older black men who made up most of the White House waiting staff standing next to me.

“Want me to take that plate for you?” I nodded, trying to swallow a mouthful of chicken something-or-other, and noticed that the queue to greet the president had evaporated. A young marine at the door politely indicated that the photograph session was over and that the president needed to get to his next appointment. But before I could turn around to go, the president himself appeared.

“Obama!” he said, shaking my hand. “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours – that’s one impressive lady.”

“We both got better than we deserve, Mr President,” I said, shaking the first lady’s hand and hoping that I’d wiped any crumbs off my face.

The president turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitiser in the president’s hand.

“Want some?” the president asked. “Good stuff. Keeps you from getting colds.” Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.

“Come over here for a second,” he said, leading me off to one side of the room.

“You know,” he said quietly, “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice.”

“Not at all, Mr President.” He nodded. “You’ve got a bright future,” he said. “Very bright. But I’ve been in this town a while and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting for you to slip. Know what I mean? So watch yourself.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mr President.” “All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common.”

“What’s that?” “We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” I laughed, and as we walked to the door I told him a few stories from the campaign.

It wasn’t until he had left the room that I realised I had briefly put my arm over his shoulder as we talked – an unconscious habit of mine, but one that I suspected might have made many of my friends, not to mention the secret service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy.

As I’ve been a steady and occasionally fierce critic of Bush administration policies, Democratic audiences are often surprised when I tell them that I don’t consider George Bush a bad man and that I assume he and members of his administration are trying to do what they think is best for the country.

After the trappings of office are stripped away, I find the president and those who surround him to be pretty much like everybody else, possessed of the same mix of virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us.

No matter how wrongheaded I might consider their policies to be – and no matter how much I might insist that they be held accountable for the results of such policies – I still find it possible, in talking to these men and women, to understand their motives, and to recognize in them values I share.

This is not an easy posture to maintain in Washington. The stakes involved in policy debates are often so high that I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values – indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people.

Outside of Washington, though, America feels less deeply divided. Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual. Most rich people want the poor to succeed, and most of the poor are both more self-critical and hold higher aspirations than the popular culture allows. Most Republican strongholds are 40% Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people’s personal attributes.

All of which raises the question: what are the core values that we, as Americans, hold in common? One core value, individual freedom, is so deeply ingrained in us that we tend to take it for granted.

Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope

It always seemed like we lived across the street from dentists. In South Bend, it was Dr. Rosenbaum. In Tulsa, it was Dr. Hudson (who has since retired). They always had the scariest decorations for Halloween. Ghosts that moved across the porch on wires and loud music blaring. Both had the top houses in the neighborhood! My Dad would always instruct me in my cookie monster costume, “Now, a nice and loud ‘Trick or Treat.’ REMEMBER TO PROJECT!” I did fine with every other house but Dr. Hudson’s because at his house there was so much cool stuff to dodge.

But their treats were lame: toothbrushes and mini-tubes of Crest and stickers of smiling teeth. Who wants a sticker of a tooth? It wasn’t even scratch-n-sniff!

As we’d survey our booty late on Halloween night — with our parents dutifully checking for razor blades and unwrapped candy inevitably injected with cyanide. It was the 1970s after all. — I’d see those forlorn toothbrushes and dumb stickers and think, “Oh. Figures. It’s the dentist.” And I’d toss them aside in favor of Poprocks or Bottlecaps. Like every other kid, I’m sure.

It’s kind of funny in hindsight because I’m sure their business went up after all the Sugar-Daddy-inflicted broken fillings. Do they want more work or do they really want us to use these brushes and paste and send them to the Poor House?

So I’ve got to ask — what are Kim Weir and Pam McCune thinking in Redeeming Halloween: Celebrating without Selling Out? Granted, they do a genuinely good job of retelling the history of the early Church leading up to and including All Hallow’s Eve. And as a list of party ideas go, it’s okay, I guess. No different than a recent issue of Family Circle.

But between those two poles, it’s strange. Instead of holing up in a backroom of the house with the lights off to avoid the inevitable trick-er-treaters, they encourage Christians to have the “best treats” in the neighborhood to be a “good witness” (sounds sooo familiar), When you carve the pumpkin with your kids, quote Bible verses for each step such as “Let this mind be in you” when you lift off the stem (I tried this the other night when we were carving. Besides the fact that Grant glared daggers at me, it was clearly sacrilegious). For costume ideas, they suggest you brainstorm as a family about which people group they want to witness to. Like Astronauts.

Seriously? Is that any different than Dr. Hudson’s tooth stickers?

When I was done with the book, I thought about the artificial sweeteners I use in most of my cooking. I’ve got diabetes in my family history, and so I try to steer away from sugar and white flour. So if I can get away with it, I replace sugar with Splenda and flour with oatmeal.

But it’s obvious. It’s fake. And you can taste the fake.

Do we have to fake it at Halloween too? Does being a good Christian mean we have to give a saccharine nod to the holiday always holding back a full-fledged spooky scream?

It all boils down to what my friend Mollie said when I told her the title of the book I was reading, “What’s to redeem?”

We just got this book from the library, and it was quickly my sons’ favorite. They love the pictures and that we can sing along with it. And they love the message. Gavin even repeats, “You [in] God Hand, Mommy!” It warms my heart and encourages my spirit.

I remember hearing a sermon in my indy-fundy Baptist church when I was around six-years-old about how this song was wrong: “If God’s got the whole world in His hands, then He’s got sin in His hands. And that’s just not possible.” I was disappointed because the song’s message comforted me even then.

I now see that critique of the spiritual for what it really is: a near-gnostic, dispensationalist grasp for control.

But in spite of our flailing and our eschatological fads, God is in control. He is sovereign. He’s got the whole world in His hands! You and me, brother!

It’s odd for me to digest the intense reaction to my speaking out about my politics. My Facebook wall is even more colorful. Because in my view, I really haven’t changed. I’m just able to express it publicly now.

For a long time, people have whispered, “That Camille Lewis has some strange ideas.” They’ve called me “dangerous.” They’ve passed along their conclusion that I “have trouble with authority.” And I’ve even lost some friends because they now know the whole me.

This isn’t some wide-eyed, bandwagon-jumping celebrity worship for me. This vote actually makes sense in light of the last forty years. I learned my politics from elementary school through graduate school. And I’ve grown from a nondescript grey to a unwavering scarlet and now to an vivid indigo.  I learned that the company line was often misguided. That quilting faith to politics was often an ugly mess. That by the 1980s all good conservative Evangelicals were Republicans. That paleo-neo-theo-cons have hefty amount of naiveté in their worldview. That even well-intentioned patriarchs need rules. That learning a new (cultural) language helps you understand your own better. That the Left isn’t evil and that the Right is often mistaken. That I am pretty much plumbed to live in a liminal life. That the Religious Right has calcified. That my voting for Barack Obama is probably the most active political thing I’ve ever done in my life.

And most importantly that the Gospel changes the way we treat our friends, our neighbors, and our enemies.

And that’s really what I’ve been getting at. Remembering that we’re all totally unable to save ourselves means that we ourselves are as vulnerable to error as the next guy. When we feel that vulnerability, the knee-jerk response to make the divisions clearer. In other words, we identify with our friends because we divide against our enemies. That makes us feel safe and proud. “Identification is affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division.” If we sense a friend going to “the dark side” (a.k.a. the Other(’s) side), we beg and plead for them to return to safety as if s/he’s going to run back into God’s hands. As if any of us can run in and out of God’s hands.

But muddling the lines is humbling. It points up that it’s not the human lines at all that matter because God’s taking care of His own as He always has.

That’s the comedy I’ve been talking about.

Christians keep repeating “God is sovereign!” during this campaign season. We’re all trying to see our way through the fog, the violent outbursts, the schmaltz, and the issues. It’s overwhelming.

But there’s more. And I really think that cover illustrates that “more.” It’s not that we just sit quivering in the fetal position in a dark corner repeating “God is sovereign” over and over until we pass out from exhaustion. It’s that we can smile in contentment. Knowing that God is in charge emboldens us and enlivens us. It’s confidence. It’s joy. We are at peace inside so we don’t have to pick fights on the outside.

Vote. Speak. Protest. Sing. Laugh. Stomp. Dance. Stick stickers. Don buttons. Stuff envelopes. Donate cash. Yell if you must.

Just act. Like a little kid who knows he’s safe because his dad is nearby. God will redeem what you do even if it is imperfect and full of sin (which it will be). Just like He has redeemed us.

God doesn’t stand back like a Great Watchmaker observing how the world moves. He doesn’t stand back and hold His “nose” because this world stinks with our sin. This is Immanuel’s Ground, my Father’s World. And God lovingly holds our hands because when He looks at us, He sees Christ.

So go. Act. It’s gonna be okay.

Chickens can be taught that only one specific pitch [of a ringing bell] is a food-signal. . . . If one rings the bell next time, not to feed the chickens, but to assemble them for chopping off their heads, they come faithfully running, on the strength of the character which a ringing bell possesses for them. Chickens not so educated would have acted more wisely. Thus it will be seen that the devices by which we arrived at a correct orientation may be quite the same as those involved in an incorrect one.

Kenneth Burke, Permanence and Change

Did you hear about the guy in NYC who was so closely following his car’s navigation system that he drove straight down a set of railroad tracks . . . right into an oncoming train? No kidding! He and the passenger barely escaped by jumping out of the car.

Piety can be a bad thing.

Burke called it the difference between motion and action. Breathing is motion; sighing is action. The former is involuntary. The latter is intentional and meaningful. Burke explained further that while evolution described the evolving force as simply moving, creation centered on active, intentional God.

You get the picture.

Burke wanted us to act like humans, not move like chickens. Don’t follow the talking box in your car to your certain demise!

And when it all comes down to it, I’m pretty positive that that’s why Republicans, specifically those on Christian Right, are so ticked right now. We had been going along, following what our pastors, Christian radio personalities, family, teachers were telling us: “Vote Republican. Don’t mess this up. Just vote Republican. They get us. They understand. They are fighting for us. Just do it.”

Don’t act. Just move.

And now we’re face-to-face with the realization that we got PWNED.

John Whitehead from the Rutherford Institute is as blunt and accurate as you can be:

Like moths flickering about a hot flame, the leaders of the Christian Right are eager to get close to political power. But as anyone who has played the game knows, politics is corrupt and manipulative. And the Christian Right was manipulated by the Bush Administration.

And we’re processing the grief. Deep down, nearly every reaction I’ve got to my recent and public less-than-loyal-to-the-GOP comments can be described as denial pure and simple. And to this participant in and student of American religious rhetoric, the reactions cluster around certain topoi, all variations on the red herring fallacy. So I give you:

The Top Ten Campaign 2008 Fallacies from the Religious Right

(Dog Latin gratis)

“What about them?” Formal Name: Tu Quoque.

• Let’s get this one out of the way. Because after my friends on the Religious Right read that header, they’re already muttering “You gonna give equal time to them, aren’t you?” under their breath. Let’s face it: I don’t know “them.” I haven’t spent my life with “them.” I don’t get vituperative reactions from “them” when I disagree with the standard GOP line. So this is all in the family right now.
• Potential Retort: “That’s not my project.” It worked in grad school. Might work here.

“They are all liars!” “They both do it!” Formal Name: also Tu Quoque.

• This is usually the first line of defense, and what it really reveals is severe undertow of cynicism. It’s the Republican version of “Yo Mama!” As an attempt to put the opponent on the defensive, it’s usually general and imprecise so an effective defense is impossible.
• Retort: You can’t respond with some Zen-like “Aren’t we all liars deep down?” No, you have to reflect feelings. “It is easier to be mad than sad.”

“What about Jeremiah Wright?” Formal Name: Religio est Freakium. It’s a combination of Ad Hominem and Guilt by Association with an extra dash of freak-out over weird religions.

• This is the response I get the most. And it irks me. Because it’s like asking a doctor on the sidewalk, “Hey, I’ve got a pain right here. What could that be?” Your doc isn’t gonna tell you without research and observation. And neither am I! I’m trained in studying religious discourse, and a clip shown ad nauseum on Fox News doesn’t cut it. I know enough about American-grown religion in the black community a la the Nation of Islam to know that we white people just don’t get it. And this white woman is not going to attempt to get it quickly.
• Secondly, HELLO? I spent 20 years within what was for all intents and purposes a pretty racist place. And I don’t buy their defense of racism. There was good there. A lot of good. And, like all human institutions, there was a lot of foolishness, even dangerous and hurtful foolishness. People in glass houses . . . .[/rant]
• The Left is doing it about Sarah Palin too. Everybody’s up in arms that she’s a Pentecostal. And yeah, she is. That doesn’t make her evil. It may reveal a part of her, but it doesn’t reveal all of her.
• Retort: “Can we get back to the issues?”

“How could you?” Formal Name: Argumentum ad Betrayalium. It’s the opposite of Argumentum ad Verecundiam. And it’s related Bandwagon.

• This response is more emotionally weighty than the flabbergasted and understandable “Can you explain this one to me?” It communicates that feeling of (unjustified) betrayal that you’re not voting for the Republican candidate instead of the justified betrayal that the GOP has delivered a real loser candidate. It’s a diversion because it’s easier to be mad at an unemployed goof like me than to get mad at someone powerful or out-of-reach. The real problem here is a lack of personal boundaries.
• Retort: “Thanks for your concern. Would you like some bean dip?”

“Terrorist!” Formal Name: Reductio ad Terroristum.

• There’s nothing you can say after that.
• It’s just like Reductio ad Hitlerum with a 21^st-century twist. Or Reductio ad Arabium: “He’s an Arab!” Or Reductio ad Abortum: “He kills babies with a hammer!”
• Retort: We need to update Godwin’s Law with Camille’s Corollary: “As the Religious Right’s candidate falls in the polls, the number of accusations that the opposing candidate is not a Christian will demonstrate an inversely proportional rise.”

“Polemic!” Formal Name: Reductio ad Spinum

• I believe this response is intended to mean “Quit stalling. Get to my point.” But in the grand scheme of things, it is expressing frustration at argumentative creativity. It means, “Quit dancing and stick to the talking points.” Personally, I don’t stick to the talking points. That’s not what I do. If you don’t like it, talk to someone who’ll respond like you want them to.
• Retort: “Huh?”

“How could you fall for all that celebrity/eloquence/schmaltz/rhetoric?” Formal Name: Reductio ad Gorgias

• Okay. I’ll ignore that slam on my academic discipline for now. . . . There has been a ton of schmaltz. No doubt. On all sides. And it is tiring. But who says I am falling for it? Do I buy Dr. Pepper because I like the jingle – even if it is a great jingle? Nope. I like the taste.
• Retort: “I’m not.”

“At least, vote for third party!” “Whatever you do — don’t vote for third party!” Formal Name: Reductio ad Authoritum est Rubberium et Tu est Glueium

• Talk about an argumentative tennis match. “Third party is the least of all evils;” “The third party is the biggest waste of your civic energy.” “At least be consistent with my values and vote for Bob Barr;” “You think Ralph Nader could actually win?” Whatever it is you’re planning to do is wrong and you must do the opposite. Which is also wrong so you must just vote for the GOP: it’s the only possible choice.
• Retort: “Vote your conscience. I’m voting mine. That’s all you have left after this campaign.”

“If you think you’re offended, well, I’m offended more.” Formal Name: Reductio ad Colbertum

• It is an attempt to pirate the usually left-wing trope of “political correctness.” It falls flat. It’s like when a rich friend complains that his boat needs a new whatever-it-is-that-boats-need while your dishwasher is broken, your credit cards are maxed out, and your goofy, incontinent dog is bald from all the obsessive licking.
• Retort: The only way to respond is to imagine the person is channeling Stephen Colbert. Then, with comic irony fully intact, you may move on. WristStrong!

“Either you’re for us or you’re against us.” Formal Name: Reductio ad Absurdum

• This is the most sacrilegious of the fallacies because it takes a Scriptural phrase and imposes that formal either-or bifurcation on anything and everything. “You’re either for McCain or you’re a communist.” “You either love America or you’re voting for Obama.” “You either are smart and agree with me or you’re an argula-eating, Huffington-reading loser.”
• Retort: “Says who?”

The Christian Right has been so painfully loyal to the GOP since the 1980s, and now we’re hearing the warning whistles and seeing the light coming closer and closer. And we’re bickering amongst ourselves about who jumped off the tracks first. Just ACT!

Be pious to the Gospel! Don’t be pious to the Party.

No individual should be allowed to enter into this world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it. How far you go in life depends on your being tender to the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic to the striving and tolerant of the young and the old; for one day in life, you will have become all of these.

George Washington Carver

If you’re wondering how to motivate your employees, try it Old School! Get that glass ceiling back securely in place. Here are Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees from 1943:

There is no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shorrtage has settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and how to use them to the best advantage. Here are eleven helpful tips on the subject:

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters. They are less likely to be flirtatious. They need the work, or they would not be doing it. The still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It is always well to impress upon older women, the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that “husky” girls – those who are just a little on the heavy side – are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

5. Stress at the outset, the importance of time; the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.

6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they will keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.

8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they cannot shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman – it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.

10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl’s husband or father may swear vociferously, she will grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.

11. Get enough size variety in operator’s uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. this point cannot be stressed too much in keeping women happy.