As a rule, I tend to distrust anyone who says they are a Christian. I know some of my reading audience will gasp at that statement; please read more. I haven’t come to this idea lightly, it’s been in development for most of my life. First, some background…

I grew up in a Christian household where my parents raised us on Christian values and by matter of course ended up interacting heavily with the Christo-american subculture back in the 80’s. You know, those big televangelists (literally) and their big-haired wives. Yeah, we watched ‘em every once in a while. You know, those T-shirts with clever (read cheesy) phrases that were supposed to bring sinners to their knees. Yeah, wore ‘em. You know, those Sunday School classes that painted life outside the church as evil and terrifying–just set foot in that den of the devil and you will ignite into flames! Yup, bought into it. My friends were those who attended church with me. I wouldn’t want to be caught talking to an ungodly sodomite when Jesus comes back, right?

Well, as I grew older, these Christo-american subcultural directives grew, too. Who should you hire to fix your plumbing? Why a Christian plumber of course (we’ve even got a Christian Yellow Pages)! Why would you trust your pipes to anyone else? Hmm, feeling a little musical today? Why, here, listen to this music written and guaranteed to lift you spirits. It’s kept in a diatonic major key and uses the name “Jesus” at least 2 times and only touches on issues that Christians *should* be thinking about. It’s a flexible genre. We call it “Christian Music”. Catchy, eh? Oh, look, an election is coming up. Know who you should vote for? That’s right, the “Christian” candidate. To vote otherwise would be slapping Jesus’ face and a personal rebellion against the kingdom of God. God have mercy on you!!!

Here I must point out that my parents are really cool. Please don’t get the impression that they are like some parents who try to hide their kids from the world around them. They are as normal as parents can be! They did their best to teach things to us in manageable chunks as we could process them. They went along with the church crowd of the day because you could trust those church people, right? My parents are very open-minded in the most constructive sense of the word. When the Christo-american subculture was hailing the benefits of Christian colleges in contrast to the evils of those secular cesspools of iniquity and evolution, dad encouraged me to attend the University of Akron. Ah, those were the days. We drank regularly from the pool of cess. :-)

Back to the point at hand. Just because someone says they are a Christian doesn’t mean they are good or better at what they do, or that they are even a decent person! I was talking to a client (making a website for their business) who found out that I am a “Christian” (I use the term loosely) and worked part time at a church. His next statement was, “That’s wonderful! I would rather do all my business with Christians. You can always trust the people of God.” Oh? Well, I would agree that people who genuinely consider themselves “God’s people” had better be trustworthy. But he’s taking me at my word. He doesn’t know anything else about me. He assumes that because I said I’m a Christian I will automatically be the best in my field (which, I don’t think I’m that bad) and will put in extra effort for him because he says he’s one. I came to find out later that he hoped I would give a nice brotherly Christian discount, too. :-)

People pull out the Christian card all the time, so much so that I am trying to distance myself from the term. I don’t tell people that I am employed by a church up front because I don’t want it to color the conversation. In all honesty, I consider my role there to be relatively insignificant to who I am. Likewise if someone claims to be a Christian or some other such affiliation, it changes my impression of them very little. It’s pretty obvious that most people don’t know what a Christian is anyway.

I made this point obtusely earlier, but I’ll come back to it because we are entering a mid term election period. It amazes me how candidates are trusted based on their alleged church affiliation. You might hear, “This candidate was in church just last week. And he prays for our nation every day. Therefore I trust him as God’s chosen man!” He prays! Oh, that makes me feel better. What? He prays to the flying spaghetti monster? Oops. Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

Seriously, though. I am deeply concerned by the way our current President George Bush is interacting with the rest of the world. He speaks first and then has to backtrack and either apologize or “clarify” what he says because he didn’t think through the implications of his words on the world outside the US. But, I’m told that we should look the other way. He is the most “Christian” President we’ve had in a long time. I’m told that we need this kind of spiritual leadership in this country. But I don’t see spiritual leadership. I see partisan leadership. I don’t see Jesus Christ. I see a globally blind American president. I don’t see peacemakers. I see bullies.

“You can trust me, I follow God!” Uh huh. David Koresh said the same thing.