Michael Irvin's induction speech

I think we have discovered the Sutter's Mill of straight lines right here.

 

I did not say it was every resident of Middle America. Only asked if Yawn knew anyone like that, and he answered my question by not answering it.

 

A Comedy Comstock.

 

On point 1: I agree with you. Completely. I have to. Paul writes in Romans:

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

The governing "authority" in America is the people. The founders never waver from that. A politician is absolutely in submission to his or her constituents.

The wise, informed reporter turns that politician's line right on its head. Most reporters - and I include religion reporters - are entirely clueless to what lies in any religious text. Most of them have never read it.

Know what's funny? No reporter ever battles Bush on his home turf. They drag him into secular humanist realm where he can use his "faith" as a comfortable shield. He believes in this mysterious God who leads him divinely in ways we could not hope to appreciate. Nobody's ever spent an hourlong interview examining this faith he holds so dear. I mean, digging in the Bible and holding his belief system the verses found there.

If they did, they'd discover:

1. Bush's God is neither mysterious, distant, or particularly cryptic in the general sense. (Paul refers to mystery, but he lingers on the meaning of certain things. The spiritual purpose of marriage, for example, is a mystery that he does not really comprehend.)

2. Bush is full of shit in the most important way - what he claims guides him is in fact his own cobbled together goop of feel-good Joel Osteen evangelism, Karl Rove, his sweet wife's good nature, and Mama's bitter, homespun truisms.

 

And enough Jim Beam to float the Nimitz.

 

See, that's it! Right there. Sit him down and have him walk you through the Gospel according to George. I'd be dumbfounded, if, for example, he could rattle off the Ten Commandments, much less parse a letter to the Ephesians.

His faith is part and parcel of the millenial Osteen/Warren don't-sweat-it revisionism wherein Jesus arrived on Earth only to make sure you could earn more, lose weight, have better sex with your wife, raise conventionally above-average children and feel better about yourself. Religion, toothless, sinless and pointless, as self-help, with Mr. Jesus as Life Coach.

 

I like the better sex part.

 

Osteen hasn't stepped on anyone's toes since he was a baby.

 

Having misread The Purpose Driven Life, I spent several months losing money and earning more weight. Luckily, a new prescription from the optician changed all that.

 

I'm guessing none of you really have any idea what the depth or breadth of Bush's faith is. Much like few on the right have any real idea about the true faith of the Dem bunch.

The Jim Beam comment is beneath you, FB.

 

But here's the key...you can't call Bush on his bullshit unless you take Christianity seriously. Otherwise he can claim (and has allowed his media toads to do so in various outlets) that his "calling" is beyond your distrust and secular cynicism.

The media steadfastly refuses to play on that turf, and a good portion of our Republicans play this mysterious, personal God card. All the time. And win with it. The media believes, incorrectly, that the rest of America is as skeptical. They are not.