Recently I joined a small group and have been doing my first Bible study. We started with Romans and when we hit Romans 13 it seemed real appropriate for the time we are in.

I love Speaking of Faith on NPR and I heard that episode. I’m really pushing for a breakthrough of faith in Jesus that means, if He is what He says He is and did what I believe He did, politics and our our playing around with shaping outcomes is irrelevant. His deal transcends the rest.

I think as a UU, what I got out of Hale’s talk was, even people that don’t happen to believe in the divinity of Jesus or salvation, can still live by his teachings. I’m always looking for things that bring people together and look at what someone does rather than what they believe. Also listened to an interesting podcast Speaking of Faith with a guest that discussed who were the leaders/founders that pushed for separation of church and state. I thought it would have been the deists, unitarians or progressives of the time but according to the guest it was the Baptists and Evangelicals. Link to the show is http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/liberating_the_founders/index.shtml

It’s the churches embrace of politics that I hate. I hate how James Dobson is seduced by political power on the right and I hate how Tony Campolo is seduced by political power on the left. Tony is a friend, and I’ve had several opportunities to tell him what I think.

If what Christians believe is true, politics is a massive waste of time and a horribly inefficient way to accomplish anything.