ID--The Remix

One thing I don't want to get lost in our talk of Intelligent Design (because it seems like the conversation is going in other interesting directions) is that I don't want us to fail to see this for what it is: a profound theological crisis. Anyone with a basic understanding of the New Testament and a basic understanding of human nature ought to recognize what's going on with this attempt to codify a certain type of Christian belief in the school systems and this attempt to shun homosexuals into non-existence and this attempt to return women to their rightful place under the authority of husbands. What this is, at its heart, is a group of Christians trying to make a deal with God. For those of you who need a short refresher course on how that tends to go, let me remind you. You can make deals with the Devil--even learn to play the blues--but you will lose your soul in the end. You cannot bargain with God. There are a number of theological problems with the ID debate. First Christians again mistake Jesus's nature. If you read the New Testament, you'll see that one of the things that made Jesus unrecognizable as the messiah to most people is that they were expecting a military king, someone to come down and kick some ass for God. Instead, they got a carpenter and his fishermen buddies asking them to give up everything they had, even their dreams of military power. And here we are again, with these Christians transforming themselves into a virtual army of God battling against the evils of the secular world, because, again, they refuse to see that their messiah refuses to be a general. But these Christians really want power. They want a Godly man in the White House so desperately they refuse to see his failings as a human being. They want to have their way so desperately in the court houses that they overlook the pitfall of worshipping false idols. They want to have their way in the public schools so desperately that they ignore Jesus's admonition to render under Caesar what is Caesar's. And they really, really don't want to give themselves over to the transformative power of Jesus, because the only thing Jesus asks, again and again, is to let go of the things you think you can't do without and see how it goes. This, at its heart, is why they don't go after adulterers with the same zeal they go after homosexuals or why they don't go after rich people who refuse to give all they have to the poor with the same zeal they go after women who refuse to submit to men. Because they are the money-hungry. The adulterers are among them. They want to fix what's "wrong" out there. They don't want to look inward at their own problems. They're trying to strike a bargain so that they don't have to change. "God, if you don't expect me to do what Jesus asked, then I will go after those fornicators and blasphemers and heathens. Lord, if you just let me hold onto this power and have a little more, I will be an army against your enemies." Bargaining with God... Good luck with that.