Maybe one of my most valuable tactics is to talk about my parents and my family and my growing up years. To open that up as a totally foreign way of life to my friends in hopes that they might even be jealous, but at least perhaps eventually open up about their family backgrounds. I'm wondering if that's the biggest key to their messed up lives: their messed up families. Thinking about how messed up all my friends are--the verbal, emotional, perhaps even physical abuse that they've grown up accustomed to or afraid of--has made me a little depressed this week. Looking at John Fontanini happily sitting between his doting, godly parents made me crazy because I know now that it is John's world, my world, that's abnormal compared with what's really out there. In a way I'm ready to go back to school and face that and minister and be a light. In a way I am freaking out about how much brokenness is out there. There's so much brokenness. I never thought I'd learn to employ that word again after seeing it misused in evangelical circles. But it's an accurate descriptor of the effects of sin on the world. May God make me strong and courageous and hopeful to be a light amidst it. I pray it won't depress but I know my bent towards Ecclesiastesesque nihilism.

And then there's the other force to be reckoned with: the "Christian" imposters who make up the other half of the demographics at St. Olaf. The liberal do-good nonsense that pretends to be Christianity. Here's the speech my biggest annoyance delivered to his class this interim, which he posted for all to see:

The Sermon on the Mount, perhaps one of the most famous speeches of all time and the pinnacle exhibition of Christian moral thought. A speech that has been preserved for centuries in the gospel of Matthew and has been considered by many to be one of the greatest acts of the Christ figure. For me the Christian code of morality is rather redundant and mundane having spent a vast majority of my life going to church or Sunday School…. Doing crafts to remind me of the ten commandments or attempting to sit still through a sermon that is few analogies too long. Yet to read the sermon again has given me an opportunity to see such values in a new light and to ponder how my life is affected and my ethics are composed. I believe that it is NOT how you learn these morals or the creed you speak once a week. It is the practice of such values that benefits the world and your fellow man. I have found that many atheists are more faithful to such a moral code than many of the proclaimed “good Christians” I have encountered. I cannot claim any certain moral entitlement because I am a person of faith…. I am a proud, lazy, partisan youth in America. A youth that swears, procrastinates, and torments people of the different political persuasion for self-gratification. So I am not here to preach… only to share with you my opinion. However, it would be foolish of me to ignore my faith and how it has influenced my life. I was raised a Lutheran and I decided to continue to be…. Having been voluntarily confirmed and involved with ministry since I have matured. Definitely, my ethics have been formed by Christian thought. However, and this will be perhaps no surprise to anyone listening…. I firmly believe that Jesus was a liberal…. A radical man with a message of equality, peace, acceptance, generosity, and support for those who are burdened by their society. It is these liberal values that he preached in the Sermon on the Mount. It is a liberal system of ethics that he exhibits in his actions on earth. I am a liberal and a Christian. This sermon and the rest of Jesus’ teachings in the gospels are a guide for my life and vital to an ethical code I have adopted and attempt to put in to practice.
It is certainly not the case that conservatives are without morals… it just surprises me that for one reason or another this group of people give fervor to certain issues or values and compromise the main Christian moral truths in the pursuit of their beliefs. How is it that marriage is threatened by homosexuals?? Where is the acceptance that Jesus is speaking of in Matthew Chapter 7, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” The example of the speck in the neighbor’s eye is ideal when it comes to marriage. An institution that is already being destroyed by straight people who on the whole are divorcing at an incredible rate and according to Christ are “committing adultery”. Moreover, when a person makes a choice that may seem immoral…. Such as an abortion, a change in lifestyle, or form of expression…. Conservatives begin to condemn and discriminate… neglecting the moral truth of acceptance and turning their backs on forgiveness. The forgiveness of others for their trespasses is perhaps the strongest form of acceptance. In Matthew 6 14 and other places in the gospels the case for forgiveness is made clear. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” These and other passages also conflict with the conservative justification for capital punishment. A justification that is contradictory to the conservative pro-life stance. Jesus was constantly in the company of people who were considered low or worthless in order to preach these two morals. Forgiveness and acceptance, two major aspects of Jesus’ ministry on Sermon on the Mount, are liberal and relevant to today’s current debates.
Jesus is God as Man, imperfect and mortal. He came and preached amongst the human condition and struggled with his purpose on earth. This imperfection along with others is neglected by the conservative mentality; a mentality that believes in a truly moral life that never really existed. In reality, it is too much to ask human beings to be perfect, yet Jesus does in Matthew 5 48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” I ask… if it were possible for man to be perfect as God the Father is, why is there a need to for the teaching of acceptance and forgiveness???
Christ taught his followers to care for the poor and those burdened by society. Jesus despised wealth and man’s pursuit of earthly treasures. “You cannot serve God and wealth” he says in Matthew 24. Giving to those who have little was a value of Jesus. A value that is often forgotten by conservatives who say that “liberal social programs” are undeserved and too costly for their benefits. Yet Jesus says in his sermon, “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5 42) The great liberal President Franklin Roosevelt who served during the Great Depression once said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
It is evident to me that the values on the Sermon on the Mount are true. It is also evident to me that they are liberal. That Jesus was liberal. And that the conservative mindset is betrayed by its own pursuits. I have adopted the Christian faith, along with its liberal values, and will put these values in practice in my life and in my politics.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. Well, I'm sure for the most part: "ignore it," my gut tells me. A little tiny voice says, "You could answer it." A bigger voice (I like to call it prudence) says, "Get real and get a life." But it makes me mad. Crazy. So right now I'm just praying that this stuff--this "Christian" folly, this horrifyingly unintellectual liberalism, and this plague of brokenness will not get the better of me. Not this semester, and not any semester. That I won't go ballistic. But that I will also not be ineffective, but an influential conduit for hope and healing. I've got a lot on my mind. (One of my closest friends just admitted to me this week that she's "bisexual but leaning more towards lesbianism.")