Reach out and touch faith

It's hard to argue with the actions of a Jimmy Carter, whose faith has caused him to try to serve his fellow man, both in politics, and more recently in his work with the Habitat For Humanity project.

Here is clearly someone whose faith is a positve aspect of his life, and has made a positive difference in others. I've had close friends and girlfriends whose faith was important to them, and we got on because I didn't try to change them, and they didn't try to change me.

But there is the other side to christianity too, a side obsessed with it's own infalibility even when all logic has shown that it has failed (read a biography of Galileo sometime).

Oddly, the people and works that have had the most effect on what I think of Christianity and Christians were (in no particular order): John Lennon, the Monty Python team and their Life of Brian, Rice and Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar and John-Michael Tebelak & Steven Schwartz's Godspell.

What John Lennon said during the "bigger than Jesus" thing. "Christ was all right, but his apostles were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Or when the Monty Python team had the idea that they wanted to do a biblical parody.
Each went away and read the bible, and found that they didn't really want to ridicule Jesus, but as for those around him...and they made Life Of Brian. Which is a funny and potent film about the dangers of mindlessly following. And ooh, did it piss some of the christians off...

As for Jesus Christ Superstar & Godspell I don't know quite what to say other than that I'm an unabashed fan of the drama, the performances (especially in the films) and the music.

Oh, you want to know what brought all this on? Via Egalia at TGW:

Despite numerous complaints about the overtly political nature of conservative churches, including Nashville's own Two River's Baptist Church, of Justice II fame, the IRS is not threatening to revoke their tax exempt status.

However, churches that preach the apparently radical values of peace are not so lucky. There you go.

Diane at MoJo Blog reports:

After Justice Sunday passed this year, some of us were wondering whether the Internal Revenue Service would ever investigate blatantly political churches like Two Rivers Baptist in Nashville.

Now, we learn that the IRS is indeed going after a church for political involvement: All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena may lose its tax-exempt status because its rector, J. Edwin Bacon, preached an anti-war sermon two days before the 2004 election.

Unlike many conservative churches, the Rev. George F. Regas did not mail out voting guides, nor did he explicitly promote one candidate over another. He did criticize the Bush War and the tax breaks for Bush's wealthy family and friends.

So yeah, that got me thinking again about what I consider "Christian values" to be--which is basically, being caring and compassionate to others. And how it seems to be at odds with so many (so, so many) with those who call themselves "Christians."