“Are you even a Christian?”

I flashed back in my mind to a church parking lot in Tyler, Texas.  I was nineteen.  Becky and I were just friends who sometimes kissed.  And we were having our first fight – over politics.

At the time I was in the habit of listening to an hour or so of Rush Limbaugh every day.  I was a runner and data entry gnome at a real estate title company which gave me lots of car time with no cassette or CD player.  And I was very Republican and probably would have chosen Rush over music anyway.  My church was also dominated by Republican and patriotic thinking – the definition of patriot being one who is a Republican, or at least that’s the message I somehow got and clung to with all three and half pounds of gray matter.

And there was Becky, telling me she didn’t vote.  “Don’t you care that your taxes keep going up every year?  Don’t you care that Democrats want to pay lazy people who won’t work more than you’ll make working hard with a college degree?  Does that sound fair to you?  Don’t you care that babies are being killed and we can’t put the ten commandments up in courthouses anymore?  Does sound that sound like a nation under God to you?  That’s not what our Christian founders wanted. And you aren’t doing anything about it?”

She just smiled.

Doesn’t that just tick you off – when you’re passionate about something, taking it very seriously, arguing your little heart out and your audience just smiles.  Passive aggressive is what that is.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  But very effective.

“Are you even a Christian?”

I smiled back at him.  “I think so,” I said.

“Well, you better be sure.  I don’t think a Christian would want their kids learning how to be gay do you?”

I smiled back at him.

“This country was founded under God by Christians,” clipboard lady chimed back in.

“Woe,” I said.  “What is a Christian?”

She gave me the usual definition using words like “believe” and “saved” and “heaven” and, most importantly, “Jesus.”

“I guess I am a Christian then,” I said and grinned at the eavesdropping volunteer.  “Name a founder of this country for me, any founder,” I asked clipboard lady.

“George Washington, Thomas Jefferson-”

“Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a Christian…”

She went back to staring blankly at me.

“…not by your definition he wasn’t anyway.  He wrote his own version of the bible – you can buy a copy on Amazon.  He took the bible you and I read and took out the parts that made Jesus look divine.  No miracles.  Nothing that made it look like Jesus was God.  America was founded during the Enlightenment and it was popular back then to believe in a Creator who made the world and wound it up like a watch and then walked away from it.  Some people didn’t believe God was involved in everyday life.  Some people didn’t believe Jesus was God because God doesn’t get mixed up in stuff down here on earth.  He gives us rights and abilities and gifts and then turns us loose on each other – some people thought back then.  Jefferson thought that.  It’s called Deism and a lot of our founders were Deists but I don’t know how many exactly.  But some big ones.  Franklin and Jefferson for sure.  They believed in God and talked a lot about God and his laws but you’ll have a hard time finding a quote by them about Jesus.  So are you a Christian if Jesus isn’t God to you?”

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