MIGHT AMERICA BE FRETTING ITSELF TO DEATH?

By Edwin Cooney

Yah, I know you hate politics and are suspicious of political power, but are they not two of the most essential ingredients of a free society?

Of course, you love your own freedom, and perhaps are in the habit of lending your voice in support of the freedom of others, but how cheerfully do you pay the essential cost of everyone’s freedom?  The fact is that most of us righteously insist on the absolute superiority of our own values and priorities, but at what cost do we diminish the values of our political opponents?

Since you live in a “republic” rather than a monarchy, theocracy, or oligarchy, how essential is the art of politics and politicians?  Might there be a difference between healthy or unhealthy politics?  What would be your definition of politics?

Now that you’ve defined politics, how do you define power?  When is power essential?  When is power unhealthy?  Now that you’ve given politics and power a good think, do you believe that it’s possible to maintain freedom without powerful entities within the structure of a healthy, prosperous, just, and secure free society?

I’ve always understood politics as the art of the possible within a structure of standards and rules.   “Power,” it seems to me, is the force that compels compliance with societal expectations.

Not long ago, I read in the New York Times the following definitions of politics and power. According to the late professor Robert A. Dahl of Yale University, politics is the process of the authoritative allocation of values.  Power exists, he asserted, when A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.

It has become quite fashionable for you and me to express our distaste for politics and power, especially if those with priorities and values that differ from ours occupy the stations of authority.  Therein dwells our individual invitation to unintended hypocrisy. Try these evaluations of powerful historical figures on for size.

George Washington, the “Father of Our Country”, was a man beyond reasonable reproach.  Ah, but which side of Washington are we talking about –- the Continental Army’s Commander-In-Chief or the federal authority figure who, in 1794, led 20,000 soldiers against poor western Pennsylvania farmers to collect federal taxes on their corn whiskey?  (What do you suppose President Obama’s opponents would say if he were to authorize the collection of delinquent taxes that way?)

Abraham Lincoln put principle above politics or power.  Ah, but was that when Lincoln tried to convince visiting black ministers on the advantages to their people of mass emigration back to Central America? Or do we celebrate the Lincoln who issued the clearly unconstitutional Emancipation Proclamation?

Franklin D. Roosevelt is believed by many to have saved the American people from two mortal threats in twelve years: economic ruin from within and aggression from without.  Was he more successful because he was a good politician or because he was a man of principle?

Ronald Reagan is considered, even by some progressives, as ranking within the top 10 of our greatest presidents.  Did his success have to do more with his “conservatism” or with his personal magnetism?

Barack Obama is regarded by many as a socialist who is more sympathetic to world views than to American ways.  Did President Obama display his socialistic sympathies and low regard for American values when he halted our slide toward depression by bailing out the auto industry and the banks?  Did he demonstrate his lack of concern for our security when he became the first president since FDR to be responsible for the demise of two foreign tyrants (Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi) during his first term of office?

Having hopefully drawn your attention to the vagaries of four of our presidents, I’ll now toss your way one of the vagaries of the American people.

Why is it patriotic to expect one’s fellow citizens to sacrifice their well-being in war, but merely irksome and less than patriotic to share one’s wealth by cheerfully paying taxes?

The truth is that too often, without an adequate definition of terms, we habitually create our own political monsters, not so much as a national defense, but more damagingly as a political red carpet on which our favorite political politicians and causes might easily stroll towards power.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s near landslide victory was invariably offset by privately well-financed press and media institutions well placed to blunt the enthusiasm of his deliriously optimistic supporters.  I’d argue that the last time there was a change of political power in Washington with the optimistic expectations of most Americans, Dwight Eisenhower handed the reins of power over to John Kennedy.  Since 1964, a myriad of issues and circumstances have slowly eroded our openness to the good intentions of political or ideological opponents.

Free government is less than 300 years old, a mere experiment in comparison to monarchy, feudalism, or theocracy.  Much time, print, and media airtime has been given to the possible military, economic, and ideological threats to our future.  Too little time has been given to the danger that we’ve become a quarrelsome society more concerned about our personal righteousness than we are about our national well-being.  The history of the past 52 years indicates that we, the people, may well be our own worst enemy.

The real likelihood, I fear, is that we may needlessly be fretting ourselves to death!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CELEBRATING PRESIDENT’S DAY

By Edwin Cooney

You guessed it: I’m a sucker for American Presidential lore!  With all of the conscientious and often cynical but sincerely patriotic assessments of the office and its occupants, I insist on its past, present and future value to the American people.  Thus, on this the 43^rd anniversary of Richard Nixon’s proclamation of President’s Day, I propose a pleasant stroll down Presidential Lane in remembrance of each “First Magistrate” or “Chief Executive” -- take your pick.

George Washington, 1789-1797 -- Soldiers and statesmen are historically noted for profound statements on the occasion of great events.  According to historian Kenneth C. Davis’s 1988 book “Don’t Know Much About History,” what George Washington had to say on that Christmas night of 1776 as he crossed the frigid Delaware River to attack those Hessian mercenaries the British had in that nearby fortress was more practical than profound.

Addressing his bulky artillery officer Henry Knox (who was later his Secretary of War), Washington’s first words as he began that historic journey were: “Shift that fat ass Harry or you’ll swamp the damned boat!”

John Adams, 1797-1801 -- Adams, perhaps the most austere president that we ever had, turned out to have had a real sense of humor.  He must have had one; otherwise he would never have used the pseudonym “Humphrey Ploughjogger” for an article on agriculture that he wrote for publication in two Boston newspapers on July 18^th, 1763.

Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809, is the only president to have had twin siblings, his sister Anna and brother Randolph Jefferson.

James Madison, 1809-1817 -- Last words can be agonizing, sad, or even profound, but few are even close to humorous.  However, on the morning of Tuesday, June 26^th, 1836 shortly after 6 a.m., Madison, who’d been confined to his room for months, seemed to be having trouble swallowing his breakfast.  When asked by one of his nieces what the problem was, he replied, “Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear!” Suddenly his head dropped and he was gone.

James Monroe, 1817-1825 -- President Monroe’s daughter Maria Hester was the first presidential daughter to be married in the White House when she married her first cousin Samuel L. Gouverneur on Thursday, March 9^th, 1820.  Only 42 people including family and close friends were invited.  The Monroes’ decision to keep the wedding a private affair met with considerable criticism in Washington.

John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829 -- John Quincy Adams had two sons, George Washington Adams and John Adams II. Young John Adams II is the only presidential son, so far, to have been married in the White House. 

Andrew Jackson, 1829-1833 -- General Jackson’s only expressed regret as he died on Sunday, June 8^th, 1845 at his home in Tennessee was that he hadn’t hung his first vice president (John C. Calhoun of South Carolina) for treason in 1832.  That was the year that Calhoun passionately supported his home state’s legislature when it voted to nullify, within its borders, a federal tariff act and threatened to secede from the Union.

Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841 – Van Buren was the first president born in independent America. English was his second language; Dutch was the language spoken in the Van Buren home.

William Henry Harrison, March - April 1841 -- Harrison hoped to study medicine but was forced to drop out of college upon the death of his father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He served in the military and became a general, a territorial governor, a senator, a diplomat and, finally, served as our ninth president for exactly 30 days.

John Tyler, 1841-1845 -- Legend has it that Vice President John Tyler was playing marbles with his children when, on the morning of Monday, April 5^th, 1841, Fletcher Webster, the son of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, arrived at Tyler’s home to tell him of the death of President William Henry Harrison.

James Knox Polk, 1845-1849, to this date is the only former Speaker of the House of Representatives to become president.

Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850 -- Taylor was the first president not to have voted in any presidential election including his own in 1848.  He is also the first successful presidential candidate not to carry his native state, Virginia, in a presidential election.

Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853 -- His name was originally spelled “phillmore.”  Although self-educated, his intellect, principles and personality were sufficient enough to gain the admiration and friendship of Harvard-educated John Quincy Adams as they served together in the House of Representatives between 1833 and 1843.

Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857 -- “Handsome Frank” was a Bowdoin College classmate of two American literary giants: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Against his publisher’s wishes, Hawthorne dedicated his 1863 book “Our Old Home” to his good friend Franklin Pierce.

James Buchanan, Jr., 1857-1861, was such a cutup at Dickinson College that he was nearly expelled.  Prior to his senior year, college officials wrote James Buchanan, Sr. urging him to keep his eldest son at home the following Fall.  Buchanan mended his ways enough to graduate in 1809, but it was close.

Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 -- On Thursday, February 12^th, 1976, Lincoln’s 167^th birthday, the contents of his pockets on the night of his assassination were revealed.  They included: two pairs of spectacles, a chamois lens cleaner, an ivory and silver pocketknife, a large white Irish linen handkerchief (slightly used and embroidered “A. Lincoln” in red), a gold quartz watch fob without a watch, and a new silk-lined leather wallet containing a pencil, a new Confederate five dollar bill, news clippings about unrest in the Confederate army, emancipation in Missouri, the Union Party platform of 1864, and an article on the presidency by John Bright.

Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869 -- Vice President Johnson was probably the easiest mark for the group led by John Wilkes Booth that conspired to murder Lincoln, Secretary of State Seward and Johnson.  George Atzerodt, who was assigned the job of shooting Johnson, got a room at the Kirkwood House just above Johnson’s room, but lost his nerve the night of Good Friday, April 14^th, 1865.  (Note: In case you wondered, Atzerodt spared Johnson’s life but did not escape the noose nor did Mary Atzerodt, George’s mother, who knew of the plot but took no part in it.)

Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877 -- Grant sheparded a civil rights law through Congress in 1875 that LBJ would have been glad to sign.  The law granted blacks “full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of public amusement.”  The law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881 -- Hayes’s accession to the presidency was so controversial that outgoing President Ulysses S. Grant decided that Hayes should be privately sworn into office.  Grant’s term ran out at noon on Sunday, March 4^th, 1877, but he had his successor sworn in the previous evening in a secret White House ceremony.  Since Sunday was the Sabbath, Hayes wasn’t publicly sworn in until noon on Monday, March 5^th.

James Abram Garfield, March-September 1881 -- Garfield, at age 48 years, 3 months, and 14 days, was the third youngest president to take office up to his time.  (Only Grant and Pierce were younger than Garfield at the time of their inaugurals.) He was the first president whose mother, Eliza Ballou Garfield, witnessed his inauguration.  Sadly, she would survive her son by nearly seven years!

Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885 -- Arthur, probably the least known of all our presidents, could be called the Father of the modern American Navy.  Under President Arthur’s direction, three steel battle cruisers and one dispatch ship, the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and the Dolphin, were commissioned. (The Dolphin was the dispatch ship.) At that time, the navies of a number of Latin American countries were rated more powerful than ours.

Stephen Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 -- Cleveland was designated by the State Department as our 22^nd and our 24^th President.  Cleveland was a highly principled man with a steel will, solid integrity, but little imagination.  Having served as Sheriff of Erie County, New York (1871-1873), he was the only county sheriff ever elected president.

Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893 -- Harrison, the grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was a magnificent orator and a brilliant lawyer, but cold as ice as a human being.  So capable was he as an attorney that, during his post presidency, the British government hired him to make their case in an international dispute before an arbitration panel.  He lost the case, but kept their respect.

William McKinley, 1897-1901 -- McKinley was fatally wounded on Friday, September 6^th, 1901 while attending the Pan American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York.  Earlier on the day he was shot, he became the first sitting president to leave the country while in office when he strolled across the center of the “Peace Bridge” that links Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.  McKinley thought it would be inappropriate to cross the entire bridge, but reportedly he did step across briefly into Canadian territory.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909 -- TR hated the nickname “Teddy.”  On another personal matter, he was once asked by reporters if he had any control over his somewhat rebellious daughter Alice.  His response was, “I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”

William Howard Taft, 1909-1913 -- Taft was the first man, except for those with a military background, to become president in his first run for public office.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921 -- Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, openly asserted that God had ordained his election.  He told William F. McCombs, Democratic National Chairman, when he came to discuss worthy Democrats who might receive cabinet appointments and other favors that “as long as you understand that I wouldn’t be in this position if God hadn’t ordained it, we can get on with our business.”

Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923 -- Harding, who really does get less respect than he deserves, is generally credited with creating a phrase used by every “red-blooded American” in reference to our 1776 forefathers. The phrase he coined is: “our Founding Fathers.”

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., 1923-1929 -- As for Washington “crossing the Delaware,” according to a book entitled “Meet Calvin Coolidge,” the last thing Coolidge did prior to his fatal heart attack around noon on Thursday, January 5^th, 1933, was to work on a jigsaw puzzle of Washington crossing the Delaware.

Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933 -- Hoover was the second man without a military background to become president on his first try to win elective office.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945 -- FDR, although he manipulated his nomination for a third term in 1940, nearly didn’t go through with it.  Angered when delegates at the Chicago convention balked at his nomination of Henry A. Wallace to be his running mate, FDR made two moves to get his way.  He sent Eleanor to the convention to talk of “no ordinary time” and he made it known through channels that it must be Wallace or he would refuse the nomination.

Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953 -- Truman, when nominated for Vice President at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in San Diego, gave the shortest acceptance speech since such speeches had been given.  His lasted only about 30 seconds.

Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-1961 -- The name on our 34^th President’s birth certificate is David Dwight Eisenhower.  However, his mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower, who detested nicknames, called him Dwight to distinguish between him and his father David Jacob Eisenhower.  The nickname that stuck to him, Ike, was at one time or another given to all six Eisenhower boys: Arthur, Edgar, Dwight, Roy, Earl and Milton. 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963 -- During Nixon’s run for the Senate seat from California in 1950, JFK gave Richard Nixon a check for one thousand dollars from his father, Joseph P. Kennedy,

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969 -- LBJ remained nameless for the first three months of his life.  He was simply called “baby.”  Finally, Rebecca Baines Johnson decided to name him after a family friend and lawyer by the name of W. C. Linden. However, she changed the spelling from L I N D E N to L Y N D O N.

Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974 -- Many considered Vice President Nixon’s crowning achievement during his 1959 visit to the Soviet Union to be his public “kitchen debate” with Premier Nikita Khrushchev. However, according to Peter Carlson’s 2009 book about Khrushchev entitled “K Blows Top,” Nixon’s greatest achievement may have occurred earlier that day at the close of their first private meeting in the Kremlin.  Angered over the recently passed “Captive Nations Week Resolution,” Khrushchev asserted that the resolution bore the stink of the worst possible barnyard smell: horse manure.  Nixon immediately one-upped Khrushchev when he asserted that pig dung was far worse than horse manure. Reportedly, Khrushchev laughingly agreed with Nixon.

Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977 -- Jerry Ford was the only president to have been an Eagle Scout.

James Earl Carter, 1977-1981 – Jimmy Carter’s nickname growing up was “hot” which was short for “hotshot.”  The nickname was given him by his father Earl Carter.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989 -- Ronald Reagan almost didn’t become president due to a strange irony.  While on a campaign plane in 1976, Reagan nearly choked to death on a peanut or peanuts.  Only quick action by Michael Deaver, who applied the Heimlich Maneuver, saved the candidate's life.  Everyone immediately wondered, “might it have been one of Jimmy Carter’s peanuts?”

George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 -- George and Barbara Bush hold the distinction of being the longest married presidential couple.  They were married on Saturday, January 6^th, 1945 in Rye, New York.  Thus they just celebrated their 69^th wedding anniversary.  The Carters are the second longest married presidential couple.

William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 – Bill Clinton cut his political teeth on George McGovern’s presidential campaign in Texas which he worked on in 1972.  His employer was Gary Hart who would briefly be his rival for the 1992 Democratic Presidential nomination.

George Walker Bush, 2001-2009 -- Bush, as president of the Texas Rangers American League baseball franchise, demonstrated definite executive nerve when he traded young outfielder Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox for a veteran outfielder named Harold Baines in 1989.  Sosa would go on to hit 66 home runs in 1998, 63 in 1999, 50 in 2000 and 64 in 2001 for the Chicago Cubs thus becoming the only slugger in baseball history to have three 60 plus home run seasons.

Barack Hussein Obama, 2009 to the present -- Obama’s brother-in-law is Craig Robinson, the head basketball coach at Oregon State.  His assessment of the president is that of a coach or a leader of men.  He says the president is confident but unselfish, a “team player,” who does what needs to be done for the team regardless of how it affects his own persona.

Yes, indeed, presidents are quite interesting people, just like you and me!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE THOUGHTFUL MAN’S THINKER

By Edwin Cooney

Too many of us these days take pride in our beliefs!  Even worse, too many more of us take pride in our opinions.

The danger is that our opinions are primarily little more than reflections of stale information rather than the product of new experiences and observations.  As President Kennedy once observed, “too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion rather than the discomfort of thought.”

That’s not true of my friend (I’ll call him Mr. Wisdom.) who writes a “blog” as I do. Aside from being a friend of mine (which has to be something of an emotional, intellectual and spiritual rescue mission), Mr. Wisdom is a powerful thinker.  He recently identified a malady which we, who are prone to beliefs and opinions, invariably possess. He calls it “a sense of assumptive superiority.”

Assumptive superiority, as Mr. Wisdom points out, has an upside and a downside.  The upside is that it energizes people like the two of us to write columns or blogs.  The downside is that it tends to limit our appreciation of what others have to say, not due to the meaning or substance of the message, but rather because of whom we project the person to be.

Not long ago, Mr. Wisdom saw a bumper sticker on the back of a 2000 Honda Insight.  Because that particular car gets excellent gas mileage, the bumper sticker read, “al-Qaeda hates this car.”

Believing that al-Qaeda hates America not because of who we are but rather because of what we do, Mr. Wisdom experienced a flash of anger at the driver of that “goofy looking” 2000 Honda Insight.  In his frustration, he even gave the driver a name: “Honda Harry.”

As Mr. Wisdom digested this experience, he realized that he was projecting his own tendency toward assumptive superiority onto Honda Harry.  That realization caused Mr. Wisdom to examine the nature of his own capacity for assumptive superiority.  What he came to realize is that as energizing and useful as assumptive superiority can be, it must be controlled and restrained as it inevitably gets in the way of healthy emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth.

Two especially negative components of assumptive superiority are projection and ad hominem thinking.  We are most guilty of projection when we transfer an emotionally or intellectually based outlook, attitude or action onto someone else.  Ad hominem thinking is when we reject an argument, not on its logic or value, but rather on how we feel about the group or individual who makes the argument.  Mr. Wisdom asked himself if he might be guilty of projection and ad hominem thinking.  Deciding that he occasionally might be and after cringing a bit, he had the courage to share his scary tendencies with us so that we might identify and govern them from within ourselves.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, hatred of “World Communism” was considered a patriotic and moral requirement -- as if there’s anything moral about patriotism! However, was Communism ultimately defeated because we hated it or because it didn’t work?

As far back as the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and certainly since 9/11, Americans possessed enough legitimate reasons to despise al-Qaeda.  The question is whether despising al-Qaeda was sufficient to our future well-being!

The truth is, Middle America has much in common with both its former and current political and moral enemies, Soviet Communism and al-Qaeda!  Among other things, Americans, Communists and al-Qaedans hate abortions, love capital punishment, do a lot of hand wringing over high marital divorce rates, wince over anything regarded as “sexual perversion,” and despise social disorder.  We mutually treasure such things as national security, economic stability, materialism, and cultural purity. All three of us have a tendency to hate change, especially progressive change if it costs money or a sense of social uncertainty.

Our ultimate safety and security aren’t threatened by our perception of who another people are, but rather by what they do.  Nine-eleven was an act of war on the part of al-Qaeda and needed to be met.  However, that doesn’t mean that all al-Qaeda stands for is worthy of the resentment, anger and hatred that fuels our sense of assumptive superiority!

Opinion stimulates reaction but seldom explains.  Its value lies in the perceived significance and integrity of its source.  The closer or dearer the source of any opinion may be to its recipients, the greater its effect.  Nor do opinions offer solutions to the problems they invariably outline.  Any opinion’s greatest ultimate value is its capacity to stimulate thought and perhaps alter another’s outlook.

Mr. Wisdom, a man of considerable intellect and powerfully expressed opinion, recognizes that opinion is easy.  His ability to constructively turn his capacity for critical thinking inward onto himself is what separates him from many of the rest of us.

In the final analysis it’s possible that Mr. Wisdom is more than likely right when he asserts two things: First, the root of al-Qaeda’s hatred for us really is based on what we’ve done rather than on who we are. Second, al-Qaeda probably really and truly does hate Honda Harry. After all, Honda Harry probably is as guilty of assumptive superiority as al-Qaeda!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FELLOW CHRISTIANS, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, STOP STEPPING ALL OVER OUR MOST POWERFUL MESSAGE!

By Edwin Cooney

As many of you are aware, this June will mark the beginning of the tenth year I’ve been writing these columns.  Much of the time I’m familiar enough with a topic to not only cogently present it, but also to analyze and interpret its various significances.  Now, I’m stuck and I need your help.  Why do Christians invariably belittle God’s greatest creation, God’s people?

Earlier this very day, a dedicated Christian gentleman sent me a story which I’ll briefly relay:

A homeless child, cold and hungry, asks a policeman to tell him where he can find a warm place to sleep as the box he’s been living in is so cold these winter nights.  The policeman advises the youngster to go to a nearby house which he promptly points to, and to knock on the door.  When the lady answers all he has to say is “John 3:16” and he’ll have a warm place to sleep.  The boy does as the policeman suggests and before he knows it, he has not only been welcomed, seated by a fire, but fed.  When this lady admits him, when she invites him to sit by the fire and when she feeds, bathes and puts him to bed he says to himself: “Wow! John 3:16, I don’t understand it, but it really works.”

The following morning after breakfast the nice lady explains that John 3:16 tells how God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life and that God sacrificed His son’s life for the sake of you and me.  Again, the lad feels the force of that news and although he doesn’t understand it, because he’s already experienced its force, he thereby dedicates his life to Jesus Christ.

Okay, fair enough.  John 3:16 is perhaps the most powerful and meaningful passage in Holy writ, perhaps even the best news that one could possibly receive.  The idea that God, the mightiest force in all being, loves you and me enough to drag His own son through hell for our sake is incredible.  Wow! What news that is!  (Exactly why God would consider it necessary to maim and kill His own son is something I’ll never grasp, but God’s standards are ultimately God’s business and way beyond my ken!)

Then, suddenly, the Christian teller of this story proceeds to destroy, at least for me, the whole message.

If you’re not ashamed, says this evangelizing storyteller, pass this around.  In other words, if you don’t choose to tell this wonderful story, it’s because you’re ashamed.  That assumption is nothing less than an insult if you ask me. I have no doubt about the existence of God or that Jesus Christ came to earth as the Son of God and died according to God’s standards for the sake of my soul.  I’d feel utterly lonesome if I didn’t believe such is the case.  I’m not in the least ashamed of what I believe.  However, as I see it, the major flaw in the entire Christian message is the invariable belittling of God’s people.

Here we are, the highest order of God’s creation – greater than the bees, birds, animals, oceans, land masses, air, water, the earth and even the Milky Way and much of the Christian message is how unworthy we are.  Christians aren’t alone in this; many other religions are as bad or even worse -- as are some modern atheists who have made atheism a religion.  Atheists, who criticize Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists for their lack of realism, like their co-religionists, have lately adopted ridicule in defense of their own convictions.  I suppose ridicule is invariably everyone’s weapon including, on occasion, this budding columnist.

Here’s the bottom line as I see it.  The “news” the New Testament brings us is wonderful.  I love warm and fuzzies – the idea that God is out there as a Force of both strong and gentle eternal love which will enfold us once existence on this planet has come to an end.  I even accept the idea that God expects you and me to love one another, as sister and brother, as a reflection of our love for God.  In fact, I suggest that the real way we curse God isn’t via the use of profanity, but when we express disdain for each other.  We, after all, are God’s most brilliant creation, magnificent as is the rest of God’s domain.

My distress is with the Christian message.  The news is wonderful, but the strategy of distributing shame is soul-destroying.  As I see it, when an evangelist shames you, he or she steps on the message.  What’s beyond me is how Christians find power in shame.

When Christians speak, write, compose, sing, pray and celebrate God’s inevitable love, their message is consistent with “the good news” they seek to convey.  However, when they use shame and guilt to belittle someone, they step all over their holy message.

Of course I’m ashamed, as I ought to be, of some things I’ve thought, said, and done – but I’m not even close to being ashamed of anything, of absolutely anything in which I’ve believed.

Hence I say to my fellow co-Christian religionists, send me, by all means, on the swiftest wings possible, the good news of God’s love, but keep your message of guilt and shame to yourselves.

My fellow Christians, for the love of Christ, stop stepping all over our most powerful message!

As for my beliefs, I’m shameless.  Let’s see now –- I’ve believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy, Elvis Presley, Billy Martin, the Yankees and Richard Nixon!  This may shock you, but I don’t apologize for believing in any of them either!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY