Reclamation Project

I hope you will take the time to watch this:

And if you would like read the full text of the Reclaiming Jesus statement. If you know me at all, you will know that I am highly sympathetic to the ideology and theology that this group of religious leaders has put out there: Tony Campolo, Richard Rohr, Walter Brueggeman, Jim Wallis and one of my more recent favorites Michael Curry (yeah the one from the Royal wedding) are all included in the group who did this thing. I will let their words speak for themselves, they do a very good job.
What I would like to talk about here, as my contribution to this discussion, is the rather insidious trend of whataboutism.  When someone does something good, there is this seemingly immediate response of "what about X?"  When someone does something bad, the people who tend to sympathize with the person or perhaps their political party, think of something and say "what about Y?" to justify the bad behavior.
Already in response to this careful and well thought out statement from some of our most trustworthy Christian leaders, I have heard whataboutism coming from the left: "They didn't talk about LGBTQIA people and inclusivity."  And I have heard whataboutism coming from the right: "They didn't even mention abortion."  Respectfully you all need to shut up.  I'm quite sure that these folks knew you all were out there, and I'm quite sure they knew your what-abouts were coming, but they had to do something, and they did, and it was something that needed doing.
I think more people need to participate in High School Debate clubs, really.  They need to learn what a valid argument is, especially now that we have the interweb and any knucklehead with a Facebook page can inflict their "arguments" on their "friends." Sorry about the excessive "air quotes," I'm feeling lazily sarcastic.
There are times when an analogous situation can be used to shed some light on the issue at hand, but if your response to Robert Mueller returning dozens of indictments against people from the Trump campaign to the Russian intelligence service is the squawk, "what about Hillary's emails?" or "what about Benghazi?" you are being deliberately obtuse and are quite frankly contributing to the downfall of our democracy.  Not as much as Roger Stone or Sean Hannity, but you're putting another pinhole in the hull.  Were Bill and Hillary Clinton good people? Nope not really, but that does not mean that Donald Trump or his mafia of mendacity are somehow magically doing the right thing by our country. That being said, even corrupt warlords sometimes do the right thing.
We need to be able to accept several propositions in order to survive as a country, in addition to the things that are established in the Constitution:

1. People that you agree with will sometimes do the wrong thing, we need to be able to hold them accountable in a way that goes beyond just "calling them out." This means recovering our principles, and defending the institutions that are in place to defend those principles.
2. People that you disagree with with sometimes do the right thing, we need to recover our ability to recognize that and pitch in to help when it serves the common good.
3. People will try to do things to help, sometimes they will go too far, sometimes they will not go far enough for your liking, but remember "help," is the key word there. Is it helpful? The Reclaiming Jesus document is helpful, it doesn't answer all of our questions or provide the end result of what following Jesus in America is going to look like, but it's a step in the right direction to pulling ourselves out of the mudhole of the prosperity gospel.
4. If you are waiting for the perfect leader, or the perfect group of leaders, you are going to be disappointed.

Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Alpha and the Omega, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, you get the idea.  He was the one everyone was always waiting for, and what he spends his life doing is teaching a bunch of Galilean fishermen and other rabble that they are the ones God is going to actually use to redeem the world, and then he sends them.  They're not perfect, mostly they're not even very successful, but they bring others along the way and they help them see the vision that Jesus gives to the world.  Want to start to learn what that looks like and sounds like? See above.