Anne Lamott: Faith without good works pisses God off

Author Anne Lamott, an unabashed Christian and political progressive, talks about her conversion and beliefs in this 2006 article and attached video. She also has some harsh words for the ideas that it is OK to hate and that faith alone is enough to get one into heaven:

Faith without works is dead. It's just not nice to sit around -- you can sit around in your prayer breakfast with all this faithy-faith and all this talking and thinking and "hallelujahing" and it's nothing. It's nothing to God. I mean, I think it pisses God off.
Though she might sound like an evangelical at times, she has not been welcomed into evangelical communities:
Evangelical Christians and I can sit down and talk one on one about how much we love Jesus, and yet I'm not carried in Christian bookstores. You know, a typical Christian bookstore would not carry TRAVELING MERCIES or PLAN B, because I'm irreverent. I have a very dark sense of humor. I swear. I have a very playful relationship with Jesus.
After I read this article, I watched Stephen Colbert's lively 2008 interview of Lamott:
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This article and the above video serve as a good reminder that non-believers should not simplistically categorize all believers to be "the same."

Continue ReadingAnne Lamott: Faith without good works pisses God off

Making children say the pledge of allegiance over and over is “teaching them history.”

I remember how, back in the 1960's,  I was forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day in grade school. Those were the days when we had nuclear bomb drills: we lined up and marched to the school basement, where we would presumably be safe from the fallout of atomic bombs. Some of my neighbors even had bomb shelters dug out in their yards. [caption id="attachment_9484" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Crafteepics at Dreamstime (with permission)"]Image by Crafteepics at Dreamstime (with permission)[/caption] Based on my own experience, children don't like saying the pledge. It  is mind-numbing to children; as proof, consider that you never see children saying the Pledge on their own.  They only say the Pledge when they are forced to do so by insecure adults.  All honest and rational people know that the children say the pledge only because they are forced to do so.  All honest people also know that one can be a patriot without ever saying the Pledge of Allegiance.  As proof, none of the following people ever said the Pledge of Allegiance:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine . . . [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingMaking children say the pledge of allegiance over and over is “teaching them history.”