Marriage should be viewed as an institution ordained by God and should be out of the control of the state.
— Tony Campolo
President Bush once said that marriage is a sacred institution and should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman. If this is the case - and most Americans would agree with him on this - then I have to ask: Why is the government at all involved in marrying people?
Because of the increase in life longevity, America can now assume that at any given time three, and perhaps four, former presidents will still be alive, even when the current president is occupying the White House.
What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.
Red Letter Christians believe in the doctrines of the Apostle's Creed, are convinced that the Scriptures have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and make having a personal transforming relationship with the resurrected Christ the touchtone of their faith.
The Gospel is about grace and we all know that grace is about us receiving from God blessings that we don't deserve.
As we consider the causes of depression, those of us in the church must face the ways we might be responsible for creating it.
Certain things happened in the early church. Women who had never had any freedom suddenly have the ability to stand up and speak and be treated as equals within the life of the church.
I applaud the growing commitment of Evangelicals to the needs of the poor and oppressed in urban America.
Although I believe that scripture is divinely inspired and infallible, I have a hard time going along with the belief that the whole creation process occurred in six twenty-four hour days.
Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent.
When you listen to Christian radio stations - and there are thousands of them now in the United States - and when you listen to Christian television networks - and there are thousands of Christian television shows across the country - they are all politically right.
I contend that, in spite of all that might be said about Watergate, Richard Nixon was good for the poor people of America.
Those issues are biblical issues: to care for the sick, to feed the hungry, to stand up for the oppressed. I contend that if the evangelical community became more biblical, everything would change.
The two hot issues are the gay issue and the abortion issue. These are the two defining issues in the evangelical community these days. I'm sure that these hot buttons will be pushed, time and time again.
I think the time has come for the United States to do even-handed justice.
So I really would like to see both parties respond to the poor with greater commitment. But I've got to tell you, the Democrats, I feel, are doing a better job in that respect than Republicans are.
If marriage really is a sacred institution, then why is the government controlling it, especially in a nation that affirms separation of church and state?
I am relatively sure, from conversations that I had with former president Bill Clinton, that George Bush seldom called upon him for advice.
I am looking for suggestions on what we can do about extremists within our own society. They cannot be ignored.
Christianity isn't the only group that has fundamentalists.
Most Evangelicals claim to be politically non-partisan, and say they only identify with the Republican Party because the Republicans are committed to 'family values.'
Often, we ignore the fact that our spiritual condition and psychological state of mind are highly affected by what is happening to us physically. Sometimes depression is simply the result of exhaustion.
In religious circles, depression is often deemed to be a spiritual condition that can be cured with prayer.
Women have the same privileges and opportunities as men, given the New Testament.
To prevent discussion of any other explanations of human origins is hardly what I would expect from open-minded educators.
Like most Christians, I believe the Genesis account of creation is a description of six different stages of creation, each of which may have taken eons of time.
Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, 'Why didn't God do something? Where was God when all those people died?'
The real problem that I think those of us who are evangelicals and Democrats have to face up to is that the political right controls the religious media.
When you talk about evangelicals, don't forget that a significant proportion of the evangelical community is African American. And most African Americans - well over 90 percent, thoroughly evangelical, thoroughly biblical - will probably vote Democratic.
But I contend that if we're providing total medical coverage for every man, woman, and child in Iraq, shouldn't we at least be doing the same thing for every man, woman, and child in the United States?
When leading evangelicals say terrible things about Islam, evil things about Islam, terrible things about Muhammad, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
My theology is such that the God who loves Israel and will not forsake Israel - which is why I want to see Israel have a secure nation with secure borders - also loves the Palestinians.
Of the 22 industrialized nations of the world, we're dead last in per capita giving to poor people.
I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and, instead, only give legal status to civil unions.
What if Barack Obama established a Presidential Advisory Committee that would meet once every couple of months, bringing together the former presidents for a conference in order to seek their collective wisdom? There is a wealth of experience in former presidents that generally goes untapped.
It has been said that people never do evil with more enthusiasm than when they do it in the name of God.
I, for one, am quite willing to join the 'forgive, forget and move on' crowd, but it does make me wonder if Evangelicals are going to sound believable when they say that they tend to vote Republican because of their religious commitments to the family.
I've got some repenting to do.
Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.
If a guy is intimidated by a woman in leadership, he has real problems with his own concepts of masculinity. That's a harsh statement, but I believe it to be true.
Relegating women to second-class citizenship was abolished when Jesus died on the cross.
While a case can be made for intelligent design, I can't figure out why some Christians are so thrilled about that possibility. First of all, it doesn't prove there's a God. If anything, intelligent design lends support to some form of pantheism that defines God as immanent within nature.
Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed.
When you were born, you cried and everybody else was happy. The only question that matters is this - when you die, will you be happy when everybody else is crying?
And we've got to ask ourselves some very serious questions as to whether or not certain religious leaders, in terms of raising money - I hate to bring this up - are pushing hot buttons.
I contend that it's impossible to read the Sermon on the Mount and not come out against capital punishment.
I think there are other issues that the Democrats could use to rally evangelicals. There are a lot of us, for instance, who believe that the Bible calls us to be environmentally responsible.
If America is too arrogant, too prideful to repent, it's not the kind of country that God wants it to be.
I contend that Bush would be a lot more moderate if there weren't some fundamentalists breathing down his neck every time he wants to establish the state of Israel, every time he wants to do justice for the Palestinian people.
