I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

I’ve been getting a lot of email expressing outrage at the selection of Rick Warren to offer up his prayers for our new president. One friend has sent me a laundry list of outrageous videos showcasing the offensive comments Pastor Rick has made about gays and lesbians. For instance:

His logic evades me. Yet there are a lot of people who listen to this guy and give him credit. Most pastors I know, even progressive ones, have a copy of Warren’s Purpose Driven Church and many have his more recent and more popular Purpose Driven Life. He’s had an enormous impact on the church in the US. But his language on homosexuality is laughably ignorant and blatantly homophobic. I have both his books. The “church” one is a helpful book for pastors to think creatively about church structures. But the “life” one reads more like a laundry list of do’s and don’ts, and expresses his right-wing agenda in a no-compromise way. I understand that Warren had done much to help victims of AIDS and has tried to reach across boundaries of “liberal” and “conservative.” Nevertheless, he has also expressed hateful opinions about gays and lesbians, comparing homosexuality to child rape and bestiality. Sadly, he doesn’t get it. I’d like to put a reading list together for him, and I’d include the following for his information and enlightenment:

“Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe” (John Boswell)

“Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century” (John Boswell)

“Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up” (Robert E. Goss)

“Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto” (Robert Goss)

Now, I realize he isn’t going to read that stuff, but those books, along with a host of others, really helped my perspective on these issues. More to the point, though, is the fact that the media has almost totally ignored the man Obama has selected to give the benediction. Rev. Joseph Lowery has a distinguished career as an advocate for the outcast. A civil rights leader, he has been in the trenches for a long time working for justice. He is a United Methodist pastor, which of course makes me proud. But he is also a clear voice for justice for all God’s people, and has publicly called for the full-inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church and beyond. I wish progressively-minded people would focus as much attention on Lowery and his message as they have complaining about Warren. Heck, we should all just ignore Warren and turn our attention to a man who has really struggled, advocated, fought and risked for the least and the lost – a man who has embodied the gospel message with his whole life.

Here is Lowery speaking controversial yet prophetic words at the funeral of Coreeta Scott King – embodying the spirt of MLK:

And here is some more information about Lowery at Wikipedia.

….for gays and lesbians to enjoy the full benefits and challenges of marriage.

….for the people of Afghanistan to live in peace.

….for the American global imperial agenda to end.

I wonder sometimes if Obama is trying to unite that which needs to unravel. It was a great speech. But it also cheapened the legacy it claimed to embrace. What I remember: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Martin Luther King, Jr., on 8/28/1963

The “I have a dream…” part is the most quoted. But the reality is that MLK was much more radical than we generally admit in public discourse. He never wavered from his clear path to justice as he understood it – and his dream is yet to be fulfilled. Nonetheless, one can’t help but wonder if the “promises of democracy” have been made slightly more real tonight.

Surprisingly inspired by a Business Week article, Bill Moyers focused his recent edition of the Journal on the business of poverty.

For some, it seems, poverty equals opportunity. But, as one Business Week employee states in the Journal story, it’s an opportunity to exploit – both for profits, and to exploit the poor. As more and more of us join the ranks of the “poor” and become dependent on predatory lending, what will become of these high risk loans? As more and more of us take on medical debt, who will pay when we can’t? Do hospitals accept “80 cents on the dollar” by hiking up their prices so that they still can make money? Do car companies make more money off of financing than off of selling cars?

I’m afraid it might be so.

It’s worth quoting the Bible:

If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Exodus 22: 25-27 (New International Version)

It’s worth considering that the missing quality is compassion. After all, the logic of Exodus above is hard to argue with. The only reason predatory lending – which charges desperate people for their desperation – exists is greed.