U.S. Republicans have long ago identified GOD on their side against the godless socialist Democrats. That was not always the case. The Young Republicans were irreverent reformers at my university. They did make it clear that my preference for Elvis Presley over Pat Boone, the Beatles over The Who, was too much.<\/p>\n
Southern Democrats of the \u201960s welcomed me to their homes if I identified myself as a pagan saved by the blood of Christ. Hosts brought out souvenir chopsticks from the Pacific war when we ate, assuming that all Asians knew how to use them. I was introduced like a trophy earned in a safari to friends. When a relation showed romantic interest and we responded in kind, I was not invited back.<\/p>\n
Nixon allowed southern Democrats to take over the GOP, and Abramoff later exploited their hubris. GOD in the GOP reportedly found home!<\/p>\n
Urbane Michigan\u2019s Mitt Romney went south in the Iowa primary just so he can say he is mainstream at the core of the Republican dream. Minnesota\u2019s Michelle Bachmann withdrew from the presidential campaign, but is determined to derail Obama\u2019s second term because \u201che has got us on the slippery slope of godless socialism.\u201d <\/p>\n
A colleague visiting relations over the holiday was at an inn where Rick Santorum was in Ioway poli-nitpicking. Santorum and the rest of the GOP lineup mouthed things against established order and even libertarian Ron Paul said things that an Occupy person may appreciate, but when Santorum got sanctimoniously homophobic to a receptive audience, my friend hollered: \u201cNow I understand what a Negro felt listening to George Wallace of Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comes Pat Robertson, former GOP contender vs. VP George H. W. Bush, in touch with God over breakfast. To young \u2019uns unfamiliar with Pat, he is a former U.S. senator\u2019s son who passed out collection plates more successfully than passing the state bar. Three medals in Korea were allegedly earned for assuring that the officers\u2019 clubs were sufficiently liquored! Pat is, however, not the news; GOD is, and s\/he has a following to show for it. GOD is not in favor of Obama\u2019s policies and would not mind having Barack move out of the White House. Another term will doom the nation! <\/p>\n
Not to trivialize God, but we follow the Levantine method of designating the \u201cmystery of mysteries in life\u201d as G-O-D, or the Islamic G-*-d. For evangelical usage, one peruses the paper Pope, preferably the King James version, or any of its pedigrees. Roman Catholics listen to ex-cathedra pronouncements of learned men, from the Patristics to Augustine and Aquinas through Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, better known for his God and the World, but now enthroned Pope Benedict XVI in Peter\u2019s Vatican chair. <\/p>\n
GOD of the Christian Right joined the Republicans! They resent Obama\u2019s diminishing the Supreme Being\u2019s power at the White House annual Prayer Breakfast. His holiday card does not include Christmas greetings but is suspected of saying Salaam Malaikum under his breath, or uttering it in his dreams. Why, he has not even invited Billy or Franklin Graham to Amen his breakfast table!<\/p>\n
Mormon Mitt barely topped Iowa, indicative of voters\u2019 uncertainty of the Joseph Smith & Brigham Young progeny in the God-department. He might even mitigate the Muslim label leveled on Obama. Santorum on the other hand, to pare the budget, will not pay for birth-control pills!<\/p>\n
Of course, there has been some radical paradigm shifting in the God-department after World War II. Fr. Pedro Arrupe, a physiology-trained padre tempered in the days of Franco\u2019s fascism, miraculously surviving Hiroshima of \u201845 August in the blast zone, led Loyola\u2019s disciplined Order into practices of mercy and missions of justice, resulting in Liberation Theology that rent the Roman tradition, with Catholics in the Americas opting for a preferential treatment of the poor as the mission of the Christian faith, and the Opus Dei ensuring that the Alpine Swiss properly guard the opulent Basilica.<\/p>\n
The German theologian and Christian disciple Dietrich Bonhoeffer chose not only to resist the Nazis but helped plan the Fuhrer\u2019s assassination. For the failed attempt, he paid dearly with his life. But the martyred Lutheran found favor in the ethically sensitive children of the Reformation, promoting a religionless Christianity in the world of spirit, and a contentless Christ in the reality of life\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n
The death-of-GOD occurred, along with the old-man-in-the-sky image of the Father, banishing the Clark Kent-Superman Jesus idolatry as Son, and celebrating the liberation of existence and freedom\u2019s essence as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. The triune perspectives of transcendence, immanence, and transparency converged in a refreshing wind of emancipation that now sweeps the colonial and corporate corpse of globalization. Humanity stands at the threshold of a radical choice, between the caloried consumerism of the commercialized psyche, and the reality of lean body and soul in full authenticity.<\/p>\n
So the GOP can keep GOD. My daughter reports that George O\u2019Donnell is not registered to vote in her precinct, nor has Godofredo Ortega Damaso been seen in mine. From a very reliable source, GOD is not known to be a fingerprinted voter!<\/p>\n
[I]Jaime R. Vergara (jrvergarajr2031@aol.com) is a former PSS teacher and is currently writing from the campus of Shenyang Aerospace University in China.[\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Republicans have long ago identified GOD on their side against the godless socialist Democrats. That was not always the case. The Young Republicans were irreverent reformers at my university. They did make it clear that my preference for Elvis Presley over Pat Boone, the Beatles over The Who, was too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}