Say it ain't so...

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama is defending his choice of Rick Warren as a keynote speaker at his inauguration : "But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to 'come together,' even when there's disagreement on social issues. 'That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about,' he said."

Should Obama also invite David Duke to speak so that he can "come together" with white supremacists? Or should have L. B. Johnson felt the need to have noted segregationists speak at an inauguration (hypothetically speaking)?

I find this exceptionally disappointing. I understand the need to bring people together, but there must be limits to the bigotry that you include, and including a man who took an active role in stripping the benign rights away from citizens based on a myopic view of morality clearly crosses this line. Yes, I believe Obama should continue to engage Evangelicals in an open and respectful dialog, but I think it is rather obscene to give Warren the cache and acceptance that an inaugural address grants.

Statement of Purpose: (DRAFT)

I want to put together something that attempts to capture the zeitgeist of this generation. The technology, the digital voyeurism, the guilt, the nihilism, the private life and the shit that fills it, the rejection of the American dream: we do not want to produce more, to have more, but rather want only to loll around and love and be loved more. We dare to be ironic but are too apathetic to realize that we already are. We are a sham generation. We will be shorter, fatter, dumber, and poorer than those who came before, and will achieve this through increased hours, heightened use of technology, increased efficiency, and all the culminations of modern health and science. We pushed into office a president of change, and seemingly did it with ever giving a thought to what that meant. We no longer have the bible, but believe rather in the infallible invisible hand. The market it supreme. Hail the market. We just need to fix the market. The market did not fail us, we failed the market. This is the now and this where I want to intercede.

With god on your side

“Religion [to me] meant the church of Rome. Quite conceivably it was an empty ritual but is was seemingly the only assimilative, traditionary bulwark against the decay of morals. Until the great mobs could be educated into a moral sense some one must cry out: ‘Thou shalt not!’” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Modern man has succeeded in throwing off the chains of Catholicism – the American church has shrunk, its authority waned, and congressional enthusiasm diminished – but in its place did not find higher callings or moral instruction. Instead religion was thrust into the marketplace. Now there are a thousand sects, and no one has a disagreement with their lord God. Where once the church imbued modesty and moderation, the modern church now praises the individual and tells them: ‘I agree, you are right!’ This is the problem. There is no thought, but merely people’s prejudices projected into the God construct. If you’re gay, you can have a God which embraces his queer sons and daughters. If you cannot stand the homosexuals, then there is a God who condemns them to hell. Like your wealth? There is a god for that as well. Want to forget the world and live alone in a cave? God allows that too. There is a God for everybody now who wants one. Christianity may have won out over paganism in the West, but monotheism is now dead. There are now as many gods as there are points of view, with each incarnation of the god of Abraham competing against the other for your soul. America is no longer one nation under God, but rather a nation of people living under their own, unique, all approving self-lords. Have it your way McLords.

I am curious into the entomology of the term ‘church-shopping,’ for I feel that the emergence of this phrase into the lexicon corresponds with some crucial tipping point in which the masses fell away from moral authority and begun to worship themselves; the seemingly logical progression of materialism and liberalism. There is now a private life, but only shit to fill it, but that’s OK, because God is on your side.