Enough already

I'm sure just about everybody in the US is ready for Xmas to be over by the time the wrapping paper is put in the recycle bin. On to the next thing! What are you doing for New Year's?!

To stoke any anti-Christianist sentiment, I am happy to link to a posting by Jeff Sharlett on his site, The Revealer, on an organization called Christian Embassy -- a lobbying group that also performs "outreach" to Pentagon officials. And if that's not enough, please enjoy becoming outraged at Sharlett's article for Rolling Stone on Sen. Sam Brownback, who seems poised to seize the Most Religious Senator title from Rick Santorum.

Columnist Dan Savage played a small part in tearing down Santorum by making his name a synonym for a byproduct of anal sex. In that light, the name "Brownback" raises even more sinister associations, composed of "bareback" and "Brokeback" (Mountain), not to mention the generally unsavory associations the word "brown" has in a sexual context (though in the next breath one must disassociate oneself from any intention to use "brown" in a negatively racial sense).

But speaking of Christianity, for all the times I mock and deride fundamentalists, I actually go to church and, as far as the holiday is concerned, find the whole story about a God who comes as a baby deeply moving. One of the things a liberal Christian can take comfort in is that no matter how thickly the kitsch and sentimentality is spread over the basic story of Jesus, at its base the story is compellingly poetic, full of deep symbolism and meaning for those who seek it out. The notion, for example, that in a world that worships power and celebrity, God chose to be incarnate not as a prince or a warlord but as the most vulnerable of people, a baby born to a craftsman and his teenaged lover in an occupied nation. It takes a lot of doublethink for fundamentalists and power-hungry Republicans to take this story and turn it into Christ-with-a-sword for people like the "Christian Embassy."

But if you're looking for a cute Xmas story, read Anna's.