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One might be inclined to say something like this after the American Church and militant messianic Republicans got finished building their new syncretic religion on "Justice Sunday," an event that included Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Dr. James Dobson, Charles Colson, and other luminaries from conservative American Christian circles as they spoke out vociferously against Democrats who are opposing Bushevik nominations for the federal judiciary and charged them with being "against people of faith."

Surely the official site for this new American religion ought now to be Jesus Dress Up, where the crucified Jesus can be anyone you want him to be.

Christian conscience among Friends.  In recent correspondence with Ben Richmond, I was reawakened to how important his little tract A Guide for Friends on Conscientious Objection to War has been for me. It was first published by Friends United Meeting (FUM) in 1991, and revised in 2001.[1] It has to be a classic modern statement of Christian pacifism for Americans, and a reminder of the importance of our witness in a world that consistently looks in the wrong direction when searching for solutions to war and conflict.

I think the Busheviks should study this pamphlet. Alas, that would likely have no more effect than handing an anti-smoking leaflet to an inveterate bunch of chain smokers. Once your senses have been fully comforted by the odor of death and your imagination is pleasured by the shock and awe of a militant messianic nationalism, war becomes an addiction that can only be cured by a total transformation, by a renewing of the mind—such as that achieved through the radical, transforming love of Jesus Christ.

1.  A direct link to the PDF version of the pamphlet is available at the FUM site. Ben also delivered the 2002 Isaac T. and Lida K. Johnson Lecture, What is the Work that Friends are Called to Finish? That lecture is another centering piece for all Christians.