In response to mcrichmary, the organization refered to in this piece (like most faith-based community organizations) never accepts government grants or funds. Most affiliations run on very small self-sufficient staffs with bare-bones budgets and dedicated volunteers – who would rather devote their free time between (often 2-3) jobs to helping make the community better through teaching people to make changes in their own communities than sit around spreading venom about baby killers, commies and the need to pile up guns against bad things that are coming.The great majority do not want big government, and they wouldn’t be to the point of wanting more rules and governmental control if free enterprise didn’t mess up so bad and back them/us into a steep chasm. I would advise going beyond your brackets of fear and looking at what politicians of both parties have really done since the late ’70’s. All recent presidents have expressed different views on gay marriage and abortions, but have steered clear of acting on it. All have acted as global expansionists outsourcing jobs, catering to greedy criminal power mongers, allowing our standards across the board to almost revert to third-world survivalism, and the list goes on… Clinton wounded us with NAFTA. Bush II burned through our money faster than any tax-and-spend “Liberal” to date. Both did little to elevate our behaviors and dignity. A great majority of community organizers are Pro-Life, but they do not cling blindly to either party despite their current brand of lip service. Also, many “Liberal” views (like environmentalism) are championed by conservative parties across the globe except for here. Christians must unite in compassion rather than react in fear and accept pre-bundled party packages if it is really our goal to follow in the footsteps of our savior and care for our good neighbors – many of whom are truly suffering at this time. Faith-based community organizers give so much and receive very little in return (if anything at all) except occasional hostility from people who often judge without having first made the effort to learn what we do, who we help, how we raise and use funds, how we stick firmly to our faith issue by issue even when it is very difficult to do so, how we struggle to keep our hearts open and compassion up front even when we do not agree with poor values of greedy centrists, blind idealist leftists and cruel venomous right wingers, how we place faith before political affiliation, how we choose what we attempt to change and improve among so many important issues both nationally and within our communities, how we reach deeper into people with extreme views on both sides of our party system to get beyond defensive slogans to know their hearts and pain and who they really are based on where they have been, how we face deep pain almost every day and struggle to stay open and pure, how we individually and collectively REALLY view government and what role we would REALLY like it to function, how we REALLY understand the polarized slogans and fearful views of people heavily tied to current (soon to be past) U.S. party platforms, how we too share many of these views, how we resist urges to act righteously indignified by threatening to grab guns and homestead or move to Alaska when our fave is out of power for another swing of the pendulum, how we advocate for even our neighbors who most annoy us, how we work very hard to make changes very slowly in one or two key areas even if they are not ones that affect all of us personally, how we too turn to prayer when we hurt or see no light on the road ahead, how WE ARE GOOD CHRISTIANS JUST LIKE OUR FUNDAMENTALIST FRIENDS WHO ACT MEAN BECAUSE THEY HURT AND NO ONE HAS HELPED THEM, JUST LIKE OUR LESS-TRADITIONAL UNITARIANS WHO PUSH VITAMINS AND WHEATGRASS BECAUSE THEY HURT AND NO ONE ACCEPTS THEM… WE are in it together even though many of us would rather be in a world of people just like us… but, I think the Good Lord knows best how to balance a world with ALL the right people working, voting, worshipping, even playing, struggling to walk their talk how only each knows best how to do.

Not every Christian is a Republican. Not every Republican is a Christian. Not every Liberal is Pro Choice. Not every Pro-Choicer is for the Death Penalty. Not every Pro-Lifer is against it. Not every conservationist is a Liberal. Not every person you consider to be NOT a good Christian is NOT a good Christian.

We all come with bundles because we have all suffered along unique paths. We all have a vision of how we view freedom and what it would require for us to REALLY feel free. I do not want to change you in any way. I am writing this mostly for myself because if I could personally make one change in the world today, I think I would simply opt that each person slow down enough to cast off reactions to old bad stuff and instead look deeper into the heart of each individual and value them as complex divine creations rather than as “those people” or “those who are not like us.” We actually are very similar in what you expressed that upset you, but what might come to our country are the same ills and woes that often came to plague good men and women since the dawn of time when they polarized to extremes and sorted themselves into “good usses” and “bad thems.”