Politics, religion and real life

I have not blogged for awhile. Been busy with various things -- work, church, music, work, book club, you get the idea. I am going to finish the book about Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus. But this is a temporary but necessary diversion.
A year or two ago, I began reading a blog by an evangelical Christian author and blogger, one lovely young woman by the name of Rachel Held Evans. I hadn't looked at the blog in ages. Rachel is an excellent writer who looks at her evangelical faith with an often-critical, yet still respectful and loving eye, for the most part. She has invited guests from different faiths and invited her readers to submit questions -- Ask a Catholic, Ask a Mormon, Ask a Jew, Ask a Pagan (yes, I'm not making that up) and so on. These guest contributors do their best to answer the questions posed. It's a great idea.
I stopped there tonight in my online travels because her most recent post headline caught my eye: "How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation." Here is a link to her blog: http://tinyurl.com/6tn5plp
This post is about the War on Gays and Lesbians and the states that have passed constitutional amendments and laws to ban gay marriage, for example. She talks about her generation being tired of culture wars, tired finding reasons to exclude others, dismayed by the negative perception that society at large seems to have of Christianity and evangelicals.
She asks whether it's worth it -- the political victories against homosexuality, for example -- when the cost of that victory is the loss of hearts and minds of so many young Christians. 
She goes on to state, among other things: 
"We are ready to start washing feet instead of waging war."
I'm here to say that it's not just young Christians, and it's not just evangelical Christians, who are dismayed at the political environment and the behavior of church leaders.
As a Catholic, I have been terribly dismayed about several things recently. 

• The Vatican's assault on certain orders of nuns in America, which has been perceived (I'm not sure whether rightly or wrongly) as an attack on all nuns, unjustly, and indeed on women in general. I am told that it was only targeting specific orders that were seen by Rome as defiant of authority, but the statement that was issued about nuns spending too much time on social justice and not enough time speaking out against gay marriage abortion and contraception was a huge turnoff for me -- and I am a dedicated Catholic to the core. 
• A Catholic bishop in Idaho who refused to allow a young man who was graduating from a parochial school in the diocese to receive recognition for a major scholarship he had won. The young man is openly gay and has been throughout his high school years, according to the news report. The scholarship was named for Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who several years ago was beaten to death just for being gay. The scholarship recipient cannot be recognized at commencement because it promotes homosexuality, which is against church teachings. Yet the young man was allowed to attend the parochial school and work for months to apply for and win the scholarship. It's hypocritical at this juncture to refuse him the recognition he deserves. The scholarship is for his academic work, not for being gay. 
• Now the Catholic bishops are, according to Huffington Post, speaking out against (I am not making this up) Girl Scouts USA, because the worldwide organization with which Girl Scouts is affiliated has issued a statement to the effect that girls should be given an opportunity to learn about sexuality. This goes against church teachings, the bishops said. 

Maybe the bishops need to be reminded about what Jesus, our role model, did. He hung out with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors. He knew they were human beings in need of salvation. He didn't revile them. He didn't caution his disciples to stay away from them. He did not denounce them (except for the merchants who were exchanging currency and selling religious items in the temple in Jerusalem). 

Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper, and he told his disciples that he was giving them an example of how to treat others. That's what his entire ministry on Earth was -- an example for us to follow. I don't see that example being followed as much as I would like, not by evangelicals and not by Catholic leadership in this country. 

Indeed, let's start washing some feet instead of waging culture wars. Let's lead by example and treat all of God's children with dignity and respect. Let's wage peace and love instead of war and aggression. Let's not forget that all people are children of God. What would Jesus do? He would love his gay and lesbian children just as he loves the rest of us. God doesn't reject us; we reject God, through our words and actions, and through the things we fail to say and do. He's always there, waiting patiently for us to realize the error of our ways and return to him for forgiveness. 

I'm not young anymore, but I, like Rachel Held Evans' young Christians, yearn to wash the feet of others, and I yearn to see my beloved Church do more of the same instead of making exclusionary, inflammatory and distinctly unloving statements that cause people to turn away. We are the hands and feet and voices of Jesus in the world, and if we do too much denouncing, condemning and excluding, we will not be effectively sharing his message in the world. I cannot believe he would, were he here today, be issuing public statements like those. He would be too busy washing feet and loving sinners.