From David Grizzle:
… In fact, the Convention is one of the best run events I have ever attended. But politics overwhelmingly constitute the warp and weft of our interactions. At one point during a committee discussion, my table-mate turned to me and said, “I bet you’re a Republican.” Searching for someway to redeem myself in her eyes, I almost blurted out the half-lie, “Yes, but I am an atheist.”
We spend a plurality of our time in committees. I began my committee work yesterday. I am assigned to the Committee on National and International Affairs. …
Although all of the issues we consider are ones that I suspect the Brooking Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations are better equipped to handle than we are, I along with my other 25 committee members are being very earnest in our assessment of the positions that we are being asked to take as a denomination. We are covering a broad range of topics: condemning Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, condemning multi-national corporations for causing global warming; condemning Ugandan Christians for not being more sensitive to genocide against other Ugandan Christians; condemning the United States for heeding the demands of Cuban Americans to continue the economic embargo of Cuba; condemning everyone for not having achieved the Millennium Development Goals.
I actually think I’m spawning relationship with some of the people on the committee, which I will value long after the Convention is over; and when I am able to have an extended conversation, a generous amount of fruit is borne.
What bugs me most is just the intense blame-America-first attitude that pervades everything we do.
(Extra paragraphing added.) I understand where he’s coming from. Unfortunately, many political liberals can be invincibly certain of their own wisdom and rectitude, and of the ignorance and ill-motives of those who disagree with them — just as many theological traditionalists are.
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