Reconcile this.

Being that this is a big election year, and we live in a country FULL of conflicting ideas, opinions, political views, and beliefs, I have been putting a lot of thought into my political views and how they relate to my Christian faith. I am a conservative politically, but do not believe that the Christian faith somehow belongs to the far right, i.e. that you can't be a liberal AND a Christian at the same time. It saddens me that there may be people out there who actually think that. It also saddens me when I hear liberals accusing conservatives of being selfish, greedy and evil, because not only is it wrong to generalize, it is also a personal attack on me, and hey, at least I'd like to think that I'm not those things :)

My point is this: I think it's possible for faith and politics to be reconciled (and yes, I do realize that Jim Wallis has long began exploring this subject... I'm just not entirely sure I completely agree with his views, either). I have been doing a lot of reading and putting a lot of thought and prayer into what that exactly looks like, and I am nowhere near reaching a conclusion on this. In the end, maybe this will change me entirely. But right now, I stand behind my political views, and believe that this exploration may only strengthen them.

While this blog is going to be about anything I want it to be about, there will be a post here and there about specific, pressing issues facing our country today, what conservatives and liberals have to say on these issues, what the Word has to say about these issues, and what I personally believe is the correct response, and I invite any readers to respond to these things too.

All I ask is that we keep the name-calling to a minimum. Because believe me, if I can continue to keep the same circle of my closest friends (many of whom have extreme liberal, democratic beliefs) for years- some even decades- while being a highly conservative Republican, I think we can keep things civil in blog-land. Capishe?