5.15.2007 | Sin is such a drag

Now we know what kind of tame evangelicals DNC chair Howard Dean thinks we should all be. He cites Rick Warren and Joel Osteen, in this article about his longing to join evangelicals with the Democratic Party.

Dr. Dean also knows what ails those who don't go to church. It's that pesky sin; the sense that we are sinners and that there is a better way. What a downer. Nobody wants to be told they're sinners, now, do they? From the Deanster:

People don't want to go to church anymore ... and come out feeling bad because they happen to know somebody who's gay. People want to go to church because they know what they can do about poverty, about Darfur, about the environment.

I make no dispute with the need for Christians to help out in the here and now. But if that's the only, or even primary reason you go to church, then perhaps you should call where you attend a political or social justice clubhouse.

Church is first and foremost about thanking God for giving us His son Jesus, and for showing us, through the son's atoning death, that we, too, could be forgiven of our sins.

Yes, I feel badly about decent-seeming gay people who we know to be in a state of sin. But I also feel badly about my own sinful nature. Church is not a shrine for the holy; it is a hospital for us sinners. A hospital where, if we allow it, we may be healed.

Once again, the Democrats show they've a tin ear when it comes to matters of faith and salvation.