Becky Garrison is a contributing editor for pretty much the only Christian satire magazine on the planet: The Wittenburg Door. Recently Garrison took some of her most timely, relevant articles and put them together in the form of a book titled, get ready for this, it's a mouthful: Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshiping the Almighty Dollar. The book, in many ways, could serve as a primer course for the issues that concern and interest those of us moving in Emerging Church circles. Garrison, like so many of us, sees as unacceptable the status quo, where America and to a large extent, American churches, are divided sharply into red and blue camps. Garrison suggests that these rigid and yet somehow artificial divisions do not do service to the fullness of Jesus' message for the world.

Satire had long been a tool used to undermine hypocritical politics. Here in 21st century America, where double-speech and the sound bite rule the day, satire can play a unique role in exposing the sheer ridiculousness of certain situations and arrangements. In Christian circles, satire is less often seen. But even here it has its place. For religion is no stranger to hypocrisy. Do I hear an amen? The one challenge I think a Christian faces in writing satire, is remaining charitable. Because we know that falleness is not unique to those of a different political persuasion, but actually common to all mankind, we have to be careful to not come across as self-righteous and superior. To be honest, I think this is easier said than done. If one is to write Christian satire, it is my belief that one should do so "with fear and trembling".

There are times in 21st century America where the terms "liberal" and "conservative" get thrown around in such broad and unspecific ways as to lose almost all meaning. There's an expression for these kinds of terms: plastic words. To me, a plastic word is one that has been so over-used and misused as to make it virtually pointless and empty of true meaning. Now, I understand that the terms liberal and conservative can and do have meaning when we talk about specific political philosophies. However, too often I see opponents, on both ends of the political spectrum, merely tossing out these terms like curse word labels- whenever they come across an idea they don't like, regardless of its true philosophical underpinning.

Unfortunately this is all too true in American religion. Christian conservatives especially have really caught on to this idea that any point that disagrees with their own must be "liberal". It really gets ridiculous. I recently came across the feedback section to an article written about the Emerging Church. One poster merely said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I'm tired of all this liberal garbage". Excuse me? Could you be more specific? What issue or perspective were you drawing attention to? And rather than merely condemning it as "liberal", could you please clarify how it is in violation of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? You get my point. Let's not name-call. Let's speak to the issues with clarity. After all, there's nothing Christlike about dismissing someone and their point of view about any and every topic by simply hanging the liberal or democratic dunce cap over their head.

Of course the same is true for "the other side." Those who lean left of the political center can often dismiss a point of view or a political/theological argument, before they've even really heard it, merely because it comes from the mouth of someone they tout as a conservative fundamentalist. This reaction is self-righteous and superior-sounding. And even though people on this side of the equation may understandably feel wary of those speaking from the Religious Right, there still needs to be an openness and honesty brought to the table. Otherwise, not only are we not reflecting the way of Christ, but neither are we really speaking with each other either. We're just speaking at people, with verbal javelins and other weapons of words.

Becky Garrison does an excellent job of pointing the finger at both sides of the religious/ political spectrum. Her Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church is neither Rightest nor Leftist propaganda. It is a cry for openness, honesty, and a searching of our hearts and perspectives from a truly Gospel perspective. And for that I applaud Garrison. Personally, I think that she does a much better job of charting this middle ground than does Jim Wallis in God's Politics. Too often I found God's Politics to be a self-righteous argument from proof-text that failed to accurately address the middle ground. I think the issues and scripture references that Wallis made use of in his book are much more complex and multi-faceted than he gives them credit for. Garrison avoids these kids of proof-text traps. And her arguments are all the more sound and convincing as a result.

Like I mentioned at the outset of this article, the list of issues addressed by Garrison in Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church reads like a program outline for the Emerging Church studies department- if there were such a thing. These issues include: religious fund-raising opportunism, the creation/evolution mud-slinging debate, the co-opting of Christianity by the Religious Right, blue church elitism, care for the environment, etc. In the end, regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum as Christians, Garrison calls us to offer "radical hospitality", where we "offer a genuine word of welcome to those with whom (we) disagree." Garrison goes on to offer a hopeful vision for American churches. She writes, "What if, instead of creating political havens where political souls gather, churches chose to receive others based on the Greatest Commandment. to "

Enough said, indeed.