The problem with "clean slate" Christianity

Most of the people in my life aren't terribly religious. I do know a number of people who define themselves as "spiritual", but don't adhere to a particular religious doctrine. One trait that all these people have in common is this notion that one should try to live a "good life." This "good life" has little to do with money or amassing fortunes, and much to do with being kind to others. Some of these people are Christians, particularly Catholics, who think that good deeds are what you're judged on when you take the dirt nap, to determine if you go to the place with the harps and halos, or if you're condemned to an eternity of the worst hotflashes you've ever experienced, listening to the song stylings of Celine Dion for all eternity.

The problem is that Christians who think that good deeds mean anything are completely misinterpreting their doctrine.

Roman Catholicism at least provides a structure in which one has to face one's sins by confessing them to another person. It still has this "do whatever the hell you want as long as you confess" aspect to it, but one would hope that the humiliation factor of having to tell a priest that you stole your best friend's diamond earrings, or that you backed your car into a parked car and didn't leave a note on the windshield, or that you hit a baseball through a house's window and then ran away, or that you fucked the secretary after the office Christmas party, would serve as a deterrent against future transgressions.

We are all flawed to one degree or another, but I believe that part of life, and part of our journey towards -- whatever -- enlightenment, heaven, or whatever awaits us -- is to try to do the best we can to "do what thou wilt, harm none."

My beef with the brand of Christianity practiced by today's right-wing "family values" politicians and those on their side of the fence is the "clean slate" it seems to offer in exchange for saying, "Yup. He was the son of God and died on the cross for my sins." That's all you have to do, and you can do whatever the hell you want without even TRYING to live a virtuous life, because this kind of Christianity is about faith, not deeds.

This is how you end up with the parade of Republican adulterers out on the stump telling the rest of us how to live. Right now the very same people who would love to see Bill Clinton stoned to death for HIS adultery are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to find a way to support the adulterers John McCain or Rudy Giuliani for the presidency.

The latest entry in this "I found Jesus so it's OK" band of hypocrites is Florida gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher:

Tom Gallagher, the Republican state chief financial officer running for governor on a platform of family values, admitted Monday that he had an extramarital affair that led to his 1979 divorce and said he used marijuana before he was elected to public office ''many, many'' years ago.

Gallagher, 62, conducted an impromptu news conference with his wife, Laura, after The Tampa Tribune asked him about 26 pages excerpted from his 27-year-old divorce file, expunged from Miami-Dade court files years ago in a routine purging of dated records.

The revelations come as Gallagher courts religious conservatives, who have embraced him, in part, because he is married and has a 7-year-old son. They see him as more of a committed family man than his GOP primary opponent, Attorney General Charlie Crist, who remains single after a divorce in 1980 following seven months of marriage.

The divorce documents, as well as additional court records obtained by The Miami Herald, show that Gallagher's ex-wife, Ann Louise, kicked him out of their Miami home in 1979 when she discovered he had been having a yearlong affair with a Tallahassee legislative aide.

At the time, Gallagher was a state representative from Coconut Grove and owned a Tallahassee condominium, leased by his then-girlfriend, Stephanie W. McBee.

After Ann Louise filed for divorce in 1979, an allegedly intoxicated Gallagher returned to their home and tore a screen off the house, the court documents say. The next day, he returned and took the dog. Ann Louise Gallagher asked a judge for a restraining order.

The apparently sympathetic judge, Milton Rubin, told Tom Gallagher: ``You're a public figure. You don't need any adverse publicity.''

The judge then agreed not to ''embarrass'' him with a restraining order as long as Gallagher agreed to stay away from the home until the divorce was final.

GIRLFRIEND TESTIFIES

In a copy of a September 1979 deposition of McBee obtained by The Miami Herald, the former girlfriend testified that during 1978 and 1979, she traveled with Gallagher to Atlanta, Texas, California, Miami, Orlando, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware and Nassau in the Bahamas. She stayed at his Miami home for three days when his wife was in Michigan, and he gave her gifts.

McBee testified that in 1979, she spent three days with Gallagher in Nassau, where they ``went to dinner, saw a show, swam, laid on the beach and read.''

[snip]

A contrite Tom Gallagher said on Monday he does not regret that the documents have become public, and that he takes full responsibility for his past. "Divorces are messy, but I take full responsibility for what led to mine," he said. "It was totally my fault."

A DIFFERENT MAN

But Gallagher emphasized that he is not the same man who first sought the Republican nomination for governor in 1982, when he had a reputation in Tallahassee as a bon vivant and ladies' man.

"I know that many of you have been somewhat skeptical about some of the changes that have taken place in my life -- that it's some kind of a campaign strategy,'' Gallagher said. ``But I'm here to tell you, Christ does change lives, and I'm a different person because of it."

I would be interested in knowing what kinds of acts of contrition he may have made towards his first wife in the aftermath of "finding Jesus." My hunch is that there aren't any.

I am no great fan of Bill Clinton, but he is at least a guy who admitted that he'd fucked up, acknowledged the pain he'd caused his family, and has tried to make amends to that family, not a weasel who seems to think that simple belief that a Jew getting nailed to a tree two thousand years ago means they can do whatever the fuck they want and it doesn't count -- and the collateral damage left behind can be forgotten.

UPDATE: No less an "authority" than The World's Most Self-Loathing Hermaphrodite holds forth on "clean slate Christianity about a third of the way through this interview. Listen to the whole thing, and note the inconsistency between her idea that salvation isn't about what you do, and her contention that conservatives deal with crime by making criminals take their punishment and "get right with God." But if you can do whatever you want as long as you believe Jesus died for your sins, what of the religious Christian who molests his daughter (i.e. Susan Smith's father) or the one who kills abortion doctors (Paul Hill, Eric Rudolph) or the one who kills his family and then goes on the lam for 18 years (John List)?