The Wrong Sort Of Bee

The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got up again.

"Christopher -- ow! -- Robin," called out the cloud.

"Yes?"

"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees."

"Are they?"

"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort of honey, shouldn't you?"

"Would they?"

"Yes. So I think I shall come down."
- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

I'm sure you remember this image, of Mike Huckabee's ad at Christmas time, in which a shelf unit in the background appeared to be a cross, and Huckabee was excoriated for using his Christianity in a political ad.



You may not have previously seen this image of Barack Obama on the campaign trail. Despite his recent slip of the tongue on ABC in which he mentioned "my Muslim faith," Obama professes to be a Christian. And yet, while it's certainly true that not all his supporters are anti-Christian, it certainly does seem to be the case that the vocal anti-Christians are all Obama supporters. Now why should it be that this image doesn't bother them, while the image of Huckabee bothered them so much?

My bloggin' buddy Matthew at Creative Minority Report points out some interesting t-shirts and other campaign materials from the Obama campaign with explicitly Christian imagery and appeals. Does anyone doubt that similarly-themed materials from the McCain-Palin campaign would be met by howls of derision and outrage, accusations of "theocracy" and complaints of "separation of church and state"?

Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, will stand second to none (except perhaps House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) in proclaiming his Catholic and Christian faith. He was discussing it on Meet the Press just last week, and I've already lost count of how many bishops have issues press releases to correct him (and even more corrected Pelosi's religious proclamations of a week earlier). And who can forget Biden's promise in 2005, that "If I'm the nominee, Republicans will be sorry," said Biden, a Roman Catholic who ran for president in 1988. "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."

If Sarah Palin threatened to use her bible, or the plastic Jesus on her dashboard, in a violent manner, it would be all over the press, and Tina Fey would be demonstrating it the following Saturday night on NBC, before a live audience. As it is, Saturday Night Live has already begun mocking Palin's Christian faith. "Global Warming is just God hugging us tighter," says Tina Fey in her impression of Palin.

So what's the difference between the Christianity of liberals and the Christianity of conservatives? Why are liberals so much more afraid of the Christianity of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee, than they are of Barack Obama or Joe Biden? It's very simple.

Palin and the others are humbly trying to serve Christ as best they perceive His will in their lives. They do this, as Senator McCain often says, "imperfectly." But the sincerity of their effort is, I think, obvious.

Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and the other liberals running around talking about how "ardent" their faith is generally seem to place their faith at the service of their liberal goals, rather than the other way around. This is the approach to faith taken, I think, by most liberals, especially those in the mainstream broadcast and print media. They are uncomfortable with a faith they cannot control. They want Aslan to be a tame lion.

Senator Obama should perhaps not be so disdainful of those of us who are clinging to our religion. Senator Obama doesn't cling to his religion, nor it to him. He dons it like a fine suit, and hangs it up when he no longer wants it.

To people like this, Sarah Palin's Christianity poses a real threat, one they cannot tolerate, and must quickly squelch. Palin is the wrong sort of bee.