Theology & Political Philosophy

As someone who strongly believes that faith is political, I haven’t given much thought to my own political philosophy. Rather, I’ve focused more on how my faith might apply from issue to issue. Given that my own theology is influenced by theologies of liberation, on most issues I’m much more in step with the Democratic party, at least in the context of American politics.

But the problem without having a guiding political philosophy is that at times I find myself having a tribal mentality in regards to my party affiliation. This tribal mentality is cancerous in that it becomes more about exerting a sense of moral superiority and an overemphasis on political tactics of “winning” rather than real attempts to reach some mutual understanding with those who think and feel differently. It can also lead to an inability for self-reflection and critique, which is damaging in so many ways.

So over the next few posts, I’ll attempt to work out my own political philosophy and I’ll see where it takes me.

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Outraged

There is no longer any doubt that the U.S. government deliberately and knowlingly tortured detainees. TORTURED. I cannot believe that there is so little outrage over this. I cannot believe that our current president cannot even bring himself to use the word TORTURE in reference to the interrogation tactics of the previous administration. This is unfuckingbelievable.

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Why I Blog

There are many motivations for why a person blogs. I’m not going to get into those reasons, only to say that I didn’t start this blog as a way of updating people about the details of my everyday life. Now a-person-who-shall-remain-nameless recently sent me a message asking me, “why doth thou need to blog?  doth though need to feel heard in thou vast open world?”

My answer to this is no. I have no need to feel heard by a vast open world. For starters I doubt the vast open world cares about my life. Secondly, I have no need to feel heard by those who have no relationship with me. My blog isn’t even allowed to be Google-able. However, if for some reason some stranger stumbles upon my blog and cares about what I say, then I welcome them.

I did start blogging as a means of communicating with friends and family who have expressed some desire to know what I am thinking about these days, but am not in frequent contact enough with for consistent dialogue to otherwise be possible. It’s not so much that what I have to say is all that  meaningful or original, but that what I’ve had to say has invited other people to join in discourse about issues and ideas that they’d normally not be invited to think about or discuss. And the blogs I’ve enjoyed have done that for me.

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Hello world!

Well this is the very first post of my blog. Welcome for those friends and strangers that have found it.

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