Mitt Romney’s speech was so chock full of buzz words, it was difficult at first to tell if he subscribes to any recognized belief system at all, let alone the very strict beliefs of the Mormons. The words free, freedom and liberty appear 25 times in his short address on faith. Freedom, one could well conclude, is his faith.

When you look a little deeper, however, you can see that freedom is not his creed. Beyond the buzz words, he is clearly ascribing to the ‘Christian America’ idea that is, at bottom, the rule of the state by religion or what we call “theocracy.”

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I hope Bishop Desmond Tutu is willing to make house calls, because the United States desperately needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be appointed immediately.

This is more urgent even than calls for a “special prosecutor” to be named by Congress to investigate the blatant coverup of torture practices, especially waterboarding, by the Central Intelligence Agency. Yes, the destruction of evidence of possible criminal activity is still a crime, and needs a formal investigation, but we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission even more urgently.

The reason we need Desmond Tutu to pay a house call on the U.S. is because the first word in the Truth and Reconciliation process is “truth”.

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Mike Huckabee has dragged the devil into the presidential campaign. Huckabee apologized personally to Mitt Romney for saying, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” There are some who have speculated this is “code language” for Evangelical Christians, signaling that Huckabee is the “godly” candidate, and Romney is not.

This is not the first time, by any means, that the devil has made an appearance in politics. Michael Gerson, when he was a speech writer for President George W. Bush, mused, “It was almost as if Saddam was an agent of the devil.” General Boykin, before he was told to stop, appeared before Christian audiences dressed in his military uniform and told them that he knew he would prevail against Muslim warlords in Somalia because he was “fighting Satan”.

The prevalence of the image of Satan as the opponent of all that is godly is not new. The figure of the Devil has been used over and over again in Christian history to personify the forces that oppose goodness in this world. This is how it is being used in politics today.

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It’s not enough to be a “well-intentioned religious believer”. The intentions of religious believers unconnected to justice, to mercy and most of all, to truth, often do a tremendous amount of harm.

We buried a wonderful seminary graduate today, World AIDS Day. Rev. Anthony Hollins was an HIV-positive, African American gay man, a pastor, a dancer and an AIDS activist.

When the doctors told Anthony that he was HIV positive more than a decade ago, he refused to let disease and self-pity rule his life. He decided to dedicate his life to the divine calling of telling the truth about AIDS and the truth about God’s love for him and for all people, gay or straight, black, brown, or white, male or female. He helped people, especially in the African American community, tell the truth about their sexual orientation and live openly and truthfully. His intention was justice for those who are HIV positive and mercy for those whom some of the “well-intentioned” religious moralists despise and ignore.

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Christians have lost Christmas as a religious holiday and it is not because of political correctness. Christmas sales now drive the American economy. We need to recognize that we Christians no longer have a nativity theology, we have a “black Friday theology”—that crucial day when Christmas shopping cleans up the retail bottom lines and the red ink turns to black. Unless Christ turns a profit for us, the American economy shows a net loss.

Well, really, what’s the loss? When Christmas day (December 25) inconveniently turned out to fall on a Sunday, Willow Creek, the mega-church on the north side of Chicago, canceled worship. Instead, they gave out a video and let people stay home and celebrate with their families. I hesitate to speculate what, then, they would be celebrating except the triumph of cultural Christianity. What kind of Christians cancel worship because it falls on Christmas day?

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I’ve watched Mike Huckabee’s new campaign video, the one with the Christmas tree and the Merry Christmas message. The white-edged, cross-like object in the background looks like a cross to me. "No, no," Huckabee said later, "it’s a bookshelf." Really?

My husband and I took our whole family to Christmas Eve services in Vail, Colorado a few years ago. As we were sitting in the pew, listening to the prelude, it began to dawn on us that the very large cross on the altar of this church in the mountains was made of skis. We all got up and left. Trendy ski themes for the central symbol of the Christian faith are not in our faith tradition. But the cross of skis was, in fact, recognizable as a cross. It is also clear that for the vast majority of people attending that church, it was meant to symbolize a cross even though it was made of skis.

That’s a cross, Rev. Huckabee, even though it may be made of a bookshelf.

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Reading HR 847, it is easy to understand the incredibly low approval rating given to Congress by the American people (Gallup reports in December 2007 that only 22% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing). After staying up late to pass a bill loaded with pork for many of their constituents, Congress apparently moved on to dishing up a huge helping of piety for them as well. HR 847 ponderously proclaims, “Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others…” The irony of this bill is that it seems designed not to serve others, but to serve the Congressional representatives who voted for it. There is no other reason such legislation would see the light of day.

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Here’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to have presidential candidates engage in professions of faith in order to garner votes. Faith is the easiest thing to fake. The candidates don’t need a voting record in order to profess religious faith. All they really need is a few Bible passages to quote and the occasional reference to God and they are good to go.

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