Can't I just have a burger?

1
Can't I just have a burger?

The choice between Obama and Romney is like being given a choice between pâté de foie gras and bananas flambées when what I really want is a hamburger but the waiter is sneering at me and laughing with the chef in the kitchen.[1]

The first presidential debate is Wednesday October 3, 2012 at 9pm ET.

[2012-10-01]

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Addendum to "My Impressions of Christianity in Mainland China"

Home church Chinese Christians do not have denominations. They don't see the "government church" as legitimate; the government church, as I understand it, is more or less the Catholic Church in China (probably less, though not officially schismatic).

(See my post on "My Impressions of Christianity in Mainland China" here.
Also see these Wikipedia articles: Christianity in China and Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association )

If you were to ask, "What Western denomination is the Chinese home church closest to?", it would be hard for me to say, but: it is primal, genuine, non-confrontational, tolerant, sincere, and very iconoclastic. It comes closest in my (limited) experience to being Amish or Mennonite.

It reminds me of what I think the earliest Christian churches may have been like in the 1st Century. If there ever comes a time when China allows free and open worship, this rare and beautiful moment will quickly splinter into a million formalized heresies. There are already Chinese versions of televangelists traveling and raising money outside China. Something they understand that their American counterparts don't is real persecution.

Bear in mind however that, in today's China, this persecution is often invited by layering civil disobedience over religious self-determination. Both have their place, but they are not the same thing.

[2012-10-01]

c0

[1]
I first wrote this: "Choosing between Romney and Obama is like being given the choice between vanilla or chocolate ice cream when you really want strawberry." It has an unfortunate racial subtext, so I put it here in a footnote where I could consider it in that light; but what's more interesting to me is that I wrote it without consciously considering the subtext. Did the layers of meanings weave themselves into my analogy because they're part of my socio-psychological makeup? Or did I discover them only AFTER writing and reviewing the connections the words subsequently made upon leaving my fingertips?

Maybe a little bit of both.

c0