Today I thought I'd explore my options and I attended a Calvary Chapel service. The message was sound and balanced - very good overall. I was almost out the door when I saw at the info booth a Presidential Report Card booklet. The cover blatantly touts that it does not support or oppose any candidate and that it's purely for informational purposes. You know you're in trouble at this point.

The questions were clearly loaded and slanted against Obama - going so far as to say that he wants to require schoolchildren to think favorably about homosexuality. What kind of question is that? Spin spin spin. The group creating this booklet is known as the Campaign for Children and Families, and their website is: www.saveamerica.com.

Well, wanting to know who produced this biased little rag, I went on the website and am incensed at what I saw. The homepage blasts "L.A. Train Engineer was Unstable Homosexual." How sick can you get? This group stands on the platform of Christian family values, yet what about the family of the engineer? What about all the others who perished in this horrible accident? Instead of rallying to pray for the loved ones and injured, this group perfectly epitomizes the loathsome hypocrisy of the Christian conservatives. It's truly reprehensible.

As I wrote in my blog about the election, I'm a Christian - have been since 1995. Never in my 15 years of being a believer have I seen and experienced such divisiveness and hypocrisy as I have these last 6 months. This is a very heated election, and I'm old enough now to understand the issues and biases and to make a decision I feel right about. I don't vote with the tide or because of family or friends, etc. However, there's a real, unspoken pressure at church to vote Republican and to adopt their views. Just look at all of the so-called 'informational booklets' that are distributed in churches these days. Do you think that any of these same churches would hang a banner outside saying "L.A. Train Engineer was Unstable Homosexual"? Maybe some might have the nerve, but I think it's completely wrong to publicly align the church with one particular party - be it Republican, Democrat, or other. This political backbiting and hate spewing has no place in the church and certainly doesn't help the cause of showing people Christ. Would Jesus, looking at the mangled wreckage of the two trains and scores of dead and injured people scattered along the tracks write such a headline? I think not. As a Christian, I do not have a leg to stand on if I align myself with congregations that turn a blind eye to this stuff, and then go out and try and tell people about Jesus.

Wake up people! This mudslinging and divisiveness is NOT what He's about. WE, with our own agendas, hatred, condemnation, and pride are the problem, NOT Him or His message.