Jesus welcomes everyone to his table, and how different this is from the practice of Christian hospitality in American politics today.
The Christianity of many voters is a distinctly unwelcoming table, with strict theological and moral boundaries. Evangelicals in Iowa and Michigan preferred Rick Santorum by double digits over Mitt Romney, and in South Carolina they voted for Newt Gingrich over Romney, 45 percent to 21 percent.

As I complete another year of seminary, I am reminded not only of the valuable lessons I have learned from the lectures and the reading and the studying, but also of the less predictable, though equally blessed lessons that come from simply being engaged in a sacred pursuit in community with others also engaged in that same sacred pursuit.

Because I have a number of friends in North Carolina, I really wanted them to think critically about how they cast their ballot. So I posted a number of articles on the topic to my Facebook page, including an article by Tommy Tomlinson of the Charlotte Observer, entitled "No One Is Hurt by Gay Marriage." The article itself was well written, but it was the responses to my posting it which really fortified my position. My aunt wrote, "Ever read Romans Chapter 1? Let God speak for himself and he does." Another person weighed in, "It is sad that this is what is coming from Presbyterian leadership. It is very apparent that God's word is not being taught in Presbyterian seminaries anymore." That same person shared elsewhere that if I truly believed that no one was hurt by gay marriage, I shouldn't be a minister, which had the effect of causing my daughter to leap to my defense.