Living Into The Other. Or, Not. (UPDATED)

A Left-Wing Episcopal Priest, The Rev. Patricia Templeton of St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Atlanta, says;

...we live out our faith in large part through our relationship with the other – by showing hospitality to strangers, by loving our neighbors and our enemies...

And then proceeds to piss all over a particular group of "others" and "enemies" because they don't agree with her values - the people who showed up at Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally.

She seems to conclude that the Episcopal God, the ever redefinable and politically convenient God of General Convention, Litigation, and Canons and Constitutions, is better than Beck's God because us Episcopalians have dragged God - kicking and screaming - into the modern age, and made him 'relevant' (yay, us!) by giving Him a Baptismal Covenant for Him and us to live by (and us to define). In the mind of Episcopal Lefties, this, of course, naturally makes Episcopalians loving, tolerant, non-judgemental, and intellectually superior beings - as opposed to those ignorant, bigoted, homophobic, misogynistic, paranoid, racist, fear-mongering, hate-filled, illiterate, gun-toting, rabid, wife-beating, Wal-Mart shopping, white, trailer-trash rubes that Beck is stirring up. Yeech. Who would want to be near those people!?

But does it really matter, in the long run, what this priest thinks? No, and here's why: Glenn Beck talking about God attracted as many or more people in one place and at one time, than were in all Episcopal churches listening to all the Lefty sermons in the US that weekend. The "all churches are shrinking" excuse TEC coughs up is a delusion, because The Left can not admit that at it's core it is wrong. Ask the Mormons, the Evangelicals, the Roman Catholics - heck, ask the Muslims - people are turning to God in this country - just not the Episcopal God of She/He-is-whatever-we-at-General Convention-say-She/He-Is. Instead, they are turning to a God who has answers for their deepest questions (though often not easy answers), a God who guides them with loving direction, and a God who calls them to practice higher, immutable values. That, according to Reverend Templeton, not her God. So be it. It is, however, mine.

UPDATE: Sheesh. Even Timothy Dalrymple says Beck gets it.

RELATED: Does the liberalism espoused by folks like Rev. Templeton kill churches? Um... yes. (It sure ain't growing St. Dunstan's.) With The Episcopal Church (tm) and other formerly "mainline" denominations committing slow, theological suicide, here's a good question: Are the Beck Evangelicals the New Mainline?

UPDATE 03SEPT2010: Chris Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal also takes note of Rev. Templeton's missive and, as usual, provides an excellent reply. It is somewhat telling, and predictably ironic, that the only ones here who seem to fear of "the other" isn't Beck and the followers of the God he knows, but Rev. Templeton and the followers of the God she knows.

Also, can anyone point me to the place, or places, in Scripture where Jesus says "we are blessed by those who differ from us"? A paraphrase? Anything? Is there some Beatitude I don't know about, "Blessed are we, because there are Romans and Gentiles out there..."?