TRENCH WARFARE

Oh my.

Not since the theologian and barber, Saint Ceolfrid, descended on the shores of Ireland in the late 600's and commanded the Celtic monks to get proper Roman haircuts has the church been in such turmoil.  Today the church's current hot button is not haircuts, but a lowly chicken sandwich sold by Chick-fil-A.

Now keep in mind that little chicken sandwich and the other Chick-fil-A fast food menu items generate about $4 billion in annual sales. So we are talking real lunch money here, enough to build say one Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

Last month Chick-fil-A COO Dan Cathy told a Baptist magazine reporter: "The company invests in Christian growth and ministry through its WinShape Foundation. The name comes from shaping people to be winners. It began as a college scholarship and expanded to a foster care program, an international ministry, and a conference and retreat center modeled after the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove. That morphed into a marriage program in conjunction with national marriage ministries,"

Asked about the corporation's support of the traditional family, Cathy said, "Well, guilty as charged. We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit...  We are very much committed to that. We intend to say the course. We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."

It took a week or two but after reports of the magazine article trickled down to gay and lesbian activists the chicken poop hit the fan. Knowing a hot issue when they saw one activists started a major squawk in front of Chick-fil-A franchises around the nation.

Politicians, always aware than a disgruntled citizen can be a very enthusiastic voter, charged into the battle. Chick-fil-A was banned in Boston and didn't do very well in Chicago either. Politicians of all stripes had to say something. It didn't matter that they didn't have much to say. They were on camera and that was all that mattered.

Conservative pols and pundits charged into the chicken coop declaring that Real Christians weren't going to sit idly by and watch this suddenly beloved company get pummeled with rotten eggs thrown by Fake Christians and other leftists. Mike Huckabee, one time governor and presidential candidate, called for a national show of support for Chick-fil-A and Almighty God.

The Real Christians answered his call and flocked by the tens of thousands and proudly shared their deep faith by having a chicken sandwich or two for lunch. Thus wrapped in a deep fat fried mantle of righteousness they marched forth like those guys in the hymn who marched onward as to war. Along the way Chick-fil-A had th biggest sales day in the history of the company.

Not to be outdone the other Real Christians (Democrats, gays, lesbians and their leftist friends) decided to retaliate and gather in front of Chick-fil-A businesses across the nation and kiss each other. Of course this had to be same sex kissing. Otherwise the TV vultures wouldn't cover it. There were rumors of wardrobe malfunctions.

Chick-fil-A is one of the two stores in my hometown that closes on Sunday just because it is the Sabbath. The franchise here supports a variety of worthy local causes. They seem to treat their employees well (a lot better than the shoe company treats the fourth world peasant who makes the shoes we wear). The employees treat guests well. They try not to discriminate based on who walks in the door holding hands with a member of the same sex. The CEO and COO donate part of their income to organizations that don't like gay people trying to get married.

As long as we hurl insults and epithets at the "other" side, terms like "hate mongers, Nazi thugs, or fags" and some others I don't think I can put even in a blog we are dividing our churches and further dividing out nation to the point we can never put them back together again.

Trench warfare is a dirty, deadly business and we Episcopalians don't do it well. It leaves us no room to reach out, to move around, to find common ground with others -- things we have done fairly well for the last 50 years.

Please, can't we pull back a bit and climb up out of our of these muddy trenches and have a conversation and quit screaming at each other? Can't we admit that Jesus is our brother whether we are straight or gay?

Ceolfrid just didn't get it. Even though he was a saint he could not get out of the trenches the Roman church dug in Ireland over the issue of haircuts.  Instead of looking into people's hearts and seeing if they were doing their best to follow the Way of the Gospel he chose instead to look at their haircuts, and if they weren't just like his, then he condemned them.

We are better than that. Or we should be.

[A Postcript: I made mention of St. Ceolfrid not because he as a bad person. He wasn't. Venerable Bede wouldn't have been so called without Ceolfrid's help. But Ceolfrid was human and like all of us, saints and sinners alike, sometimes he did dumb things.]