7thriv

The guys selling this thing have managed to bait a local SF priest into writing a letter (Run! It's the Inquisition!) in which he declares his great offense. Checks the comments with the linked article for a typical display of luv 'n' toleration. 

Now, everyone says this is "all in fun." That might be true if this candle were being sold at CPAC, or at Rush Limbaugh's on-line store. There, the intent would be satirical and mocking. But, the Father Obama  candle is being sold on upper 24th Street. For all of you out-of-towners, upper 24th is a typical upper middle class Prius/latte/"more dogs than kids" progressive SF neighborhood. No one there is making fun of Obama. They love the guy! 

Now, I don't know what lurks inside people's hearts, especially in politics and religion (where it is easy to speak in one way publicly, and act the opposite in private). But, I strongly suspect most of the 700+candles the shopkeepers have sold have gone to homes where Obama is loved and admired, not made a figure of "fun." And, the sight of Obama in clerical robes, surrounded by a saintly glow, is one that I'll bet many of his admirers find inexpressibly moving.

Without knowing it, these people - the buyers and the sellers - are reverting back to a more child-like form of worship and citizenship, and acting out the most basic of heresies; the worship of a mere man as having some aspect of the divine. Yet, these are also the same people who mocked Sarah Palin (and that of anyone else on the Religious Right)'s belief in an Almighty. At least Sarah never looked at John McCain and worshipped him. She knows enough to know that no man is worth that.