At the UCC annual meeting in June, I attended a forum on “The Draft Resolution on the Global South Debt Crisis: A Call for Solidarity and Action for Poverty Reduction in the Global South through Expanded Debt Cancellation and International Financial Institution Reform.”  Shortening the title was one recommendation. Over the next year the UCC will finalize a resolution about forgiving Third World Debt.  (See ucc.org/justice.)  But I’m not going to write about that right now.  I’ve got a year.

 Right now, Christian websites are abuzz with horror at the GOP’s born-again-and-again conversion to Ayn Rand. Her thinking goes like this: “Blessed are the selfish, for they deserve the earth.” The rest of humanity are “moochers.”  Her teachings are so much more “21^st century” than Jesus’. Glen and Rush have always been admirers of her “Utopia of Greed” philosophy, but now Ayn worshipers include members of Congress, Senators and a Supreme Court Justice.  Rep. Paul Ryan’s  Republican budget proposals can be subtitled, “The Gospel of Ayn.”  But I’m not going to write about that right now. I’ve got until November 2012 to do that.

What really caught my attention was the Southern Baptist Convention’s vote to continue believing in eternal hell. “In adopting the resolution, messengers [sic] affirmed ‘our belief in the biblical teaching on eternal, conscious punishment of the unregenerate in hell.'”

 That really got me thinking.  I assume since the resolution was open to debate, the option of voting “no” was a possibility. What if they had voted no?  Would the gates of hell be thrown open, freeing all unregenerates to join the rest of us in heaven? Would God have to back down in face of a democratically voted-upon repeal?  This is a problem. I decided to investigate.

I looked up “unregenerate.” It means “obstinately wrong or bad.”  That made me a little nervous.  I looked up “obstinate.” There it was: “stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.” Sweat broke out on my neck.

I do not think I am wrong or bad, not most of the time anyway.  However, there are approximately an infinite number of people who do. And I have been accused of being obstinate by people who think I’m an otherwise okay person.  Things are looking bad for me re eternal hell.

For instance, I am an obstinately unregenerate Ayn Rand despiser. But now, via the Federal budget, the U.S. government is on the verge of voting her in as Messiah. Will the Treasury Department change the dollar bill’s motto to “Utopia of Greed”?  Clearly God is champion of “moochers,” and no longer deserves honor on a dollar.

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”?   Fat chance if the resurrected Ayn has anything to do with it. “Expanded Debt Forgiveness” will show up nowhere in the GOP budget, I can promise you that. It’s against corporate morality to forgive debt, and now that corporations are individuals…. (There was a UCC conversation about that Supreme Court vote.) The Lord’s prayer may be unconstitutional! But worse, I suspect God is unregeneratively obstinate on the point of forgiveness of debt.  He is not going to stand for a no-vote. Which may get Him in a lot of trouble in the next election.

This all leads to the logical conclusion that God will be (or is) in eternal hell with all the other obstinates and moochers.  I may have skipped a few steps in logic here, but I believe I am right.