I am somewhat at a loss to explain my ongoing fascination with American Idol. I tried at one point, but I’m not sure how well that covered it.

I find it less difficult to explain my ongoing fascination with evangelicalism. I have the wrong theology, the wrong politics, and the wrong habits to fit in with that group. Nonetheless, it is a part of my history and many of those nearest and dearest to me remain part of that group. I assume that will continue to be the case until they stop putting up with me.

For me, evangelicalism is like adolescence. When you’re a teen, there are about a thousand bullshitty things you have to worry about. And worry you must, because any one of these things could permanently ruin your existence. Your parents might embarrass you. You might not get invited to that party. The boy you like might like your friend instead.

Then you get older, and you start to worry about things like paying the bills, and marriage and kids, and what a sorry state our world is in. This naturally leaves less time and energy to worry about whether you’ve been invited to all the best parties. And then you realize: you thought that unending party-related drama was a sign of how truly tragic your life had become, when in actuality it was a sign of how great your life was. You were happy, clothed, well fed and protected. Only with your relatively simple and simplistic existence could you spare the energy to worry about bullshitty things.

I mean, is it any coincidence that celebrities, the section of the population most prone to adolescent behavior, is also the section of the population most immune to real-life worries?

At first you feel sorry about the loss of control that you experience in no longer caring about these easily manipulatable situations. But then you realize that you’re better off without all this dragging you down. That’s how evangelicalism is to me. There are about a thousand bullshitty things you have to worry about: smoking and drinking and cursing, gay marriage, and cities not putting up nativity scenes at Christmas. Any one of these things might mean the death of our civilization as we know it and/or loss of salvation for the individuals concerned. These things might permanently ruin our existence. The gatekeepers tell you that all these prove how DIRE our situation is, when in reality all they prove is how simple and simplistic this way of life is, a way of life available only those with time and energy to burn.

I’m sure that this is also the case with most other groups who have the culture wars as their stock-in-trade. I’m picking on evangelicals because I have enough personal experience to speak about that group directly, but I hardly imagine that they’re the only ones.

What in the world does all this have to do with American Idol?

Well, as most know by now, the two finalists who will be competing tonight are from, shall we say, different sides of town. One is an unassuming worship leader from the South, and one is gay and “theatrical” and from Hollywood. I am an Adam girl through and through (honestly, the show is beneath him), but I love Kris as well, and I plan to marry both of them. I realize that one is already married, one plays for the other team, and bigamy is against the law—but none of that will deter me.

As the media has remarked upon, several of this year’s contestants grew up in the church, many of them good evangelicals. But the most visible evangelical, the one who wanted to “inspire” people with his music, the one who interrupted his recordings to offer sermonettes, the one who appeared in a widely posted video declaring that he loved a fellow male contestant but only in the “godly” way (punctuated with an expression that said “ewwwwww...gay”)—he done got his ass booted last week.

So now we’re left with the Christian guy who became BFF with Adam, and whose family bonded with Adam’s family, the guy who was known for conducting himself with humility and decency, the guy who repeatedly stated that he had no intentions of using religion as a wedge between him and his fellow contestants or him and his audience, and the guy who also happens to be sex, walking. And we’re also left with the guy who befriended Kris, and whose family befriended Kris’ family, the guy who was known for conducting himself with humility and decency, the guy who obviously believed his sexuality was not something to be kept hidden but also not something to be offered up as a topic for public debate, and the guy who also happens to be sex, walking. They’re such good friends they even wear matching nail polish, which is adorable. Apparently, both live in a world where there is not time or energy to be spared worrying about the culture wars.

Now, I think the voters mostly voted on the music. I think that’s the way both Kris and Adam would prefer it be. But how lovely is it that they also managed to settle on two guys who are great examples of what I hope is a permanent maturation in our cultural dialogue. It honestly restores a little bit of my faith in humanity, and I am not being facetious when I say that. It really does. The damn show makes me want to be a better person.

I don’t think Kris became friends with Adam because he wanted to make a point about how the culture wars were passé, especially in light of the bigger issues we all face personally and corporately. I don’t think Adam became friends with Kris for that reason either. My guess is that they became friends because they were capable of forming relationships predicated on mutual affection and mutual respect. I don’t think they became friends to make a point. But in a way, the fact that they didn’t do it to make a point is actually the very thing that does make a point. Friendship without agenda and without grandstanding...who would have guessed?

In a lot of ways, I envy people who have an agenda in life. They never have to guess what the hell they’re supposed to be doing. In other ways, I’m glad I don’t have the time, energy or wherewithal to construct one. I hated high school anyway.

Christians, or shall I say "Christians," most likely to support torture.

Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I always thought that one of the primary pro-torture (or pro-“enhanced interrogation tactics”) arguments was its efficacy. We’re lead to believe that waterboarding and other such techniques are so terrible that even the hardest of hardened terrorists will spill all his secrets like a teenage girl on twitter. I mean, isn’t that what we claimed was our whole reason for doing it? To get the information needed to prevent further terrorist actions?

So doesn’t the revelation that waterboarding was apparently used 266 times, combined, on two high-ranking assholes kind of put a dent in that theory? I mean, if you have to do something 266 times, it’s probably not very effective. And at what point does the light bulb go on and you think, Gee...maybe this isn’t working so well. Would that happen after 66 times? 166? Why stop at 266? Maybe the 267th time would have been the one that did the trick!

We’ve been led to believe that these tactics were only used under controlled circumstances, only briefly, and only to achieve specific results. In other words, even the Bush administration was not corrupt enough to believe that we Americans would take kindly to a “whatever it takes” methodology. Even in our worst moments, we don’t really have the stomach for the idea that people will be tortured over and over and over again until the desired result is reached—or not reached, as the case may be. And yet, it seems that’s exactly what happened. Sometime before the 266th time, it should have occurred to someone that doing this over and over and over again wasn’t doing anything, except stealing away, bit by bit, the dignity of both the torturer and torturee.

There’s only one thing more awesome (and by “more awesome” I mean “more tragic”) than selling your soul and getting something in return. And that’s selling your soul over and over and over again, and still getting nothing in return.

This economic crisis has been weird. It's been weird for a lot of reasons. First of all, I have a relatively recession-proof job. And, in fact, I was one of the lucky ones who landed a new job despite the journey through the crapper that we're taking. And, since I was already employed, I technically didn't even need that new job. I haven't decided if I should feel guilty about that or not.

So in reality, my financial state right now is better than it's ever been. In one sense, I feel part of what's going on in that it's perhaps the fundamental force shaping our current cultural consciousness. But in another sense, I just feel shut out of the whole issue.

Another way in which this is weird is that it has made it impossible for me decide whether the American soul is more or less up for sale than it was a year ago. So something happens like our new Secretary of State saying that human rights violations in China are a real shame, but that we can't trouble ourselves with that right now because China has become a major economic power and really, our nation just needs money right now. And then I realize that, like most merchandise currently moldering on store shelves, the American soul is not only up for sale, but it has been marked down drastically.

But then something happens like our new President making a prime time speech calling this a "day of reckoning" for the way we mortgaged our future in favor of a present that was stocked with so many toys that we just didn't need. And then I start to realize that maybe at least a few people see the signs of deeper malaise in our current crisis. As horrible as things might seem right now, maybe they get that these are just the symptoms of an even more dangerous syndrome.

The problem with the scenario that Sec. of State Clinton proposes is that we are in this position because we made all our better moral senses subservient to our desire for money. And what is she doing now? Exactly: subjecting all our better moral senses to the lure of money. So the solution to our current crisis is to continue to take the same actions that got us into this crisis to begin with? Something about that seems bass-ackwards to me. I know I'm sounding insufferably moralistic at this point, especially given my confession that I haven't personally felt the economic pinch.

So that's another way in which this crisis is weird for me. It's weird because it causes me to write a post that is either my clarion call for greater moral leadership, or a confession that I'm the last person who should be talking about this. Either I'm making a good point, or I'm making a point that refutes itself.

Yeah, so...this place looks familiar. Almost like I knew it once before. In a past life, perhaps.

Just in case you’re unsure, that sarcastic remark was me acknowledging that I have been somewhat absent of late. Actually, strike the “somewhat” in that last sentence. Occasionally, the stress of life catches up with even the best of us. Starting a new job and moving in a span of about three months didn’t prove to be my wisest decision. But it seemed preferable to the alternative of signing on for another year of an apartment that left me feeling marooned in general and frustrated in particular by an hour-plus commute.

By now, I’m feeling relaxed and at home in my new place, and an incoming new hire means that my job will hopefully be finding an equilibrium somewhere near normal. Cognitively and emotionally, I feel good. But I sleep like a rock (very unusual for me) and am persistently headache-y. So I believe my body might be telling me that we are not out of the woods yet.

Nonetheless, this has been a fertile time of thought and reflection for me, so I hope to be back with stunning insight and wit very soon.