From the very beginning one of the things that quickly endeared Charles Schulz to me was the simple and straightforward way he handled his Christian beliefs in his strip “Peanuts.” There was Linus of course, but when it came to the vexing questions of life there was Lucy as the psychiatrist handling Charlie Brown’s perplexities. But then we all know gifted cartoonists like Schulz are the real intellectuals and prophets, which is why from childhood on I would first turn to the funny papers before looking at anything else.

In my opinion I would rather have the advice of Charles Schulz about the issues of life than that of the most venerated of theologians in the church. The accusation is not without substance that theology has degenerated at times into questions of the type how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, an accusation from which the best of theological scholars have not always successfully extricated themselves; and any study of Systematic Theology will determine it is anything but; systems of belief to be sure, but too often rather properly belonging to Dogmatic Theology.

For example, most would agree with James that faith without works is dead, being alone; and would agree with James’ statement “show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works.” However, Christian theology teaches people are saved by grace, not by works, that the best we can do cannot stand the test of “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The “Roman Road” is the precept of personal evangelism and evangelical Christianity stands by this.

But the thousands of books dedicated to theology do not solve the riddle of many questions arising from matters of faith, or faith vs. works, election vs. predestination, what happens to dead babies, modes of baptism, Lord’s Supper, and so on seemingly ad infinitum. It is here where I would seek counsel of Charles Schulz rather than the professional theologians, as he so wisely portrayed by Lucy. Charlie Brown had the deep questions of life, but life is very real and pragmatic and seldom amenable to either altruistic or comfortable theologies or philosophies. Inevitably Charlie Brown has to confront Lucy and the real world in which we all live for better or for worse. For my part, it seems the best I have been able to do is muddle through. And perhaps this is my greatest skill; just muddling through.

However, there are times when the “unthinkable” becomes thinkable by force of circumstances and there is no muddling through. For those of us who lived that era of WWII and went on to study the history of the war at length it is impossible to miss some very disturbing parallels to what is happening with our present government and that of Germany leading to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

That our present White House has become so ultra-secretive is a case in point. One cannot but help wondering what the President and his administration have to hide? Once secrecy for whatever reason is invoked, especially on the seemingly too oft specious argument “national security” all becomes suspect. None of us question the need of secrecy where actual national security may be at risk, there are valid cases of “need to know,” but there is Sandy Berger. And we know there are many Berger’s in the present administration.

But there is little in the Congress to give us hope corruption in government will be ended, or even contained. When it comes to politics it is business as usual and we would be hard pressed to point to any one politician and say we have faith in that person to act with virtue. Some say they have faith, but let’s see them prove that faith by their works.

So, I worry. To repeat something I recently wrote:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Sen. Gordon Smith, a moderate Republican from Oregon who has been a supporter of the war in Iraq, said the U.S. military’s “tactics have failed” and he “cannot support that anymore.” Smith said he is at, “the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs, day after day… That is absurd,” he said. “It may even be criminal.”

While Smith’s use of the word “criminal” has caused him to do some furious back-peddling the word has been used, and there is no going back from it. He may have fallen under the spell of his own rhetoric, a typical cause of politicians putting their foot in their mouth, but many understood the enormity of such a word being used. I certainly understand it and had already written about it back in April before Smith uttered the word, knowing as I do the lessons of history and human nature teach there is nothing too fantastic to imagine happening in a world seemingly lunatic because of being dominated by religious and political hatreds.