Okay, I’ll admit it: I am so loving this:

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats.

This finding holds true even when controlling for other variables such as age, education, gender, and income. Under the subhead, “What are the implications of these findings?” Gallup reports:

The reason the relationship exists between being a Republican and more positive mental health is unknown, and one cannot say whether something about being a Republican causes a person to be more mentally healthy, or whether something about being mentally healthy causes a person to choose to become a Republican.

I think it’s both. 

The findings are discussed in detail here.

A new study finds that nearly every woman – no matter her weight – thinks she just isn’t thin enough. A Cornell University professor and graduate found that half of underweight women want to stay the same weight or get thinner, and 90% of normal-weight women still want to lose weight.

The researchers said women idealize a body weight and shape that doesn’t match healthy standards. Travis Stewart, director of ministry relations for Remuda Ranch (a Christian eating disorder treatment center), said the church should think about how it addresses body image and eating disorders.

“We tend to take those diagnosed with eating disorders and put them in a category and say that they’re different from ourselves,” Stewart said, but many women without a full-blown disorder still see their bodies inaccurately and may under-eat or over-exercise.

Stewart said anorexic girls tend to be perfectionist, a problem that a performance-based, legalistic church can worsen. He cited Lilian Calles Barger, author of Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body, who says thinness has replaced chastity as a virtue. Modern women believe that a strong, self-controlled, virtuous woman is a woman who exercises and controls her eating. This reflects Stewart’s own experience counseling girls who say they feel pride or shame based on what they eat: “Think about the implications of that in the church. The most self-controlled, the most godly woman is the woman who controls what she eats, exercises.”

Stewart said the church needs to have a deeper discussion about the theology of the body. We say that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but what does that mean? “We don’t really challenge the cultural view that our body is primarily sexual,” Stewart said. “I think the church would do well to understand a person as a whole person.”

I’ve been thinking more about the conflation of conservatism and Christianity among many people I know. In a recent issue of Newsweek, Michael Gerson describes three evangelical approaches to politics, embodied by a prophet (James Dobson), a priest (Billy Graham), and a kingmaker (Pat Robertson). Gerson argues that all three approaches are declining:

“Leaders such as Robertson mainly exercise broad influence in the imagination of liberals. Evangelicals, particularly younger evangelicals, are undergoing a shift in attitudes. Many have little interest in the self-destructive purity of the prophet or the raw pragmatism of the kingmaker. They remain culturally conservative, but uncomfortable with a harshly judgmental tone in their politics. They find the model of the religious right too narrow and are increasingly motivated by a broader range of social concerns.”

Columnist Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, was enthusiastic about Gerson’s point of view:

“It seems to me that our society needs Christian witness – on charity, on caring for the environment, on protecting the vulnerable, on seeking peace, on opening dialogue – as much as it doesn’t need Christianist intolerance, politicking and campaigning. It’s especially important, it seems to me, that Christian witness also regain humility and an indifference to power. Forsaking a partisan identity is critical to this.”

Part of the problem, I think, is that a conservative philosophy is largely one of restraint on most government spending , with an expectation that local, voluntary initiatives will do more to assist the poor and downtrodden than any government program. Conservative Christians involved in politics, therefore, project an image of being “against” assistance for the poor, “for” war, and far more concerned with stopping gay marriage than stopping AIDS. They want much of what we call mercy missions to be off the political agenda. Conservatism, in other words, is worlds apart from Christianity — it fosters a space for effective mercy, but it doesn’t embody mercy. Insofar as people identify Christianity with conservative political action, therefore, they are likely to come away with a slanted view of what our faith really means.

It can be problematic, then, when politicians trumpet their Christian credentials; if 90 percent of what a politician stands for doesn’t advance Christian principles, but instead advances conservative principles, then perhaps the perception of Christianity, among the unchurched, is done a disservice when they perceive the politician to embody what a Christian is all about. Likewise, of course, when a notable Christian endorses such a politician. C.S. Lewis once remarked that what we need are not more Christian writers, but more great writers who are Christians. Perhaps the same applies to politicians.

The best innoculation, I think, to a wrong perception that Christianity is equivalent to conservatism is the mercy work of many good churches. For every politico a non-Christian sees claiming the Christian label, we want him to see a hundred Christians in his community, quietly, humbly doing the work of our Father. The more we can accomplish that, the harder it will be for people to identify Christianity with whatever happens to be popular among politicians who claim to act on Christ’s behalf. “You will know them,” Christ said of the good and the bad, “by their fruits.” My prayer, in the current political season and the decades to follow, is that more non-Christians will come to know us in that way, by lifechanging encounters with loving Christians.

One more decent weekend of college football games until the bowl season starts in a few weeks.  This has been an unusual season, with many upsets and unlikely conquerers who are then conquered by someone else.  It makes for a great regular season, but not a great bowl season. 

Since every team has proven itself undeserving of this year’s title, there’s only one truly fitting way to end the season, by calling off the BCS title game. Vacate the title as they do in boxing, give everyone a trophy as they do in youth soccer-but don’t make anyone national champion.

This won’t happen, of course, but he’s right.  Everybody’s been so equalized by losses that it doesn’t matter who wins.  When I competed in BMX racing (my rad summers of 1983 and 1984), we would have these bicycle pile-ups, and the last kid to keep his bike on two wheels would win.  Frequently, it was the dufus in the back who wandered onto the track with his Huffy. And that may be the kid who wins the BCS game. No matter who it is.

A 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness died from leukemia Wednesday after a judge ruled that the state couldn’t force the boy to have a blood transfusion, even though it might have saved his life.

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Hillary Clinton took to the pulpit again yesterday, this time at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in SoCal. The Democratic presidential hopeful spoke at Warren’s Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, the same conference her top rival Barack Obama appeared at last year. During her speech, which outlined her plans to combat the AIDS epidemic worldwide, Clinton quoted what she said was her favorite verse: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). In using the verse to comment on the necessity of faith in charity efforts, Clinton said, “I have concluded that works without faith cannot be sustained.”

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The average American seems to have a real misunderstanding of higher education, including what it is and what it’s supposed to be.  In an essay titled “Over Invested and Over Priced,” economics professor Richard Vedder looks at the following propositions and explains why they are false:

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“‘Hope’ is the Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers–
That perches in the soul–
And sings the tune without the words–
And never stops–at all–

And sweetest–in the Gale–is heard–
And sore must be the storm–
That could abash the little Bird–
That kept so many warm–

I’ve heard it in the chillest land–
And on the strangest Sea–
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb–of Me.

From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

The concept of a literary canon is still on the minds of those who teach and pass along culture to the next generation of humans.  What’s a Great Book, and what does it mean to introduce young people – from birth through college – to these books?  The issue brings forth questions about culture, about what matters from one generation to the next, and about what stories are worth telling again and again.  This essay is a fascinating discussion of why we need, or don’t need, a canon.

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This week we did something my husband said he’d never do: We put up an artificial Christmas tree. *GASP!* Although I grew up in a house that favored the manufactured version, my husband has fond memories of his family trudging around the local tree farm looking for the perfect evergreen. We continued that tradition for the past three years of our marriage, but last year’s tree changed all that: By the time we carried it to the curb–and I’m not exaggerating when I say this–every single needle had fallen off. (Yes, we watered it daily! It was just a cursed tree.)

Nowadays the age-old question of real versus fake has an added dimension of, “Which is greener?” What’s your vote and what version does your home feature?