PublicChristian

I recommend for your attention this excellent recent comment by bookaholic. Here are some excerpts.

This little bit about Jesus: “he was not energized by and focused on his enemies” is some kind of key.

I spent several years in a small town where a favorite topic of conversation was the bad things other people did… At the same time, the atmosphere seemed to be saturated with high-profile Christianity; there was lots of God talk, much of it from the same people who were dispensing the negativity and gloom.

It’s possible to cultivate a habit of being energized by and focused on (fill in the blank). If you fill in the blank with something you don’t approve of, that disapproval will come to have a dominant role in your life and thoughts.

I have an unfortunate tendency to focus on the bad behavior of Christians, then I wonder why I have to drag myself to church…

Here are some observations from Mobitz57 at his blog “Ziprasidone Daze, Halcyon Nights.” A recent post, “My Teaching Philosophy” makes some observations I certainly agree with. It makes no mention of Christian values, Biblical values, or “family values.” Does it represent those things as you understand them?

I believe in the inherent value of every student as a human being … Students do not mind a class that is difficult as long as they perceive that the instructor is fair, objective, and caring.

I believe in the value of nursing …The innate worth and dignity of humankind gives nurses a high calling to be skilled, compassionate, and wise in their work.

Is teamwork a Christian value?

Nursing is usually a team effort. I want students to develop camaraderie and learn to work together as a team as they push each other to master the information and skills.

Ohh. Here comes a high demand to place on teachers.

Students should see that their teachers love what they do, and love the subject matter that they teach.

I care for people, and I want the best for them. Whether they are stressed out students, or ill patients, I strive for their best possible outcome, whatever that is.

Ahh, and the way you judge the people you’re working with – does Christian morality impinge on that?

My primary assumption is that each student has the same desire to be an excellent nurse that I have. I assume that they have a genuine concern for suffering humanity and want to provide relief and comfort, just like I do.

Hmm. If we could sit Jesus down and make him write a short essay on his philosophy of teaching, I wonder what it would say? Could he accept something close to this next paragraph?

Instead of the “Sage on the Stage�?, I want to be a “Guide on the Side�?. Instead of force feeding information so that students can regurgitate it for an exam, I want to engage students in serious thinking activities that will cause them (and me) to attain critical thinking skills leading us to a lifetime of serious inquiry and learning.

Hey, Mobitz57 dude. Here’s a voice of experience with some info for you – that attitude could get you into a lot of WORK!

Mobitz57’s prior post was “Once I was scared of the ICU,”

Once I was scared of the ICU. That is what made me a good ICU nurse. Now, I don’t care. I am sick of the same old half-dead-before-they-even-came-in nursing home patients that need to be in ICU because nobody else can seem to monitor their urine output correctly. It scares me that I don’t care. …

On the other hand …

I took care of a sweet little Pediatric the other night. Actually, not really a Ped, cuz she was 19. But she was about 60 pounds and mentally about a six month old. But I worried about her, and held her hand, and almost cried because we couldn’t find a trache that would fit her and the ventilator quite right. But she did well, and went home in a couple of days. Really, really big eyes! I remember her name.

Seems like I only remember the names of the people that I actually care about. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a lot of sweet old ladies, and cool old Vets, whose names and faces all blur together. I hold their hands the same, and tell them that it really is no problem for me to stay all night and take care of them. In fact, it’s my job.

I’m just wondering. Is that Christian morality, even if it’s not quoting the Bible at me or trying to make me feel guilty about something?

And for some of you, I would do it even if I didn’t get paid. So, just because I don’t remember your name doesn’t mean I didn’t truly care about you. I gave you everything that I could.

[This is lifted verbatim (with permission) from Greg's blog.]

Have you ever heard someone say that religion is a crutch? Once when I was talking to a guy about Christ, he made the statement that “Religion is just a crutch. I don’t need or want a crutch like that – I’m independent!” He said this, ironically enough, as he slobbered over several beer bottles at his table!

One of Karl Marx’s most quoted statements is, “Religion is the opium of the people.” This statement, at face value appears to be saying that religion dulls one’s senses, pacifies people and generally causes people to be more or less gullible to the “bourgeoisie.”

What we generally hear quoted is the following phrase, “Religion is the opiate of the masses” or “Religion is the opium of the people” (if they bother getting the quote correct!) This is often used to demonstrate Marx’s opposition to religion as a bourgeoisie tool to numb the minds of the peasants. That is how many of his own followers used the phrase.

However, it bears looking at more closely. I think it can challenge our complacent view on Christianity and what being a Christian looks like. Let’s look at what he says in the full context of his statement:

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. [Emphasis added]

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. (See wikipedia for more)

What a great line – “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition.” There is a perspective here that I think Micah and the Lord Himself would agree with.

Let’s break this down a bit. Marx is certainly not saying that he believes religion is a good thing, but neither is he saying that religion is necessarily a bad thing. Opium – at the time Marx was writing – was a recreational drug and medicine used by a lot of people to escape the pain of living. Opium allowed one to create an illusory world free of pain rather than dealing with the real issues and the real pain of what they were struggling with. So, in the same way, Marx says that religion is used by people to create an illusory world rather than deal with the real issues of suffering in their body and in their world.

Now, keep that in mind as we read Micah 6:6 & 7 again:

With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Man’s way of dealing with a serious break in his relationship to God is to get more religious. To do more religious activity. Kill more animals, make tremendous sacrifices, and even surrender your family on the altar of service to God – this is man’s way of showing that they are a “good Christian.” From this perspective, I agree with Karl Marx. Religion can be an opiate – it desensitizes and inverts our perspective on God. It allows us to appear connected to God when in reality we are completely disconnected from Him. Instead of having a “now” relationship with God, practicing religion allows us to practice a sanitized, safe version of faith – which is kind of a “pie in the sky” religion rather than one that makes an impact on those around us and upon ourselves.

Now, you may be asking, does Greg agree with Karl Marx’s other ideas? Absolutely not! Marx was seeking an end to religion and to replace it with something equally opium-like, a “worker’s paradise.” (actually, that my be Lenin’s term). But, while Marx may have been right in his idea of how many people use religion as a means to appear “godly”, he was wrong in his answer to that issue. He was an atheist – and therefore attempted to create a world without God. Anytime we try to solve problems by excluding God – we are simply creating further problems.

So, when Micah goes on to say:

People of Israel, the LORD has shown you what is good.
He has told you what he requires of you.
You must treat people fairly.
You must love others faithfully.
And you must be very careful to live
the way your God wants you to. (Micah 6:8, NIrV)

He isn’t saying to be more religious, he is addressing our relationship with God at a fundamental level. Are we merely practicing religion by attending church, singing the songs, doing whatever, or are we developing a dynamic, vital, and real relationship to God Himself?

I must confess, I am sometimes able to answer that question affirmatively, but sometimes I cannot. And some days – I can answer it yes and no!

Thanks to Rob for this:

This isn’t news, but it still is incredibly appropriate today.

But… Guns ‘N Roses is “devil music”, so why is this true? Did i perhaps get brainwashed by the tail end of the 80’s mental/metal vanguard, even after all those warnings in the christian school about the inherent evil? Am i too far gone because i suspect the roles have been reversed for the last play?

And this is only one piece. from another song, Garden of Eden – “Most organized religions make a mockery of humanity, our governments are dangerous and out of control”. What the HELL?

i can just see going back to that baptist church where as a child, they tried so hard to pre-brainwash me *against* the entire genre. Then i got thrown to the wolves in public schools (at almost exactly the same time as the song came out– even though i wouldn’t hear it for years or understand it for a decade).

After everything, i can tell them how “our beloved, God-sponsored government” is evil, an overdose of religious freedom is poison, and, ironically, some heavy metal carries more truth about the actual world we live in. And they either throw me out or maybe they just pity me because my self-deception is complete and only a random decision by God can recover me.

So i’ve got to wonder why the twin albums are titled Use Your Illusion I and II. More than a little intriguing to me, since i’m staring directly at the line between two opposing schools of thought.

Still, because i recognize God’s claim to all truth, i see that nobody on earth has a monopoly. Everybody has some. And in the end, it’s simply not about choosing a right side – but receiving the Spirit of truth, right?

Here ya go…

Guns N’ Roses
Civil War

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach…
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N’ I don’t like it any more than you men.” *

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before

Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can’t deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D’you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said “Peace could last forever”
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can’t trust freedom
When it’s not in your hands
When everybody’s fightin’
For their promised land

And
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war

Look at the shoes you’re filling
Look at the blood we’re spilling
Look at the world we’re killing
The way we’ve always done before
Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed
Look at the leaders we’ve followed
Look at the lies we’ve swallowed
And I don’t want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I’ve seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

“We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer” **

I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
And I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need one more war

Whaz so civil ’bout war anyway

* Strother Martin – from the film “Cool Hand Luke”
** Peruvian Guerilla General

Here’s a condensation of Martin’s recent comment about Christians being engaged in political activity. I’ve made a few changes for the sake of flow. Obviously I think it is worth our while.

Here are a couple of quotes to whet our appetites:

“Jesus ACTED politically, e.g. … as he reprimanded the Pharisees (a public party, religious, but also very much beholden to political kinds of considerations) for ‘making the Word of God of no effect by your tradition’.”

“…’cross’ is the unique fate of the uncompromising critic of the very kind of political (Roman) power structure that prevailed in those days.”

“So, I think I’ll leave it at that, and continue to assume that love means working, striving, voting, and in any case hoping for the benefit of my fellow human beings, friend and foe, just as for myself – ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’”

[See also Jesus Stayed Out of Politics.]

Satan is the “Lord of this Worldâ€?, conceded, but … he also is the tyrant of our personal worldly lives to a frightening degree …

Political efforts count for two reasons:

1. Love towards those whose lives (and also spirits and consciences!) are (sometimes very much) affected by starkly diverging political régimes, and
2. Honouring truth in every field of our lives (i.e. also in the field of public life, which we consciously or silently partake of).

ARGUMENT

What you (seem to me to) imply, LS, is firstly the idea that the “borderlineâ€? between political and private affairs [can be]… drawn out in such a way that the state of the individual’s heart and mind of anyone concerned is not relevant for it …

… faith is only as real as [are] it’s effects, – be it by words, deeds or thoughts …

QUICK RETORTS

[You say,] “I do not vote …”

Then, let me ask you if you are giving “Caesar� really all the things which “are his�?

[And you say,] “… nor do I engage in any purely political debates …”

Who does? … among those, I mean, who feel their Christian conviction commits them to one or the other stance in politics.

I see the Christian right engaging in political debate for the sake of clarifying the intellectual groundwork of faith and morals, and I see Larry Harvey and others opposing them for the sake or recuperating the gospel from the obscurities which this (rightist) stance of engaging politics casts upon the moral credibility and authenticity of faith and upon the functioning of the polity.

Any honest political debate has its depths, where a pertinent way to deal with the issues must abstract from strictly biblical grounds, and retain contact only via motivation, “spirit� or intention of the debaters.

… the Apostles – who, unlike moderns, were political by the very mention of the name of Jesus, crucified and resurrected, see below – , but this is NOT authentically available for modern Christians to emulate …

[You say,] “Why do Christians focus on changing outward actions, yet ignore the internal realities causing the outward actions?�

Because it is the outward actions which bespeak the inward realities, especially when you deal with a field of “actionsâ€? … so near to opinion, mindset and truthfulness as is general politics for all those not in highest offices.

Weal and woe of nations, which make political action worthwhile for the sake of those concerned, is much more intimately related to the moral and spiritual condition of the broad population than with this or that fiercely contested issue. And for this reason, it is commingled and basically inseparable with God’s chief interest of “changing hearts and minds� of individuals.

THESIS AND EVIDENCE

What is this authority of Jesus?

It is our allegiance to (witnessing) the truth that duty and sin are (in the last resort) derivative from thankfulness. Sin is not a matter of (worldly defined) duty, and thankfulness is not primarily for remission of (such) sin.

… Romans 13:8-10 … is NOT some transmission of authority, allegedly wielded over us by the rulers in the stead of God … but it is the general principle of long-suffering (non-resistance) of Christians, as expounded in the Sermon on the Mount …

This difference in motivation also elucidates the limits of Christian loyalty to the world powers. For it’s not only that we need not, but we MUST not – not even by passivity and tolerance – compromise our witnessing to the truth that God demands peace and rightfulness of anyone, especially of those who act as His servants (as do the worldly “kingsâ€?) …

… such authority, any venerability of power, is entirely restricted to persons, to “kingsâ€? and rulers, never to the political power of Mammon, of (unknown and unaccountable) financial oligarchies, which is consistently and effusively denounced throughout the Bible …

POSITIVE PROOF

So where do we see the Bible portray us Christians … wholeheartedly engaged in debates of political relevancy?

Quite simply, the Lord himself said and did so:

Jesus ACTED politically, e.g. (among many), as he reprimanded the Pharisees (a public party, religious, but also very much beholden to political kinds of considerations) for “making the Word of God of no effect by your tradition� (Mark 7:13).

… political considerations of preserving some social stratification … came into conflict with the authentic intention of God’s law …

… the core of this distortion which Jesus rebukes is not the human addition [to the Biblical law], it is the lovelessness towards those weak members of God’s people (society) who get bullied or outcast by such legislation.

… and the huge silence which traditional Christianity keeps about the entire subject of WHAT exactly Jesus rebukes with the Pharisees, in my eyes, betrays a good deal of bad conscience.

NORMATIVITY

Jesus NAMED discipleship as a politically relevant thing, as he said that all Christians must “take up their cross …â€? (Luke 9:23) Some years ago, I wondered, what the average Jew who heard these words might have thought them to mean at a time prior to Golgatha …

… it’s absurd to suggest any other meaning to such phrases than that which would readily disclose itself to the average listener, who understood that “crossâ€? is the unique fate of the uncompromising critic of the very kind of political (Roman) power structure that prevailed in these days.

By defining the congenital opponent of the believer – the basically irredeemable one – to be the prevailing worldly powers, not some misguided spiritual ones, Jesus rejects the Pharisaic-quietistic way … just as he rejects the zealot one by demanding [non-violence].

WHO RULES IN POLITICS?

LS, you say that “evil spirits dominate this worldâ€?. Indeed …

… yet … the Bible states these spirits (or “powersâ€?) were DEFEATED by Jesus Christ … and it’s our task to preach this conquest, and make it relevant for every aspect of worldly life, be it political or private, i.e. concerning large communities or small ones.

… let me tell you that diffidence and defeatism is just as treacherous to our Lord as bravery.

IF we shall have to suffer for the Lord, then it’s because He wants to honour us, by letting us glorify his name. But we do not strive for our honor, but very much pray: “lead us not into temptation� (Matt. 6:13) and feel responsible for not bringing others into such (Luke 17:1f).

Seeking the world’s weal for its own “immanent� reasons, and preaching the gospel as a separate intention but in the same effort. This is the only way to preserve the original character of the gospel as “good news� and helping every generation to its own choice of freely surrendering to the Lord.

… those worldly powers who find the open insurgent (Barrabbas) easier to pardon than the One who debunks their false pretenses.

CONCLUSION

So let me sum up: There ARE better and worse times of history, the better ones being the fruit of some grace which cannot be politically planned or spiritually schemed. I do emphatically contradict your (fatalistic!) assessment that “political gains mean nothing�. This is Stoicism, life itself means nothing, as long as you keep true to your “essential nature�.

So, I think I’ll leave it at that, and continue to assume that love means working, striving, voting, and in any case hoping for the benefit of my fellow human beings, friend and foe, just as for myself – “on earth as it is in heaven.� [Matt. 6:10]

[Here's a submission from the Chicago area - notes from last Sunday's guest speaker.]

Pastor Fred Aigner, President, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI.org)
(his sermon given Feb. 19th, 2006, my notes from memory.)

The Scripture

Scripture was Mark 2:1-12, where four friends of a paralytic bring him to see Jesus. Blocked by the crowd, they dug through the roof and lowered their friend into the room where Jesus was.

Aigner pointed out that the crowd was there to see Jesus, and yet blocked this man from receiving help.

Applied to Today

Today’s “crowd��? seems to embody the belief that those in need must have done something wrong to be in their position of neediness, so they should have to figure it out on their own. Aigner asks us to not be the crowd, but to be the friends, willing to advocate for those in need.

Real Life Around Us

“What’s going on out there?” LSSI is seeing:

-more women and children
-spread of drug use to suburbs and small towns (previously an urban problem); he referred to methamphetamines as an epidemic of major proportions

LSSI deals with people with major needs, who need long-term help. People often have more than one issue; homeless people often have health issues (no insurance), for example.

LSSI staff has shrunk from over 4000 to between 1800 and 2000 in the last few years.

“A budget is a moral narrative.” (He repeated this several times.)

Education and health insurance are holding their own in the state budget.

Social services get cut to balance the budget. Why is this? Because the people the social services budgets used to serve – the people LSSI represents – are the people with no voice:
      -elders descending into dementia who don’t/can’t get out to vote
      -drunks and addicts who in their altered state cannot remember to vote
      -prisoners
      -children

LSSI places for adoption between 300 and 700 children per year, and has a real need for homes for medically challenged kids. There are currently about 18,000 kids in the system, down from 53,000 several years ago.

Lutheran Attitudes

LSSI recently commissioned a survey, receiving enough results to be statistically viable. The primary question was whether Lutherans should use their voices to influence public policy.

-74% very strongly in support
-22% support

So over 96% of Lutherans surveyed support or strongly support influencing public policy, despite the Lutheran history of “quietism��?.

Conclusion

Aigner asks us all, as “friends of Jesus��?, to raise our voices, talk to our representatives, take care of each other.

Our faith is an “audible��? faith.

(Thanks to Sister Merry for this post.)

There was a massive peace march in Washington, D.C. today, and estimates are that there were at least 300,000 people in attendance.

There seemed to be a media blackout regarding the march of protest against the Iraq war. CNN mentioned it briefly, with a picture of the huge crowd in front of the White House. It is also connecting the protest with Cindy Sheehan, who Karl Rove and his minions are trying to discredit as being someone who is easily led by leftist radicals.

Cindy is her own woman, and is quite capable, and has, made up her own mind.

Why did the media give so little attention to this obvious demonstration of protest against the war in Iraq, and America’s militarism?

I blog frequently at the Democracy Cell Project website. We are a group of people from all faiths. I am a sincere, active Christian that chooses to worship in a non-denominational church body. Dick Bell and Karen Bradley ran the Kerry for President blog, and they are the pioneer developers for the Democracy Cell Project. Several of us continued to stay in touch after the election of ‘04, and have been posting pertinent news articles, comments, teaching, and learning together. It is certainly a sample of democracy in action!!

I have found the people at the Democracy Cell Project to be very trustworthy, after becoming acquainted with a few of the people there while they were posting on the Kerry/Edwards for President blog.

Please feel free to drop by and check us out. These people are not there to be “converted”, but I encourage you to come by if you wish to learn from some very informed long time activists. They definitely are not “liberal whackos”, or I, as an ex-Republican fundamentalist Christian, would have never lasted there for almost a year.

There are other Christians there besides me. I have already had all the arguments about abortion, and made my point that not ALL Christians are the same as the greedy people who are at best Pharisees in Washington, D.C. The people at the DCP understand me, and I them. We are tolerant of our individual views, and work together for the good of the nation.

Drop by and see us, and let us know you did!!! (or the DCP blog)

They also have a forum, for your reading pleasure, where other Christians have posted, and a chat room.

If you are a Christian concerned with the direction America is heading, and have tolerance for, and can work with, people of other faiths, come join in the learning, and the democracy experience!

Hope to see you there!!

[Summary thoughts from Rob, lifted from a comment on the "Gay Marriage Amendment Fuss ..." thread.]

Biblical viewpoint. No excuse. No tolerance.

But somehow, no LEGALISM.

If people wanted to think that America is so great, why do they want so badly to give back to a growing government the powers that were given to them after being wrestled from Britain?

And as a Christian,
• I know that the ungodly will certainly not inherit the kingdom of God,
• and I sincerely believe that trying to force the world to follow the written law (while wrecking and minimizing the law of liberty, in both the religious and the democratic senses) is ungodly.

I, like many of the people around (well it seems, I’m not the spokesman or anything) do not condone or support or seek the justification of homosexual lifestyles. We oppose the persecution of such lifestyles by those who misrepresent Christ… remember this one? “”Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Followed by, “Woman, where have all your accusers gone? … Go, and sin no more.”

It all fits together pretty neatly from where I’m standing.
• We can preach life for repentant sinners,
• or just focus on preaching death for sinners.

[I really wanted to write about this, but figured someone would come along and sum it up well for us, and I was right. Barb, like Dean, is a little blunt here, but 'blunt' is often just a part of speaking the truth in love - as Jesus himself demonstrated a few times. This is her recent comment on the "Why Christians Support Dean" article. Now does anyone want to add some statistics or other clarification?]

The problem with Dean’s politically incorrect comments is that he was right. It’s common knowledge that the conservative evangelicals are predominately affluent white Christians. » Continue Reading »

“Many false prophets will arise and deceive many, and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:11-13

The love of many is growing cold in America.

There were several major news stories in the last few weeks that made this clear. The first was the resolution of the filibuster battle. Moderates like John McCain deserve our prayers because the religious right’s leaders are threatening retaliation against those who ended the filibuster battle. This is not entirely new – James Dobson threatened the re-election campaigns of six senators a few months ago. No where in the Bible does Jesus threaten anyone with retaliation. The Sermon on the Mount specifically preaches against it. Even for those who put Jesus to death, he pleaded with the Father to forgive them “for they know not what they do”.

It is all too convenient for the religious right to claim that God is with them when they win, and that Satan is behind it when they lose. Throughout history, people have decried anyone they disagreed with as the anti-Christ or un-Christian. We are all fallible human beings and we might all be upset when we lose something we fought for, but threatening retaliation is not the action of someone who is following Christ. It is the action of someone seeking the kingdoms here on earth that Jesus rejected.

The second news story concerns the allegations of mishandling the Koran at the prison in Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration arrogantly blamed Newsweek for the deaths that occurred in riots over the story and demanded they retract it, which they did. A week later we learned that some desecration of the Koran did take place, that allegations of flushing it down a toilet were in fact made, but have not been proven, and that the Pentagon was aware of it the entire time the Bush administration made their statements. This story comes shortly after new details of prisoner abuse at the U.S. military prison in Afghanistan became public. I hope that James Carville does not mind if I paraphrase him, but “it’s the torture, stupid“. The torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan, and of prisoners who were sent to countries where torture is allowed, are all acts of pure evil which the religious right in America has never stood up and denounced. They will never denounce the administration ultimately responsible for the torture, but will continue to deceive many by denouncing members of the US Congress who represent their constituencies instead of them.

The third news story is that of the Air Force Academy conducting an investigation of Christian persecution. This is not the Christian persecution that Pat Robertson claims, it is an investigation of Christians persecuting people of other faiths here in the United States where we are supposed to be guaranteed freedom of religion. Guantanamo Bay may be only the beginning.

The love of many has grown cold in America. In the face of all this evildoing, it is difficult to persevere, difficult to love, difficult to forgive. One of the purposes of evil is to cause us to fight evil with evil, and thereby become evil ourselves. But we have examples among these stories and many more of what we will become if we do.

We can stand up to the evil as Christians by following the examples that Jesus set for us. God will lead each of us in different ways, but if we let Him, He will lead us to resist evil, and deliver us from it. So we must persevere to the end so that we may be saved. And most of all, we must pray.

[thanks again to Barb]

(Here’s a comment recently added to A Lament for the American Church. It speaks for itself.)

Thank you for finally putting into words what I have been feeling all along!

I have often wondered if it was just me that saw all the war mongering and hypocrisy in the Bush administration as an evil thing. I wondered if it was a lack in my faith or I was corrupted because I didn’t follow this administration blindly like so many Christians around me. I have not been very active in church too, so it was easy to see why I thought the problem was my all my fault.

But looking back at the reason I became inactive at the church I was at – it was because of hypocrisy I saw with some of the prominent members. This was before the Bush administration came into power, and some of those same members I was concerned about later ended up being arrested for fraud. So, my concerns then were not unfounded about a spirit of deception being present in that church.

The problem is now that same spirit of deception has enveloped so many churches and believers that it’s hard to see straight at all anymore.

It also concerns me greatly that people think that 100,000+ Iraqi civilians killed somehow don’t matter to God, that He doesn’t hear their cries because they are Muslims. He most certainly does hear them and is horrified by what is being done in His name. May He forgive this nation for all the truly awful things we do to people worldwide.

Rob says:

Thanks to [a friend and] the AP for this smoking gun:

Minister ex-communicates members for not backing Bush

How about that purported "liberal media bias" now? Can anyone remember the local atheist club splitting down the middle because some of its members wanted Clinton impeached? No? I think there’s a pattern here.

But now we may have to watch people get into disputes over whether that was even right for him to do or for us to criticize and so on. I won’t be surprised if it sets a trend among excitable ‘ministers’ and we see a radical separation of church and church, the second having joined the party. Come on, where is the love? And what did I say about why we need a private ballot!?

Here’s another from Rob:

Finding the Truth in Strange Places

I can’t believe the news today

Oh, I can’t close my eyes

And make it go away

How long…

How long must we sing this song?

How long? How long…

’cause tonight…we can be as one

Tonight…

Broken bottles under children’s feet

Bodies strewn across the dead end street

But I won’t heed the battle call

It puts my back up

Puts my back up against the wall…

And the battle’s just begun

There’s many lost, but tell me who has won

The trench is dug within our hearts

And mothers, children, brothers, sisters

Torn apart

How long…

How long must we sing this song?

How long? How long…

’cause tonight…we can be as one

Tonight…tonight…

Wipe the tears from your eyes

Wipe your tears away

Oh, wipe your tears away

And it’s true we are immune

When fact is fiction and TV reality

And today the millions cry

We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

The real battle just begun

To claim the victory Jesus won

I removed the repetitive title lines. Still sound familiar? Well, you’d never hear it if you were a fundamentalist Baptist, because the song is Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2. Who would have thought that “devil music” could hold so much truth?

Connie found the Barry McGuire site the other nite to listen to some of that cool old Christian rock. There she found some interesting paragraphs from his biography.

“When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me something I’ve never forgotten. I was probably about five, maybe six years old. She used to take care of me during the day when my mom worked. One day she said to me, ‘You know, Barry, one day when you grow up, you’re gonna know the truth, and the truth is gonna set you free.’ Now, I didn’t know that came out of the Bible. I didn’t even know there was a Bible. I was just a little kid. My grandmother told me that. And I knew she loved me, and boy, I knew I loved her. And when I grew up, sure enough, I wanted to be free. I mean who doesn’t want to be free? And certainly, a lie has never set anyone free. So if anything was gonna set me free, it had to be the truth.

“And along came the 60s. And boy, I was the right age at the right time in the wrong place, you might say. And hey, I wanted to be free. Boy, I sang ‘Eve of Destruction’ lookin’ to be free. I went to Broadway. I did a show on Broadway called HAIR. I played the male lead in the original Broadway cast, lookin’ to be free. And the very lifestyle that we were promoting was, as I looked around me I saw my friends, one, two, three at a time goin’ down: drug overdose, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases. The very lifestyle we were promoting was killing us all.

“So I left Broadway, I came back out to California. And I was livin’ with a friend of mine, Denny Doherty, up on the Appian Way. And he used to joke and tease me, ’cause I was still lookin’ for truth, and every time a new teacher or sage or somebody, Meyer Baba, Sai Baba, Hadji Baba, any Baba would do, I mean I was down there in the front row, ya know, ‘Humna Baba, lay the truth on me, man!’ I was hummin’ and bobbin’ and goin’ for it. And Denny says, ‘Ah, you belong to the Guru of the Month Club.’ I mean, anybody, I didn’t care. If they had a word, I was down there tryin’ to learn the truth. And they said a lot of things that were true, but I just couldn’t somehow get it right inside of me.

“And I was just about to give up, and one day I went over to a friend’s house, Eric Hord. He used to be the lead guitar player for The Mamas and Papas, and he always had a big bowl of marijuana under his coffee table. And man, I had this bowl out that morning, I had three papers glued together. I figured he’s only gonna lay one joint on me, so I’ll make the biggest one I can roll. And I look down on this particular day, there’s a little paper back book layin’ on the table next to the grass, and it’s called Good News for Modern Man. And I thought, ‘Hey, I’m a modern man. I could use some good news.’ I mean, everybody was dyin’ all around me. So I took the book home with me, didn’t know what it was. Got by myself, opened it up, and right on the first flyleaf page in the book it says, ‘The New Testament in Modern English.’ I got so angry. ‘Ah, look at this! Them Jesus Freaks, man! They’re disguisin’ the Bible!’ Threw it on the floor, I didn’t wanna read the Bible! Give me a break! And it layed there for days. I was hopin’ someone would come along and throw it away. I didn’t wanna throw it away, ’cause I knew what it was, the Bible, and just in case, you don’t wanna be responsible. Who knows? But it layed there for days, weeks, months actually. I mean, when somethin’ hit the floor in my house, the next person to pick it up was an archaeologist. I mean, that was some future dig.

“And I was there one day by myself. And there this little book somehow kept surfacing above the trash. And the wind was blowing through the window catching the pages. It was flickin’ its pages, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. ‘Read me!’ it said to me. And truthfully, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I picked up The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. And for the first time in my life, I stopped looking at Christians, I stopped looking at denominations, organizations, Catholics, Protestants, ya know, all this stuff that goes on in His name. And I took a look at Him, examined what He had to say. How He treated His personal friends. What He had to say to the people in the street, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the thieves, liars, robbers. What he had to say about the military people, the political leaders, the spiritual leaders (which is about the scariest thing he had to say to anybody). How He treated the little children when they came around. And everything that Jesus had to say, as I put it to the test against what I knew to be true through my own life experience, I couldn’t find anything wrong with His words. There’s no double meaning, no hidden agenda. It was all out front. And then He said thirteen words that changed my life, because I saw this was the answer to my personal eve of destruction. He said, ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as your self.’

“How simple can it get? And I realized that if all of us in the whole world lived according to those two simple instructions — I don’t care what your concept of God is, you could be a Buddhist, you could be B’hai, you could be, ya know, whatever it is, Christian, just your concept of God — love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as your self, and our world would change. How simple can it get? We wouldn’t need a police force anymore, and we wouldn’t need armies and navies and prisons and welfare systems. We wouldn’t need lawyers and politicians. Two simple pieces of instruction: Love God with all my heart, and love my neighbor as my self.

“And I wanted to be like Jesus. I thought, ‘Man, this is my guy!’ But I didn’t wanna be a Christian, see. I wanted to be like Him, but I didn’t wanna be like all them. I thought if I said yes to Jesus I’d have to get a powder blue leisure suit — remember those? — white shoes, ya know, walk around smilin’ a lot. I couldn’t do that.

You can see more at his site.

“TRUE LOVE”

This is copied by permission from a “Devotional” on a Colorado-based young adult ministry site ignitedspirit.com (Rocky Mtn Conf, United Methodist Church). The author is Ben Kendrick of Boulder.

… Often times we, as Christians, are more concerned with avoiding God’s wrath than doing his actual work.

A Christian man can walk down the street condemning religions and lifestyles, but never even see the true work of a follower of Christ … I was walking with a friend recently on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. We were only two guys walking, very heterosexually, down the street, when a man sitting on a bench looked over at us and yelled out “Romans 12 says [gays] are stupid” (he also used a much more vulgar term than “gays”).

What I haven’t told you is that in order to get to the bench that he was sitting on, the man had to pass someone in need, no matter which end of the street he came from. Situated on one end of the block was a small man, a father of three, who was suffering from a degenerative skin disease similar to leprosy, who was politely asking for change. On the other end of the block was a woman in a wheelchair with no legs, a skinny dog sat patiently next to her. She was offering a smile and a prayer in exchange for change. Whether or not this man helped either of the individuals in need is unknown to me.

My friend and I had to get on to a dinner we were already late for. Either way, this man chose to condemn my friend and I, who were not exhibiting any particular evidence that would lead the man to believe we were lovers, rather than sustain and encourage the people truly in need of Christian love.

So what is it that I take from this story? I, as was described, saw a man pass up the opportunity to show Christian love; instead he chose to spread religious intolerance. I believe that this kind of relationship to serving God is the very thing that keeps people from participating in church. It is the very thing that causes people to be “spiritual” rather than Christian. This man’s inaccurate and somewhat perplexing interpretation of scripture, might have lead a less experienced Christian seeker to give up. They might say “I love God, but how can I grow closer to him when the people that claim to know him are so ill-mannered?”

It cannot be through force and fear that hearts are brought to God. Threats and ultimatums are of no use. A person has to want to be better, a person has to wish to seek God; it is an active endeavor. We need to set a better example. We need to return to an attitude that has long since faded – where love and support is at the forefront of a Christian life. Where we give more to not only our church, but also people who are less fortunate, whether they know Christ or not.

By exemplifying a Christian life of love and support we can show the world that we know a God of love and care, a God that we do not fear because we are people that show our own love and care. By spreading compassion and support we will be better suited to inspire the hearts of others.

Good luck being the people that can see where God’s love is needed.

Peace, Ben Kendrick

Thanks to “Guest” for this:

When I think of Pope John Paul II, I see his greatness and depth of faith in contrast to some of the things that are wrong in other areas of Christianity today.

His humility is all the more apparent in contrast to the arrogance of our modern day false prophets who claim that God told them to say this or that. Unlike those who regard speaking gibberish as a gift of the Spirit, he had the true gift of the Holy Spirit, and was able to learn to speak in many languages and reach out to people of all nations, much as the apostles were able to when visited by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He demonstrated forgiveness » Continue Reading »

[Thanks to Rob C for this.]

“A Time to Break Silence” [print version] [audio version] is an anti-war speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

This speech is amazing. Apparently, after the civil rights movement, Martin King started fighting for the poor– all the poor. He realized that ‘civil rights’ wasn’t a racial issue alone. And the mainstream turned on him because they weren’t willing to see the additional evils of this country… they could deal with racism, perhaps because of Lincoln, but he was attacking some things about America of which it was (and is) still proud. That’s what I heard before today. This speech is about Vietnam; I am thrilled to find that how he thinks is so familiar, » Continue Reading »

(Thanks to Rob Couto – no relation to Mia Couto – for bringing this to our attention.)

Mia (Antonio Emilio L). Couto, one of Mozambique’s most prolific and best known authors, is the author of this open letter to George W Bush, appealing for common sense to prevail in American foreign policy. (It was first published in Savana, a Mozambican weekly newspaper.)

Our ‘Weapon of Mass Construction’

Mr President:

I am a writer from a poor nation, a country which has already been on your black list. Millions of Mozambicans wondered what evil they had ever done to you.

We were small and poor: what threat could we represent? Our weapon of mass destruction was, after all, targeted upon ourselves: it was famine and poverty.

Some of us were surprised at the reasoning which led our name to be besmirched, while other nations basked in your friendship. For example, our neighbour – the South Africa of Apartheid – was perpetrating flagrant violations of human rights. For decades we were the victims of aggression from that regime. But the “apartheid” regime received the favour from you of a much more benign response: the so-called “positive involvement”. The ANC was also on the black list as a “terrorist organization!” A strange criterion which would lead, many years later, to the Taliban and even Bin Laden himself being termed “freedom fighters”by your North American strategists.

Well I, a poor writer from a poor country, have had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King once dreamed that America was a nation that belonged to all the peoples of America.

For I have dreamed that I was not a man, but a country. Yes, a country that could not sleep. Because my waking life was constantly jolted by terrible facts. A terror that forced me to issue a demand. A demand that has to do with you, Mr President. I demanded that the United States of America should undertake the elimination of all its weapons of mass destruction. Because of the terrible dangers, I demanded something more: that UN inspectors were sent to your country. What were these terrible dangers that assailed me? What were the fears instilled in me by your country? They were not the result of a dream, unfortunately.

It was facts that fed my mistrust. The list is so long, I have chosen only a few:

• The United States is the only nation in the world that has dropped atomic bombs on another nation;
• Your country is the only nation to have been condemned for “illegitimate use of force” by the International Court of Justice;
• American forces have trained and armed the most extremist Islamic fundamentalists (including the terrorist Bin Laden) under the pretext of bringing down the Russian invaders of Afghanistan;
• The regime of Saddam Hussein was sustained by the USA while it carried out the worst atrocities against Iraqi citizens (including the gassing of the Kurds in 1998);
• Like so many other legitimate leaders, the African Patrice Lumumba was assassinated with the help of the CIA. After being captured, tortured and shot in the head, his body was dissolved in hydrochloric acid;
• Like so many other puppet leaders, Mobutu Seseseko was brought to power by your agents and granted special US espionage facilities: the CIA headquarters in Zaire became the largest in Africa. The brutal dictatorship of this man was totally ignored by the USA until he stopped being useful any more, in 1992;
• The invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian military received the compliance of the USA. When the atrocities were discovered, the Clinton Administration’s response was “the matter is the responsibility of the Indonesian government and we do not wish to detract from that responsibility”;
• Your country has harboured criminals like Emmanuel Constant, one of the most bloodthirsty leaders of Tahiti, whose para-military forces massacred thousands of innocent people. Constant was tried in his absence and the new authorities requested his extradition. The American government denied that request;
• In August 1998, the United States Air Force bombed a factory making medicines in Sudan, called Al-Shifa. A mistake? No, it was in retaliation for the Nairobi and Dar-es-Saalam bombing attacks;
• In December 1987, the United States was the only country (together with Israel) to vote against a motion condemning international terrorism. Even so, the motion was approved by the votes of one hundred and fifty three countries;
• In 1953, the CIA helped to prepare a coup d’etat against Iran subsequent to which thousands of Tudeh communists were massacred. The list of CIA-provoked coups is literally as long as your arm:
• Since the Second World War, the USA has bombed: China (1945-46), Korea and China (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-1961), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1961-1973), Vietnam (1961-1973), Cambodia (1969-1970), Guatemala (1967-1973), Grenada (1983), Lebanon (1983-1984), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980), Nicaragua (1980), Iran (1987), Panama (1989), Iraq (1990-2001), Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1993), Bosnia (1994-95), the Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999);
• Acts of biological and chemical terrorism have been carried out by the USA: Agent Orange and other defoliants in Vietnam, and a plague virus against Cuba which devastated pig farming in that country for years;
• The Wall Street Journal published a report announcing that 500,000 Vietnamese children had been born deformed as a consequence of chemical warfare by North-American forces.

Yes, I have awoken from the nightmare of my dream to face the nightmare of reality. The war that you, Mr President, have stubbornly set about initiating may actually liberate us from a dictator. But we shall all be left the poorer. We shall face greater hardships with our already shaky economies and we shall have far less hope of a future based on reason and morality. We shall have a diminished faith in the regulating force of the United Nations and the conventions of international law. We shall, in short, be more alone and more unprotected.

Mr President:

Iraq is not Saddam. It is 22 million mothers with their children and men who work and have a dream, just like any other normal North Americans. We are worried about the evils of the Saddam Hussein regime which are certainly very real. But you forget the horrors of the first Gulf War in which more than 150,000 men lost their lives.

The mass destruction going on in Iraq is not the result of the weapons of Saddam. It is the sanctions which led to a humanitarian situation so grave that two UN aid co-ordinators (Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck) resigned in protest against these very sanctions.

Explaining the reasons behind their resignation, Halliday wrote: “We are destroying a whole society. It is as simple and terrible as that. And it is illegal and immoral”. This system of sanctions has already led to the death of half a million Iraqi children.

But the war against Iraq is not just beginning. It began a long time ago. In the northern and southern No-Fly Zones bombardments have been going on for 12 years. It is believed that since 1999 a total of 500 Iraqis have been killed. The bombing included the mass use of depleted uranium (300 tonnes, or 30 times more than that used in Kosovo).

We shall rid ourselves of Saddam. But we shall continue to be the prisoners of the logic of war and arrogance. I do not want my children’s lives (nor their children’s) to be dominated by the spectre of fear. Nor for them to think that, in order to live in peace, they have to build themselves a fortress. Nor that they can only be safe by spending a fortune on arms. Just as your own country spends 270,000,000,000 (two hundred and seventy billion) dollars a year maintaining its arsenal of war. You know very well what an amount of money like that could do to change the wretched plight of millions of human beings.

The American bishop, Monsignor Robert Bowan, wrote to you at the end of last year in a letter entitled “Why does the world hate the USA?”. The bishop of the Catholic Church in Florida is an ex-combatant from the Vietnam War. He knows what war is like and he wrote: “You claim that the USA is the target of terrorism because we defend democracy, freedom and human rights. How absurd, Mr President! We are the target of terrorism because, in a major part of the world, our government has defended dictatorship, slavery and human exploitation. We are targets for terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government did hateful things. In how many countries have agents of our country deposed popularly elected leaders and substituted them with military dictators, puppets willing to sell their own people to the multinational corporations of America?” The bishop concluded: “The people of Canada enjoy democracy, freedom and human rights, just like the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you ever heard of attacks on Canadian, Norwegian or Swedish embassies? We are hated not because we practise democracy, freedom and human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to Third World countries, whose natural resources are coveted by our multinationals.”

Mr President: you do not seem to require any legitimate international institution to legitimise your right to military intervention. At least let us find some morality and truth in your arguments. I, and millions of other citizens throughout the world, were not convinced when we saw you justify this war. We would prefer you to have signed the Kyoto Convention to arrest the effects of global warming. We would prefer to have seen you in Durban at the International Conference on Racism.

But don’t worry, Mr President. We, the small nations of this world, would never dream of asking for your resignation because of the support which your administrations have granted to no less a litany of dictators. The biggest threat posed to America is not the weapons of the rest of the world. It is the universe of lies which have been built around your very own citizens.

The danger is not the regime of Saddam, nor any other regime, but the sense of superiority which seems to inspire your government. Your biggest enemy is not on the outside. It is within the USA. That war can only be won by the Americans themselves.

I should like to be able to celebrate the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Even to celebrate along with the Americans. But without hypocrisy, without argument and without having to swallow the consumerised pronouncements of the mentally impaired. Because we, my dear President Bush, we, the people of the smaller countries of this world, have a “Weapon of Mass Construction”: the ability to think.

“This seems to include a few things the left has right, a few things the left can only fume about, thanks to the right – and at least one thing where the secular left will disagree with some sensible Christians.” (That is Rob Couto’s introduction to this list which has been circulating anonymously. It’s a bit snarky. But, sad to say, it truly represents the way a lot of Republicans seem to think.)

Things Republicans Believe

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
4. “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.
5. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.
8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you run for governor of California as a Republican.
9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.
10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.
12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
13. Global warming, and tobacco’s link to cancer, are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.
15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
17. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.
18. You support states’ rights, which means (former) Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.
19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the ’80s is irrelevant.
20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with
    China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

I am not in a position to vouch for the source of this letter, though I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. I am, however, in a position to say I agree with it thoroughly and am very thankful to see it in print. I was trying to write something like this but could not find the eloquence and focus. No wonder; this author already had it all. I have added emphases and bullets.

March 21, 2005

Dear Members and Supporters of The Interfaith Alliance:

Over the past several hours many of you have been kind enough to share with us your thoughtful reflections and questions regarding the tragic situation involving Theresa Marie Schiavo….

The Board of Directors of The Interfaith Alliance has not adopted a position on end-of-life issues or directed the staff of The Interfaith Alliance to give attention to these issues either in our policy work or our educational efforts. I cannot speak for them or for the organization on these issues.

However, I am astonished, appalled, and grieved by the actions of the two houses of the United States Congress and the White House that have prompted me to write this personal letter.

The life-and-death issues brought into focus by Mrs. Schiavo’s sad condition involve medical questions and legal considerations far too complex for me to address without more information. I might add that, in my opinion, members of the United States Congress would have been well advised to adopt a posture of humility and compassion related to these issues as they impact Mrs. Schiavo and her family. Neither Members of Congress nor any of us have any business seeking to dictate procedures for members of a grieving family and numerous doctors, lawyers, and courts that already have considered the familial, medical, legal and personal issues involved in this situation and attempted to address them with fundamental moral, medical, and legal values.

As a pastor for many years, I repeatedly have stood with troubled families grappling with the issues that surround Mrs. Schiavo’s bedside. Those experiences have taught me the myths that often get perpetrated as facts in public debates regarding circumstances like those involving Mrs. Schiavo. No perspective regarding a resolution for such a difficult situation has all of the weight of compassion and wisdom behind it.

Alongside my concern for the family of Mrs. Schiavo stands my concern for our nation. A family’s grief over the loss of a loved one is being compounded by pontifical posturing among politicians and religious leaders who know too little about the situation even to comment on it much less to attempt to control it. A tragic situation is being made more tragic by the insensitive intrusion into it by Washington politicians seeking yet another venue for speaking to their partisan constituencies and for strengthening their political “base.” For Congress and the White House to jump into this tragic situation at the last minute, after years of court proceedings, and to take a position on the value of life so inconsistent with, if not contradictory to, many of their other decisions, represent unconscionable meddling in the private decision of an American family – a family who needs our thoughts and prayers, not our spirit of blatant judgment and our not-too-subtle politicization.

Profound questions disturb me.
• Are there no limits on the intrusive reach of this government?
• Where will Washington go next?
• Do claims of both religious and political authority give a government the right to invade the spheres of personal autonomy and religious independence?
• How long will the American public wait for such questions to be answered?

Dear friends, all of us would do well to step back from the bedside of a woman caught somewhere between death and life, divorce our political initiatives from this realm of personal and familial pain, pray for the peace of Terri Schiavo and her family, and after taking a hard look at how we feel about politicians who are willing to manipulate even personal pain in an effort aimed at political gain, decide what we are going to do about our democracy.

Sincerely,

Rev. C. Welton Gaddy

President, The Interfaith Alliance

Sunday seems a good day to re-attend to this comment from bookaholic (last week’s Open Thread).

People looking for an alternative to churches that ignore Jesus’ teachings, get Caesar and God mixed up, don’t preach love, etc. might want to try something really, really radical: go to a mainstream Protestant church!

A great many United Methodist and Presbyterian USA churches resist the takeover of Christianity by the false religion of nationalism, and as a result they are targeted for takeover by the ultra right. They are also losing members to the more pop-culture-style atmosphere of the mega churches. They could use you in their pews or chairs right now.

At their best, mainstream churches provide

• thought-provoking, inspirational and helpful sermons;
• a liturgy that amplifies God’s presence rather than the band’s;
• lengthy Scripture readings (not just sound bites);
• really good adult classes that allow discussion and dialogue;
• a thorough (and positive!) Christian education for young children;
• and opportunities for service, spiritual development, and genuine belonging.

Denominational labels don’t mean as much as they used to, so you have to check out the individual congregation. They come in all sizes and several flavors. If you try one and don’t like it, don’t give up, try another one.

Most mainstream churches appreciate your volunteering to teach, or sweep floors, or whatever your gift is, and they’ll give you plenty of chances to join a prayer group, build a Habitat house or donate to tsunami relief. But they know that your relationship with God is *your* relationship, not theirs. They’re not in a tug of war over your soul, and they’re not the Jesus Thought Police. I think these guys are wonderful and deserve more support than they’re getting right now.

I know that is true. If some of the forms or traditions seem bit odd, remember that Jesus did his best to work within all the forms and traditions of his day – with considerable success at times. Let me add to bookaholic’s remarks the next comment from that thread.

Excellent suggestion. Thank you. I’d add: some American Baptist churches (the denomination, not the natinal location, the group Martin Luther King was ordained in); some Lutherans (try ELCA, not usually LCMS);some Episcopal parishes; some Catholic parishes

Anybody remember Michael and Stormie Omartian’s lively song from the 70’s, “I Want To Be In The Mainstream!”?

An email came to us declaring inauguration day to be “Not One Damn Dime Day” in the face of religious and political leaders failing to speak out against the war in Iraq. To condense the well-written email, it called for a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending (gasoline, mall and convenience stores, fast food shops – any groceries at all for that matter) in an effort to shut the retail economy down. The object was to remind the people in power

• that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal;
• that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it;
• that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.

The beauty of it would be that there’s no rally to attend, no marching to do, and no left or right wing agenda to rant about. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.

The Hebrew Sabbath, & Christian Theology

My, how the unbelievers outdo the church in civics! Imagine a sacred boycott. What if “Not one dime day” happened once a week? It used to. Hebrew culture commanded a WEEKLY “not one dime day” called the Sabbath. Not only providing rest for the workingman and the livestock, it was a day to refrain from “profaning the Sabbath” by abstaining from usage of money [1], instead marveling on the One who gives us everything we have. It was a day to invest in faith instead of the world.

Exodus 20: 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. [2]

People born before around 1965 will probably remember that it used to be a law in most states throughout the U.S, that businesses were closed on Sunday. You couldn’t even buy gasoline or go to a restaurant out of respect for the Sabbath. But now our culture is predicated on a 24/7 business schedule, which allows no one a legal day of rest. This change resulted largely from recent Christian teaching, which holds that because of the new covenant in Christ, Christians are not obligated to keep the Sabbath or, to hear some tell it, any of the Ten Commandments. All the social constraints concerning business on the Sabbath fell away. Thus the U.S. is rightly accused of worshiping the dollar.

Where did we get off, as the Church? A Jewish believing friend alerted me to this issue about a year ago. Her opinion was that they are called the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions, with good reason. But popular Christian understanding says that, in Christ, every day is a day of “rest from the works of salvation” and the commandment no longer need be observed as written.

The purpose here is not to weary readers with Sabbath day arguments and theological heave-ho, which have all been banished to footnotes [3,4], with one exception – the centerpiece modern objection to keeping the Sabbath is
Colossians 2:16 [New RSV].

16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

This translation of verse 16 in the New Revised Standard Version illustrates the problem well, as many translations do not clarify that Paul-s Greek wording mentions plural sabbaths (”sabbath days”, that is, Jewish holy days in general). That implies a distinction from the singular Sabbath Day. Thus some reputable scholars argue that in fact “the Sabbath” is distinct, and distinguished, from Hebrew “works” sabbaths in Paul-s usage here, which seems likely to me. If so, the “Sabbath days” in 2:16 are not “the Sabbath”. But in any case, being in the sabbath rest of grace does not in any way free us from living responsible and holy lives. It rather enables that sort of living.[3]

Why Do We Find the Idea of The Sabbath so Burdensome?

While this writer feels differently, let’s go with it – assume this so-called freedom from the weekly Sabbath is a given. Then, let’s consider our motives and God’s intentions. What does it say about Christians, that we should find the Sabbath burdensome? Wat’s so unacceptable about one sacred day a week for God, reading the Word and reflecting without distraction? Is Scripture that boring, or God that predictable, that we should wipe our brow in relief to not be “bound by the law” and entirely toss the Sabbath principle aside to follow other pursuits? Are we so intent upon sports, being entertained, going shopping, or constantly doing business that we feel the Sabbath is too burdensome for our “busy” lives?

Do not such attitudes smack of idolatry and greed? Or is one day’s loss of any of these activities the worst thing that happens to U.S. people anymore – our idea of tribulation, perhaps? Did anyone get the idea that a walk with Christ was simple and easy, or that our mission is to DEFEND the world system? “Scriptural” or not, tossing the Sabbath laws aside has helped birth the laxity of labor laws which allows ‘us’ to work the poor to death 24/7 to serve this exceedingly greedy and idolatrous culture – a culture that is swallowing our children alive. We have the influence of this supposedly enlightened Christian view of the Sabbath to thank for it.

The Sabbath Made for Man – for Rest and for Focus

So what can the Sabbath be about? In Mark 2:27 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” We all need a day off, and even more do we need to reflect on God without distraction. Jesus also said: Luke 13:15: “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?”

The “labor” in question is evidently not a matter of minor physical exertion. The point rather is to abstain from labor in the sense of commerce. This is because it is the day we revere the One from whom all our goods and money come and meditate on our faith in Him to supply all our needs. How sorely our culture needs to be reminded from whence all comes, because in the U.S. most work does not directly feed or shelter anyone. We gain these indirectly via money, and we are easily tempted to think of that money as our provider instead of God.

In the U.S. our “information economy” gloats in short-lived triumph over a mostly agrarian world. Less than two percent of the U.S. population is employed in agriculture anymore, and most U.S. people do not do manual labor, or even produce anything tangible – instead toiling behind a desk in some species of finance, information or entertainment employment. Only a physically unchallenged people (any connection to our culture of obesity?) could be satisfied with a strictly conceptual day of rest. Working on the Sabbath, for a modern U.S. Christian, might involve only number crunching – literally no sweat.

The Sabbath and The Rest of The World

But working on the Sabbath for about three quarters of the people on this planet would amount to madness if they had any choice about it, because most of this world is still busy using shovels or otherwise toiling in manual labor. The majority of people on this planet would love this commandment and receive it as a tender mercy of the Lord. They would laugh at some abstract theological paradigm (freedom from “works of salvation”) substituting for a day’s rest. Many might wish in vain that it applied to their culture, as manual labor demands a certain amount of rest. Also, anyone involved in animal husbandry understands this “kind commandment,” as it is possible to work an animal to death, as well as a human.

Narcissistic Spirituality, and The Sabbath as Counterculture

In our narcissistic culture, spirituality becomes self-focused and abstract, tempting Christians to think only of our own “rest,” blinding us to the kind intention in this Commandment towards all creation. What does it say of anyone’s faith if they run around praising the Lord out loud and don’t see to it that their employees have sufficient time off? The Sabbath protects and blesses even unbelievers – does anyone think the livestock mentioned in the Commandment must concern themselves with working for salvation?

Imagine it – would not Christians be more effective lights on the hill, and salt of the earth, if we forsook consumer culture one day a week! Let us enjoy a Sabbath not by compunction as some new twist on dominion theology – not in worldly protest either unto or about our leaders – but as unto God, to purify ourselves of the world on a regular basis. May God receive it as our collective prayer for the U.S. church, whose souls are being numbed through dominion theology.

May we lay discipline against the greed of consumer culture – the entire “McWorld” system that is killing our land, our planet, and our people’s hearts. The “McGreed” of the “McWorld” is the very premise fueling the war in Iraq. We have the most powerful “protest” tool we need, and it just so happens to be one of the Ten Commandments – a protest of the heart – beyond civics.

Let us maintain a sign and a witness against the world system, from which we are called OUT. The world which the Church is supposed to reach is hungering for righteousness – just talk to some unbelievers. So many hate the orgy of consumerism, and the greed of some Christian spectacles makes the church repulsive to many. If nothing else, a day spent reflecting on God and communing with Him can do no harm to our spiritual life. It is a beneficial habit for every reason.

Are we worried since 9/11 about attacks on our soil? Consider the hopefulness and promise of Isaiah 58:13-14.

13 “‘If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.’ The mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Christians tend to quote Isaiah at great length for every other reason. Have we now become wiser than the prophet, supposing his message uniquely dated here?

____________

Notes:

[1] Nehemiah 13:

[2] Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible.

[3] At the website bible.crosswalk.com (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown), we read

“the sabbath–Omit “THE,” which is not in the Greek (compare Note, SABBATHS” (not “the sabbaths”) of the day of atonement and feast of tabernacles have come to an end with the Jewish services to which they belonged (Leviticus 23:32,37-39). The weekly sabbath rests on a more permanent foundation, having been instituted in Paradise to commemorate the completion of creation in six days. Leviticus 23:38 expressly distinguished “the sabbath of the Lord” from the other sabbaths. A positive precept is right because it is commanded, and ceases to be obligatory when abrogated; a moral precept is commanded eternally, because it is eternally right. If we could keep a perpetual sabbath, as we shall hereafter, the positive precept of the sabbath, one in each week, would not be needed. Hebrews 4:9, “rests,” Greek, “keeping of sabbath” (Isaiah 66:23). But we cannot, since even Adam, in innocence, needed one amidst his earthly employments; therefore the sabbath is still needed and is therefore still linked with the other nine commandments, as obligatory in the spirit, though the letter of the law has been superseded by that higher spirit of love which is the essence of law and Gospel alike (Romans 13:8-10).”

[4] Another contention is about which day of the week is the true Sabbath – Saturday or Sunday, a point on which my Jewish Christian friend and I differed. She said it was the commanded to be seventh day of the week. I kept insisting that the phrase “of the week” is not in the commandment. I felt rather that a ratio of six to one was initiated. Logically, if the first item of any pattern is not fixed (e.g., described as the first day of the week), then the seventh in the pattern is not at any given point either (Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God). Nevertheless we voluntarily choose to observe the Sabbath in solidarity with the Hebrew people.

Friends, Family & anti-Christ: Jesus Would NOT Run This Kind of Shop

GOD, AND “GOD’S NATION”, SWITCHING ROLES

This is ironic. I’ve been accumulating reasons to be sure the USA is evil, while all these religious people are praising the system, praising its latest caretakers, because

• “it’s the best we can ask for”
• “it’s no better anywhere else”
• “we should be happy to have all this”
• “what else do you want?”

I can’t get through to them. They continually ascribe God-like righteousness to a human endeavor and when things go wrong, blame it on sin. Yea, sin’s there and we cause problems. But it’s still there when things go the way we wanted them to.

Now, thanks to the religious right, the line between God and “God’s nation” is so fuzzy that the two are trading sides, so that God serves the nation by affirming that it is Just. It’s not hard to spot the error. How is “God’s nation” absolutely good when all their (rather hollow) arguments in its favor are pure relativism? Now we have a majority of Christians blind to the real problems we cause and certain that the entire machine is pure. Well, there are bad elements, but they’re Democrats. That’s why God made sure Bush won twice. He’s going to clean us up.

These aren’t bad people, but they are indeed comfortable. Just as Morpheus told Neo, people in the system that enslaves them will die to protect it. I believe that when you Americanize Christianity, you get antiChrist. Perhaps not the Antichrist, but certainly anti-Christ in nature. And many Christians that I know seem to be far more American than Christian. So now the religious right is protecting the enemy.

EXAMPLES: FRIENDS & RELATIVES

A certain pastor, when I confront him and his neopatriotism by pointing to the evil taking hold of this nation, states his belief in the power of the Holy Spirit to prolong the situation beyond my (admittedly fatalist) view, and to improve it for the good of everyone alive. But it looks to me like our war machine, especially Bush’’s War on Terror, is doing a lot for global dictatorship. Is that how God is working, in reverse? Apparently he doesn’t get that Bush’s leadership is not going to preserve anything, or see the difference between what God can do for peace and what Bush does against it. Voted for Bush (& the war machine).

A nice lady here wants to believe that corporations are good because “they give us jobs.” What kind of far-right nonsense. They delete jobs as fast as they can, it makes the money spread a lot thicker (on the people at the top). Pretty sure she voted for Bush.

I made a remark to another somewhat nice lady that the “Christian Coalition” voter’s guide – spelling out how Kerry is this (suggested evil) and Bush is the opposite – was propaganda, reinforcing the false idea that there are exactly 2 parties worth caring about. She took it the negative way (ok, I meant it the negative way too), and got on my case for a moment. We ended up sharing some more words, with her becoming more and more upset for the following 15 seconds. I made a comment about being spoiled on American freedom (that wasn’t directed at her). She left in a hurry, and I heard about it later. I can assume that she voted for Bush.

I know exactly one Christian person who even mentioned other parties and their candidates (besides Kerry) last year. I wonder if he’s at all bothered that they merely couldn’t afford to get the exposure and coverage that the 2 mainline parties enjoy. And he voted for Bush anyway.

I flew through a list of my problems with this country’s misbehavior and the people blindly supporting it, for a half hour, with a nice guy who’s cool anyway. He seems to agree with a lot, but not the big picture. How can people maintain a picture of America that makes it a godly state in spite of everything it does to its own people, and – to an ever-increasing degree – the rest of the world? How about when the people driving it call themselves Christians?! He voted for Bush, proudly. The same guy listens to Rush Limbaugh and knows for sure that the Democrats want socialism, when you get through to the core.

Well, the Republicans want fascism just the same, and I’m no Democrat.

I asked another nice guy what he thought about Vietnam once I learned that he was there, open-ended question. He wasn’t happy about it, knew it was a waste, knew a lot of people died for nothing. Yet he probably didn’t make the connection to a certain corrupt Republican that was supported by the religious right, since he voted for Bush too (and will get upset if you say anything bad about him or the government in general.)

My good friend is lamenting the ignorance in his family, who mostly voted for Bush – probably on the terrorism & fear platform rather than anything Christians are concerned with. He tells me how he confronted them with the basic lies the Bush crew is telling, and they brush it off as if all politicians are liars anyway, and so it goes! They EXPECT it.

I’ve had many long discussions with another Christian man, the most open one yet. OK, I admit I did most of the talking, and again, he mostly agrees. But this was a person who recommended that I read Francis Schaeffer. He believes that the government is our resonsibility right now, and voted for Bush.

GIVING CAESAR WHAT IS GOD’S

This is a disaster. We are teaching each other to give to Caesar what is God’s – starting with infallibility. Imputing infallibility isn’t the same as forgiving. How can you forgive an entity, a framework that changes faces every 4 years? So you see it as infallible. And wouldn’t it be clever to change out the people in charge often enough to keep people happy that the overall system is worthy!? Remember Orwell? “A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors.“

THE TRAP OF PLAYING BY THE ACCEPTED RULES

To be honest, I didn’t vote for a president, and all these same people like to tell me that “then, you can’t complain.” I have concluded that people only say this because it’s what people say. I’m complaining that my “voice”, as in, “making my voice heard” has become choosing between a knife and a gun. I refuse to let them limit me in that way. I refuse to let anyone buy my vote by saying the right thing. My voice is going to be much stronger than responding to a multiple-choice questionnaire about who I want to be in charge.

I refuse to play the game by the accepted rules when that’s exactly how we got this far! The harder we try, the worse things get. And the church wants to believe that we’re doing the Right Thing. I realize that I’m going out on a limb, concluding that these few, the best of all churchgoers I know, aren’t receiving their guidance from God. It’s probably because they are all following the party. The party claims to serve God’s wishes, and commandeers millions of votes and millions in funds.

WHY NOT JUST TELL THE TRUTH?

Of course that’s not very solution-minded; but all I can think of when people ask me what I would have them do about it is: “TELL THE TRUTH.” Mainly, it seems more appropriate than ever to TEACH EXACTLY WHAT JESUS TAUGHT.

That’s NOT the same as all this legalism we’re teaching today, in order to pass on the Correct- Voting- Habits- According- to- God’s- Word. A lot of people are going to be glad to find out that Jesus would NOT run this kind of shop, and He is terribly misrepresented in America.

Tell the truth. And that can’t go along with making excuses for the president, the government, or any evil thing that might rise. Romans 13 does not teach us to follow the state into hell.

Tonight I feel a lament.

It’s like this: everyone I know who is a believer who is currently not active in a church seems to perceive what’s going on, with these sneaky things the government has been doing. My husband and I can’t think of any time in U.S. history when things have been this bad in terms of public/private relationship etc. But every believer I know who is a regular participant in a congregation is under the spell – talking in praise of Bush and the slaughter in Iraq. It’s as if there were some mass contact infection being shared within the church.

My last dealing with a congregation involved a sweet messianic group who began holding to a teaching that women had to refrain from attending worship during their periods… which still blows my mind… and I’m still looking around for someplace I could dare take my husband. But that’s beyond the scope of the moment.

It’s a long-winded way of saying thank you, your website is now serving as a home to us. Even though we are surrounded by churches, I dread pulling into a parking lot jammed full of vehicles with Bush/Cheney stickers on them.

What is going on? Are the times as pernicious as they seem? I keep thinking that if I just stare at the picture long enough it will clear up, but everything I read in Scripture or elsewhere, everything I hear from people directly, and everything I catch on the internet only amplifies my sense of alarm. I wish a “political opinion” were something benign, but I fear emerging from a church talking like the rest of them. Something more deeply destructive is at work, some spiritual work of darkness, and it’s just like my friend said: it’s like they’re all under a spell. Is this the “apostasy?”

STEWARDSHIP OF LITERACY

• Jesus commanded us to “watch,” and I don’t think He meant the choir.
• What captures our attention speaks much about our hearts.
• Our opinions are more than banter – they reflect our innermost values and being.

Among literate people, this has everything to do with our stewardship of literacy and information. It is a high privilege to be literate on this planet, on which around 75% of the people have negligible or no skills and resources.

In the U.S. one is hard pressed to find in-depth analysis, particularly regarding the current war build-up. I hear beloved brethren speak with knee-jerk disgust about opinions other than the “conservative” party line. “What, do you listen to the liberal media?” I quoted that question from a friend to my husband, a Nam veteran, who asked, “What does he think the liberal media is? Mad Magazine? Since the LA Free Press and the Detroit Free Press went under, there is no liberal media.” Readers from anywhere outside the U.S. might be confused as to what I’m writing about. But for those of us inside the ivory tower, our media has become reduced to a hyperbole machine. To hear reliable critics tell it (Morris Berman, David Barsamian), both “right” and “left” are purveyors of “infotainment” and “nuzak”.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE INFORMATION FAMINE

My husband’s and my quest for good information came to a crisis on April 4, 2004, when we set out for a honeymoon trip in Utah. All Mark wanted was news of the war in Iraq. It was Sunday, and not one U.S. Sunday paper had the word “Iraq” on the front page anywhere, in any font size – not even the New York Times or the Washington Post. “I didn’t know the war was over,” he said. Information about Iraq and the war simply couldn’t be found on the magazine racks in Utah.

Thousands of varieties of magazines cluttered stores concerning every nuance of narcissism, greed, sex, adventure, travel, architecture and design, and on and on – anything and everything about consumer culture – but we rarely even saw Time Magazine. It’s that bad. On our drive south we tried to understand how a war could become invisible. It seemed to center around a market-driven media industry, where television, magazines and newspapers represent the lowest common denominator.

THE CHURCH: IGNORANT IN ITS FEAR, POLLUTED BY POPULAR CULTURE

Into this environment enters the church. Unfortunately Christians buy into these patterns through their preferred method of information-gathering: watching television. A phobia of literature took hold in the U.S. church in response to Francis Shaeffer’s critique of liberal theology, decrying “secular humanism,” and escalated through disputes around creationism vs. evolution.

Many U.S. Christians responded by refusing to read or listen to any media from outside the conservative camp, although they watch television. This resulted in a “moral majority” of the under-informed and over-entertained who don’t desire trustworthy information about the war, or even know how to find it. Is this good stewardship of literacy?

THE UNREAL WORLD OF REAL YOUNG ADULTS

We discussed how most Americans too young to have lived through the Viet Nam period have no experience with war – and these under-50-something’s are now the dominant population in terms of market force who buy information. Sound bytes and quick information sells best, and most people are too impatient for more than watching television. The televised secular view of war presents it as some sanctified lethal sporting match on foreign fields, overseen by THE WISE (whoever they are), all carefully monitored for ethics.

To this generation, the human targets in the Iraq slaughter become as unreal as phantoms on video games, because these generations don’t know the chaos of war, don’t know the horror of pulling a trigger on another human being, and don’t think about all the innocent bystanders who don’t “just get out of Fallujah” because there is nowhere to go. Aside from inner city ghetto youth, our younger generations don’t see bloodshed directly. So this nation finds it easy to stomach bloodshed. It’s merely more infotainment; it simply isn’t real.

SELF-CENTERED, ARROGANT TRIBULATION-RAPTURE TEACHING

This is one reason it’s so easy for young Christians raised on too much television and too little literature to embrace current doctrine, quipping that “war isn’t murder, it’s killing, and God says” … They find a lot of teachers saying “rapture, rapture, rapture!” and “oh you sinners will be sorry when we’re gone.”

What about Christian believers living through the 92 wars going on in the world, who are already enduring acute tribulation and persecution? For many, tribulation is only a question of degree. Then we hear Americans talk about this “pre-trib rapture,” as if the church in the U.S. doesn’t realize there are believers elsewhere on this earth who are already IN “great tribulation.” What effort is made to communicate with believers abroad? We pack off missionaries and send money – a highly abstract relationship. Is this good stewardship of communication tools like the internet and the mail?

FUNCTIONAL ILLITERACY + TV = AN UNREAL VIEW OF LIFE AND THE WORLD

How has an abstract view of life, the world and the war come to infect the collective thinking of the U.S. church?

I relate it back to a misprision of the “anti-secular humanism” movement. Christians stopped researching or reading anything “secular” – they only listened to the choir. Yet unfortunately many left the television turned on. This weaves the church into the tapestry of our remarkably narcissistic culture, which ignores most of what happens outside U.S. borders. It is as if the collective U.S. imagination of the world resembled the U.S. map on the Weather Channel – simply blanking out the world at the Canadian and Mexican borders, with everything beyond that gone too.

RECOVERY

In the end, my husband and I could only learn more about the Iraq war through books, and very select usage of the internet. I can’t urge Christians enough to begin to read again – not hyperbole, but good scholarship. One decent source is the Encyclopedia Britannica – hardly “liberal media.” I hope there will be a renaissance of genuine scholarship and international communication within the church – get acquainted with believers in other countries on the internet and learn new perspectives. They are out there, and most highly literate people from other countries speak and write English – the dominant world language.

Consider our rare privilege of literacy. Of those “to whom much is given, much will be required.” Let us pursue excellent stewardship of literacy.

Editor’s Note: 1. Do you agree with some cowgirl? 2. How do you who visit PublicChristian.com overcome this famine of information? I very much agree that this is a matter of stewardship, a matter where we are being held accountable by God. Obviously you read, or you wouldn’t be here. What (else) do you read? What other “information stewardship” techniques have you found helpful?