Archive for May, 2008

Headlines – Some News Stories Worth Reading

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

School Forced by Activist Judge to Play Christian Video – Originally deemed as violating the First Amendment by school officials, a video and announcement promoting a christian prayer group is being crammed down the school’s throat.

Responses to the Evangelical Manifesto:

Retired Soldiers Encouraged to Use GI Bill to Pay for Missionary Training – I can’t say that I have a problem with this. If one has done what it takes to earn this right – and a right it should and hopefully will be once again under the new GI Bill unless the Conservatives manage to block it – then they should have the right to use the money for any legitimate education that they see fit.

A Failure to Connect

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Today’s post on the religion blog at DallasNews.com is this quote of the day:

“One of the things that non-Christians hate about us is how much we don’t like each other.”
- Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and author of “The Reason for God”

This demonstrates the disconnect between evangelicals and the rest of the world. Why in the world would anyone outside of their little myopic existence care about their internal spats?

Here are a couple of the real reasons that non-christians hate christians.

First is the presumption that we hate them. For the most part folks who somehow find a way to live and love outside of the christian religion don’t hate christians. In fact we’re very content to let them do their thing. But when they start to assign motives to us and explain how we feel about any given topic it can start to grate.

Second is when they try to legislate their version of morality. It might be hard for most christians to swallow but the rest of the world doesn’t look to them for moral guidance and many of us are convinced that christianity is for the most part an amoral construction.

So, Tim, how about you work on those two shortfalls then get back to me. (Oh, was that a little irritating when I told you how to live just then? Hmm…)

IRS: Christians Don’t Need No Stinking Rules!

Monday, May 12th, 2008

I’m constantly amazed at the sense of entitlement that US christians maintain. As they oscillate between attitudes of the abused minority and unrecognized majority – positions that they can can embrace equally when convenient with absolutely no sense of the irony involved – they manage to use both as reasons that they are entitled to special treatment.

Now they have decided that it’s time to fight back against the oppressive rule that churches cannot endorse a candidate. I’m just amazed that they can’t conceive of the problem this creates. It’s very simple; if you enter into an agreement with the government that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes then you cannot take sides in elections. I’m no genius when it comes to understanding civics and government but it’s pretty easy to understand why this is a bad idea.

But the larger issue is, once again, the separation of church and state. I know I harp on this a lot but why can’t these idiots understand that as soon as they invite the government into their churches that will be the beginning of the end of that church as they’ve known it. It might take a few years or it might take generations but anytime state power gets mixed up with organized religion bad things happen to everyone involved: the state, the religion, and most importantly the citizens.