INNER-CITY JESUS

Jesus was strollin' uptown lookin' for the cross-town bus when he spotted this cat named Zacchaeus who was hanging over the fire escape.

Now Zacchaeus was this guy who used to rip off the brothers. He had his posse who would beat up anybody that didn't come across with the goods. He'd sell pot to the kids at the school and provide prostitutes for the whites who came uptown.

Jesus spied Zach and called up to him. "Yo, Zacchaeus. Come on down. You and me at your crib, tonight!"

Astonished, Zach rushed on down. "I heard about you. Your the cat been doing all them miracles and stuff. Word, man, you trippin? And you wanna hang with me at my crib? Don't you know who I am? Aren't you, like, scared or something?"

But Jesus didn't flinch. "Dude, I ain't trippin'. Tonight I come to bring you salvation."

Zach thought to himself, Who is this dude that wants to hang with me?

Meanwhile the rest of the hood was gathering around the two men on the street. A woman shouted out, "Jesus, how can you sleep over at that hoodlum's house. He terrorizes us and holds us hostage. This used to be a decent neighborhood, now it's a slum and it's because of scum like that!"

But Zacchaeus just kept looking at Jesus who never wavered. Suddenly he fell to his knees and bowed down. "Jesus forgive me, a sinner," he cried out. "From this moment on I swear I will never hurt these people again. I will repay everybody I have stolen from twice what they lost, and I will give half of what is left over to the community center. And those kids, I swear I'll never do anything to hurt them again. And those white women that did tricks for me, I'm going to get them straight so they don't never have to do that again! I swear it!"

Jesus reached down and embraced Zach. "You have traded in one kingdom for another, my brother. Freedom is yours! You were lost and now you have been found. Go in peace!"

DEMS THE FACTS:

Recently I had a conversation with a man I've had the pleasure of knowing for about 7 years. I worked for and with him and am proud to call him a friend. He lives just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife and little girl.

Bob is a believer and considers himself a conservative Christian. Suffice to say he voted for Bush twice. I remember years ago we used to have spirited discussions about politics. We'd go back and forth on the issues, both making spirited attempts to convert the other and neither one budging one bit.

However this conversation went a bit different. There was something about our conversation that seemed to go a little deeper. The argument was far more spirited than it had been in years past. Both of us seemed entrenched in our own view points. I wouldn't call it bitter, but let's just say that the usual zings that we would fling at one another seemed more like barbs.

I remember feeling sad when the call ended as though something new had been added. I had known about his politics for some time, as had he about mine, but it never interfered with our friendship. And while I'm not prepared to say that I've lost a friend, there is that sinking feeling that occasionally comes over you when you realize how differences can change the dynamic of a relationship. It's like that scene in Ben Hur when Charlton Heston realizes that the boy he grew up being friends with is now his master and wants him to betray his comrades. You can see the sadness in his eyes.

Now of course I'd be silly if I thought that Bob was asking me to betray anybody. In fact, at no time could I ever consider him doing that, but it was a feeling of sadness nonetheless.

That feeling quickly turned to anger, not at the Republicans and not at the Christian Right, although certainly there is much to be angry about with the way they have polarized this nation. No, this anger was and is directed at the Democrats. That's right, kids, the Democrats.

In my mind I keep seeing this image of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. All throughout last year's national campaign I kept waiting for the Democrats to step up and give the country a genuine alternative to George Bush. They never did. While the administration kidnapped my religion and perverted it for political gain, the Kerry campaign acted like they couldn't even spell God!

Being in sales I've learned that you need to give the customer a reason for buying your product. You need to form your own identity, as it were. Saying you're better than the guy down the block without saying why or how doesn't cut it in the real world. I believe the electorate wanted an alternative to George Bush, and would've voted for it had the Democrats given them one. THEY DIDN'T! The Kerry campaign's slogan might just as well have been, "Vote for me. I'm not Bush!"

Well, that's not a good enough reason. In places like Cincinnati and Dallas and Atlanta and Tampa and Oklahoma City and St. Louis that slogan failed miserably. While a lot of us watched the debates and may have thought Kerry had won on points, down in the breadbasket of the country old W. came out on top. Kerry seemed arrogant and smug; Bush came off as one of the boys. We paid dearly as a nation for that arrogance.

There is an old axiom in sports that says you never let your opponent dictate how the game will be played. Somehow that rule was forgotten in 2004. Until the Democratic party can come together and forge a message of hope that the WHOLE country can galvanize around we will continue to have to contend with candidates that appeal, sadly, to our basic instincts and fears. The result will be four more years of divisiveness.

These are some of the things that they can try on for size.
1. Acknowledge and respect people of faith as a viable force in politics. P.S. it would help to have someone run who actually believes in God and doesn't have a problem saying it.
2. Stop blaming the Republicans for winning and start learning how they did it. People hate sore losers.
3. Stop nominating people who talk like Harvard professors. People, especially those in the south, hate being talked down to like they're stupid.
4. Pick someone who doesn't come from New England! Can you spell BILL RICHARDSON?
5. No, not Hilary! She's a fine senator. Let's leave her do her job.
6. Don't lose site of your core principles. Fighting for the poor, protecting the rights of minorities, and safeguarding our environment should still be the benchmark of any true democrat, but they needn't take a back seat to values, either. The country doesn't need two double gangers running in '08.

During the 2000 Presidential primaries, Maria and I watched with great interest as two candidates - John McCain a Republican and Bill Bradley a Democrat - were vying for their respective party's nomination. Both men had integrity and a vision for the nation. Either man would've been an excellent choice for President. Instead what we got was George Bush and Al Gore.

2008 is closer than you think. Let's pray that a man, or woman for that matter, emerges who is a true leader, who represents ALL of the people, who's faith in God and commitment to those less fortunate will be a true representation of Christ, and who will be a president we can ALL be proud of.

Amen!

Better Late Than Never

We, as Christians, have a nasty habit. We often behave like the keepers to the "Member's Only Club." We repeat the words Jesus spoke to his disciples, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). But I have wondered whether we truly understand the nature of that statement.

A number of years ago during a service I was approached by a man whom I had never seen before and haven't seen since, who asked me when I had been saved, as though, somehow, it was important that I give him some point of entry date.

Without quite realizing the arrogance of the question I told him 1992. Later on, feeling a bit put out by it all, I left with a bad taste in my mouth wondering how many other unsuspecting victims had crossed his path that day. Fortunately for me, the incident was forgotten and put into the deep-six folder, but it was never completely purged.

The whole thing reminds me of the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16).

¹"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. ²He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³"About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' ⁵So they went.

"He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. ⁶About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'

⁷" 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.
"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'

⁸"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'

⁹"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

¹³"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

¹⁶"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

I believe the path to God is much wider than we have been led to believe. As Steve put it to me, it's like a funnel, very wide on top and narrow on the bottom. Many are called. But who knows when their conversion will take place. It might be in that last breath that they take before they meet their maker, or it might be much earlier when they are young and virile. Who is to know. But one thing, for which I am certain, no one gets extra credit for being first in line.

To Interpret or Not Interpret: What's Really Behind the Debate Over Activist Judges.

William James in 1897 wrote his famous The Will To Believe. It has been interpreted by many as a defense of religion, which in the late 1800s had come under attack as the onslaught of science began to define the modern world.

But James' purpose was not to defend religion so much as to refute those who refused to acknowledge a deity without proof. Such individuals were referred to as agnostics. He believed that life required of us an action one way or another. "Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, "do not decide, but leave the question open," is itself a passional decision - just like deciding yes or no - and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth."

In short what James was saying was that ambivalence as a defense to inaction was a denial of a basic tenant of life. The umpire that does not call the ball fair or foul has in fact ruled it fair since in the absence of any sign to the contrary the runner will assume it to be fair, and the fielders, fearing an inaction, will not take it for granted that it is foul.

We are, all of us then, activists in our nature, beholden to certain beliefs, and when called upon to act, do so with conviction of spirit.

The debate over Judge Roberts has centered around what many consider to be a philosophical split between those who want the court to interpret the law versus those who want it making the law. In truth the debate is superfluous. To paraphrase James' whole argument, all judges are by their nature activists. They either believe in one thing or the other, and, as such, shape the vary essence of the law of the land.

And even if, by chance, a genuine "non-activist" judge were appointed to the court what would be the result? To again paraphrase James, an interpretive - hence a non interventionist doctrine - would only serve to validate present rulings. In other words the status quo would remain unchanged.

But that is not what the Right has in mind, for it knows James' argument all too well. What conservatives are looking for are judges who are not only activists, but are beholden to their specific ideals. Arguments that the Supreme Court has gone too far are smoke screens for excuses to roll back civil rights and environmental laws. The debate goes much farther than Roe v. Wade, or whether some kid in California can say the Pledge of Allegiance in class. It is an outright assault on the last forty years of Jurisprudence.

Judge Roberts will likely be confirmed. As such the balance of the Supreme Court will not change much. It will be in the appointment of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement that the Court will swing. While O'Connor is a conservative, she is considered a moderate and has sided with the centrists of the Court on major issues. If her replacement is of the ilk of Judge Roberts the Court will swing decidedly to the Right and will, in all likelihood, remain that way for a good number of years.

Sweet dreams!

From a book by St. Augustine titled, The Literal Meaning of Genesis.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Augustine wrote this book in 415AD. More than 1500 years have passed and still the fight goes on.

Jesus came to free me from my sins, not my mind!

Make no mistake about it there are those who are looking to take the latter.

My faith does not ask me to check my brain and those senses that are God-given at the front door merely for the sake of agreeing with those whose insular way of looking at things would pit brother against brother and sister against sister.

An important and, I believe for Christians, indispensable book written by Patrick Glynn, titled God: The Evidence, deals with the topic of faith in a post-secular world. His argument is that the scientific and intellectual communities are having to come to grips with the possibility that far from being an accidental sea of chaos, the universe appears to be a finely tuned mechanism, whose every molecule and every physical law seems to have been designed from the very first nanosecond of the big bang to a single end - the creation of life. Most notably human life!

It is a riveting and uplifting book. Glynn is a scientist who used to be an athiest, and is now a believer. At no time does Glynn fall victim to the trap that many Christians fall into: that of having to ignore all that science has uncovered simply to mollify conservative elements within their own faith. In deed he rebukes such religious dogma.

But Glynn also hands it to his fellow scientists for their refusal to see the forest for the trees. He points to a paper written by a friend of Stephen Hawking in 1973, titled, Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology. The author was Brandon Carter and what the paper basically said was that the "myriad laws of physics were fine-tuned from the very beginning of the universe for the creation of man - that the universe we inhabit appeared to be expressly designed for the emergence of human beings."

This view was so widely at odds with prevailing theories that for the last 30 plus years the scientific community has been, in a sense, warring with eachother, between those factions that are stubbornly holding on to the belief that we are accidents and those who believe that there is some agency at work driving as it were the bus of evolution.

What does all of this have to do with Christianity? Simply this. For those who are insisting that Creationism be taught in school as a science, it is important to know that science itself is, I feel, slowly coming to the inalterable conclusion that man's place in the cosmos appears to have been predestined. My fear is that the creationists in their ignorance will do more harm than good and will create an environment where even the hint that the universe is billions of years old or that humans desended from other species will bring about the sort of circus we witnessed in Tennessee in 1925.

We need to heed the words of Augustine. We need common sense to prevail. Let's leave science to the scientists and matters of faith to those best suited. After all you wouldn't go to a mechanic if you had a back problem, anymore than you would consult the advice of a dry cleaner if your engine had a knock.

While googling through some Christian websites I came across this one www.talkaboutreligion.com.

There was a letter posted by a man who used to live in New Orleans who is VERY angry. I am going to suspend for the moment one of my rules: the one about not cursing, since there are several times when, in anger, he does. As I read it I felt it was appropriate for this blog. Feel free to read it or not.

"This is an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt:

You don't know me. But I know you.

I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal – and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word – morally scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them – all of them, without distinction it seemed – for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs.

I heard you ask, amid the din of your colleagues "Amens," why it was that instead of pitching in to help their fellow Americans, the people of New Orleans instead – again, all of them in your mind – choose to steal and shoot at relief helicopters.

I watched you wipe salsa from the corners of your mouth, as you nodded agreement to the statement of one of your friends, sitting to your right, her hair neatly coiffed, her makeup flawless, her jewelry sparkling. When you asked, rhetorically, why it was that people were so much more decent amid the tragedy of 9-11, as compared to the aftermath of Katrina, she had offered her response, but only after apologizing for what she admitted was going to sound harsh.

"Well," Buffy explained. "It's probably because in New Orleans, it seems to be mostly poor people, and you know, they just don't have the same regard."

She then added that police should shoot the looters, and should have done so from the beginning, so as to send a message to the rest that theft would not be tolerated. You, who had just thanked Jesus for your chips and guacamole, said you agreed. They should be shot. Praise the Lord.

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.

Two thoughts.

First, it is a very fortunate thing for you, and likely for me, that my two young children were with me as I sat there, choking back fish tacos and my own seething rage, listening to you pontificate about shit you know nothing about.

Have you ever even been to New Orleans?

And no, by that I don't mean the New Orleans of your company's sales conference. I don't mean Emeril's New Orleans, or the New Orleans of Uptown Mardi Gras parties.

I mean the New Orleans that is buried as if it were Atlantis, in places like the lower 9th ward: 98 percent black, 40 percent poor, where bodies are floating down the street, flowing with the water as it seeks its own level. Have you met the people from that New Orleans? The New Orleans that is dying as I write this, and as you order another sweet tea?

I didn't think so.

Your God – the one to whom you prayed today, and likely do before every meal, because this gesture proves what a good Christian you are – is one with whom I am not familiar.

Your God is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying fuck about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps ten thousand or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.

Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mother's arms, and old people in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street?

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.

But no, it isn't God who's the asshole here, Skip (or Brad, or Braxton, or whatever your name is).

God doesn't feed you, and it isn't God that kept me from turning around and beating your lily white privileged ass today either.

God has nothing to do with it.

God doesn't care who wins the Super Bowl.

God doesn't help anyone win an Academy Award.

God didn't get you your last raise, or your SUV.

And if God is even half as tired as I am of having to listen to self-righteous bastards like you blame the victims of this nightmare for their fate, then you had best eat slowly from this point forward.

Why didn't they evacuate like they were told?

Are you serious?

There were 100,000 people in that city without cars. Folks who are too poor to own their own vehicle, and who rely on public transportation every day. I know this might shock you. They don't have a Hummer2, or whatever gas-guzzling piece of crap you either already own or probably are saving up for.

And no, they didn't just choose not to own a car because the buses are so gosh-darned efficient and great, as Rush Limbaugh implied, and as you likely heard, since you're the kind of person who hangs on the every word of such bloviating hacks as these.

Why did they loot?

Are you serious?

People are dying, in the streets, on live television. Fathers and mothers are watching their baby's eyes bulge in their skulls from dehydration, and you are begrudging them some Goddamned candy bars, diapers and water?

If anything the poor of New Orleans have exercised restraint.

Maybe you didn't know it, but the people of that city with whom you likely identify – the wealthy white folks of Uptown – were barely touched by this storm. Yeah, I guess God was watching over them: protecting them, and rewarding them for their faith and superior morality. If the folks downtown who are waiting desperately for their government to send help – a government whose resources have been stretched thin by a war that I'm sure you support, because you love freedom and democracy – were half as crazed as you think, they'd have marched down St. Charles Avenue and burned every mansion in sight. That they didn’t suggests a decency and compassion for their fellow man and woman that sadly people like you lack.

Can you even imagine what you would do in their place?

Can you imagine what would happen if it were well-off white folks stranded without buses to get them out, without nourishment, without hope?

Putting aside the absurdity of the imagery--after all, such folks always have the means to seek safety, or the money to rebuild, or the political significance to ensure a much speedier response for their concerns – can you just imagine?

Can you imagine what would happen if the pampered, overfed corporate class, which complains about taxes taking a third of their bloated incomes, had to sit in the hot sun for four, going on five days? Without a Margarita or hotel swimming pool to comfort them I mean?

Oh, and please, I know. I'm stereotyping you. Imagine that. I've assumed, based only on your words, what kind of person you are, even though I suppose I could be wrong. How does that feel Biff? Hurt your feelings? So sorry. But hey, at least my stereotypes of you aren't deadly. They won't effect your life one bit, unlike the ones you carry around with you and display within earshot of people like me, supposing that no one could possibly disagree.

But I'm not wrong, am I Chip? I know you. I see people like you all the time, in airports, in business suits, on their lunch breaks. People who will take advantage of any opportunity to ratify and reify their pre-existing prejudices towards the poor, towards black folks. You see the same three video loops of the same dozen or so looters on Fox News and you conclude that poor black people are crazy, immoral, criminal.

You, or others quite a bit like you, are the ones posting messages on chat room boards, calling looters sub-human "vermin," "scum," or "cockroaches." I heard you use the word "animals" three times today: you and that woman across from you – what was her name? Skyler?

What was it you said as you scooped the last bite of black beans and rice into your eager mouth? Like zoo animals? Yes, I think that was it.

Well Chuck, it's a free country, and so you certainly have the right I suppose to continue lecturing the poor, in between checking your Blackberry and dropping the kids off at soccer practice. If you want to believe that the poor of New Orleans are immoral and greedy, and unworthy of support at a time like this – or somehow more in need of your scolding than whatever donation you might make to a relief fund – so be it.

But let's leave God out of it, shall we? All of it.

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar, and I'd prefer to keep it that way."

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (2005: Soft Skull Press). He lived in New Orleans from 1986-1996. He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com.

IN REMEMBRANCE:

I had arrived to work that day around 8:30 and called my wife to say good morning. The call lasted maybe 5 minutes. About 15 minutes later one of my workers called out to me that the World Trade Center was on fire. I thought he was joking but I went with him to the break room, and there in front of our eyes was the north tower with a hole in it and smoke pouring out.

A few minutes went by with all of us watching when we thought we saw what looked like another aircraft circling around the tower. Our view of the south tower was obscured by the north. An explosion ensued. At first we thought that it was the north tower, but we soon realized what had happened. The plane we had seen circling around had actually hit the south tower. It was deliberate. We were under attack.

What we saw during the next few hours changed our lives forever. I will never forget the horror of that day, as shock turned to rage and rage turned to grief.

This morning I watched some of the memorial at the Trade Center Site. It was very emotional and sad. My prayers continue to be with those families whose lives were shattered by the violence of that day. I pray that God's mercy may be with them and that they will finally have peace of mind.

The Man in the Mirror:

Sometimes all you have to do to find a hypocrite is to look in the mirror. I was reminded of this scripture from Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her."

My wife was displeased with me to say the least because I was neglecting some of my duties around the house. Here I was getting into a blog on Christian hypocrisy and I couldn't even take a break long enough to do the dishes in the sink.

Ten minutes to perform a simple thing like dish washing meant more to her than saying "I love you" or taking her out to dinner. Love is an action. It's a lesson I still have to learn. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to take out the trash!

He Giveth and He Keep Givething

A number of years ago I was attending a 12-step meeting when a woman started sharing about a particular tragic event she had gone through. She had an interview for a job that morning and awoke quite late. She rushed to get dressed and flew off in her car hoping to make it for the appointment. As she neared an intersection the light was changing and before she made it through it had turned red and another car slammed into her. The car was totaled and she had to be pried from her seat by the jaws of life. She was taken to the hospital with multiple fractures over her body and bruises and contusions every where. It was months before she was able to walk without a limp. She summed up her "share" by proclaiming that God was trying to get her attention.

I was aghast! Even at that early stage in my recovery I had a hard time believing that God could bring that kind of circumstance on somebody. The truth is that she had caused her own pain and suffering. She could've done any number of things differently. For instance, she could have made certain she had a better alarm clock. If that still wasn't good enough she could've called her would-be boss and explained that she was running late and needed to reschedule either for another time or day. By trying to run the light she assumed the responsibility of the consequences that were wrought upon her.

As I think of this woman from time to time, I'm reminded of all the times I keep hearing God blamed for all the terrible events that have gone on through out the ages. I hear people lash out at God for tragedies that are caused predominantly by man's own arrogance. The sinking of the Titanic, the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazi's, The atrocities committed in Vietnam, 9/11, hurricane Katrina. How could a so-called compassionate and loving God permit these things to happen? Why doesn't he prevent them? Even well-meaning and good-intentioned Christians have fallen victim to this trap. After the terrorists attacks I can't tell you how many times I heard how Godless a country we were and that God was dealing with our sin.

It's easy to blame God, especially if you've lost a loved one to a tragedy. But if we look at each example the culprit is within us. God didn't navigate the Titanic at full speed through an ice field with enough lifeboats for roughly half the ship's compliment. God didn't fester feelings of deep prejudice towards the Jews in World War II and build the death camps in Europe. God certainly didn't decide to shoot innocent women and children over in southeast Asia. He certainly didn't fly those three planes into those buildings killing 3 thousand people. And no matter how many people insist on calling it an act of God, he did not create the storm that devastated the Gulf coast, anymore than he was responsible for deciding to build a major metropolitan city 28 feet below sea level on a flood plane!

What I believe God has allowed is for us to somehow learn something about ourselves and use the experience ultimately for his good. Have you noticed that ships now have more than enough lifeboats and make a concerted effort to avoid hazardous situations at sea? There is now a war crime organization in the U.N. that is charged with investigating claims of brutality against civilians. The airline industry has addressed major deficiencies in how it screens its passengers, and a nation that once thought itself invincible has now had to accept the fact that it's not so high and mighty after all. And, hopefully, when New Orleans and the coast of Mississippi are rebuilt they will not be so vulnerable to the kinds of storms that brought their devastation in the first place.

Blaming God for our own arrogance is not only reducing God to a punishing God, it completely omits the role of human will in the history of man. Ever since the story of Adam and Eve we've been looking for someone else to blame. Adam had the first copout line when he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, "The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it" Gen 3:12

Give me a break! If I had been there in the garden I probably would've replied, "Yeah, and in few thousand years or so there'll be this bridge in a town called Brooklyn you can buy real cheap. I'll call you!"

Missing the Forest for the Trees

Just this evening I was searching through some Christian blogs and I came across one called: http://www.christiananswers.net. The Title of the essay was: Hypocrisy in the Church-- "I would never be a Christian; they're a bunch of hypocrites."

The essay went on to make several interesting and, at first glance, good suggestions such as we could always make room for one more, there are no perfect churches so just fix your eyes on Jesus who is, and, admittedly a pretty good one, have the advent of medical quacks or E. coli in meat kept us from going to see the doctor or eating a Big Mac?

Well obviously the answer to the last point is of course not. But I feel that while these points have some logic in them, they are flawed because of two overriding and undeniable salient points: 1. We maybe in the world but are not suppose to be of it. While we may not be perfect we ought to be reflecting a higher standard to the unchurched. It isn't enough that we say that there's no place for hypocrisy, we need to live it out as a body; 2. Whether we like it or not what we do and how we do it does set an example for the unchurched. How do we communicate the love Christ has for us to the unbeliever when some of our "leaders" publicly call for the assassination of foreign leaders? We can say, and I pray with conviction, that Pat Robertson does not speak for the majority of Christians, but we are preaching to the choir. For millions of Americans in darkness, this man does represent Christianity.

Asking a person where would they go if they were not a believer and reminding them that hypocrisy exits everywhere and in every faith, is like the store clerk who when told by a customer that he was rude replied, "So what? The guys down the block are just as obnoxious, and they don't sell what I've got, so cash or charge?"

Don't get me wrong, in the end I know that those who harm the Church will reap what they sow. Matthew 24:51 makes that clear. But I'm not so much concerned for us as I am others. I think we owe it to the man or woman on the fence to at least make a good faith effort and do everything in our power to reflect Christ back to them. I'm not just talking about our "leaders" either. I must confess I have failed miserably at this. I can't tell you the last time I did something merely out of love and with no expectation of being rewarded or compensated.

At a Christian accountability group I attend every Monday we ask ourselves a series of questions. The first is, Have I been a verbal testimony to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ? The answer is predominantly no. Quite frankly this has been a sore spot for me, and I know that Jesus is convicting me of this. It has been bothering me for some time. Maybe it's time I did some soul searching of my own. The truth is I can't expect others to do what I so lazily refuse to do.

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions here. Perhaps some of you can identify. Perhaps all of us can start anew. If I've learned one thing from being a Christian it's that Jesus doesn't keep score. Thank God!

Fundamentalism vs. Pluralism: The Timeless Dilemma

It's no secret that living in these times is both difficult and challenging. For over five thousand years of recorded history we have seen the titanic struggle between the followers of Ishmael and Isaac. Both sides believing that theirs was the one true path to God. Despite the fact that God blessed both sons and said that both would be made into great nations, we have had to endure countless centuries of this nightmare. To this day fundamentalists on both sides continue the struggle. What we are witnessing in the Middle East is in fact an escalation of the never-ending battle.

But fundamentalism isn't merely confined to the Middle East, nor is it only found within conservative elements of Judaism and Islam. The Gentiles (i.e. Christians) are loaded with it. For over a thousand years the stain of blood has washed over the hands of prominent Christian leaders who believed with all their fiber that they were acting at the behest of God. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Missions to areas of the world not yet touched by the West (e.g. Japan, Hawaii) were all tragic examples of a gospel that had been perverted and twisted to suit a narrow and unChristlike worldview. Centuries later the Church is still reaping what it sowed, as now the furry of the descendants of Ishmael has been unleashed on our shores. Blood begetes blood.

But it is not just the bloodshed that defines this struggle, for here in America its manifestation is primarily words - polarizing words. The nation is undergoing its own sort of inquisition as conservative elements within Christian communities, fearful of what they perceive as a waning of moral values, have struck out against anything they view as a threat. Anything is fair game, from homosexuality, to abortion, to school prayer. They've even suggested that because the founding fathers were Christian that the country should in fact be Christian, and therefore no need for a separation of Church and State.

This fundamentalist element in America is not new; it dates back over a century ago with the emergence of science and technology. Debates about the origin of the universe spawned extreme viewpoints on both sides of the aisle between those scientists who adopted and accepted the notion that we were accidents in a random universe and Theologians who stubbornly insisted that chapter one of Genesis be taken literally. The fact that both sides were equally wrong is of little consequence. We have had to deal with the ramifications ever since.

Now the conservative Right has stepped up its assault. It has gone all out in an attempt to "win back" the nation, though from what we're not quite told. Thanks in large measure to the 9/11 terrorists attacks, an us against them mindset has all but blinded these people to the truth. Not content with having the Whitehouse and both houses of Congress under conservative control, it is now targeting the courts, specifically the Supreme Court. It matters not that six of the justices who sit on the bench have been appointed by Republican presidents and that five are considered conservative, the Right won't be satisfied until all of the court is conservative. The retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor and the recent death of William Rehnquist have caused the battle lines to be drawn. At stake is the future of the nation, and quite possibly the world. What happens over the next couple of months will decide the course of history. Who will win? Will it be the fundamentalists of America vs. the fundamentalists of the Middle East? Or will some sanity yet be attained.

Pluralism is often thought of as a four letter word among Christians, and yet if one looks closely enough there is much that is good about it. It has been the pluralism of free market capitalism that has allowed moderate Islamic groups to develop in the Middle East, and many Arab scholars now believe that, far more than the emergence of Christianity, it will be the global market place that will sound the death knell for Islamic extremism. As more and more people in the Arab world get a taste of "the good life," less and less of them will be willing to take their lives in senseless acts of violence.

Conversely, while the Arab world comes to grips with an emerging modern world, our own country seems to be retreating from it. As if somehow believing that putting the jeannie back in the bottle will somehow restore us to a golden era that never existed in the first place, the Right will stop at nothing until they achieve nothing less than total victory no matter the costs.
American pluralism has never been more under attack than it has over the last few years, and for those of us who know better these are indeed dark times in America.

What was remarkable about Jesus' ministry was how wide he cast his net. All were welcomed. He called out to tax collectors, defended prostitutes, and challenged the religious authorities of the day. We need more of that type of Christianity today. In a sense Jesus was the first liberal of his day. Wouldn't it be nice if instead of worrying about whether Rosie O'Donnel was a fit mother, we could make it easier for an unwed mother to raise her children; if instead of chaining ourselves to abortion clinics or trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, we could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that result in abortions in the first place; if instead of judging people who are different than us and retreating into our own private Idahos when they don't behave like we want them to do we could learn to love them as Jesus did, then maybe we wouldn't have to "take back" the nation. Like the Israelites' pursuit of the land of milk and honey, it would be ours to have and hold until the end of the age.

THE BUCK STOPS HERE!
A few days ago I was in TJ Maxx buying a pair of jeans. I was third in line. Each of the two women ahaead of me were asked if they would like to contribute $1.00 (THAT'S ONE DOLLAR!) to the relief effort down on the Gulf coast. Both said no. When it was my turn I said sure. After all what's one dollar added to a 22 dollar pair of jeans?
Then I thought to myself, what is one dollar period? What depravity of mind do you have to have to not want to give a dollar of your money to an area of the country that is ravaged and may well take years to be fully restored?
Then I thought some more (this is an annoying habit I have as my wife will surely attest). If you added up the total number of transactions that take place in this country in a single day, from toothpaste, to groceries, to pet food, to Chinese takeout, all the way to Home electronics, you might well be looking at ten million or more transactions. Now times that by seven, and you get a number around 70 million transactions. Imagine if every single one of those transactions had a dollar contribution added to them. That would mean that in one week 70 million dollars would have been raised to aid those stricken by this tragedy. And just think that number is probably very conservative . I wouldn't be surprised to laern that the number is two or three times that. Imagine $210 million being raised to benefit such a region. And all for just one dollar.
So if you're on line at a store and the clerk asks you if you'd like to contribute a dollar for the relief effort, just think of what you might be accomplishing. Remember, what would Jesus do? Knowing him he probably give everything he had for those people. Come to think of it, he did.

Are you, like me, fed up with the conservative right defining your type of Christianity for you? Are you disgusted with the revisionist historians that are looking to re-write and rework the constitution to suit their own narrow interests? Are you just sick and tired of self-righteous and self-indulgent Christians spewing hate and condemnation on their fellow man - ALL IN THE NAME OF JESUS?

Then the time to speak and act is now. WWJD? Four little letters that stand for What Would Jesus Do? It is high time that responsible Christians seize the moment to remind the world that Christ came to deliver us from evil, not into evil; that he came to feed the hungry, not chastise them for not having a strong enough work ethic; that he came to cure the sick, not remind them that their health care plan was still better than Canada's (which it isn't); to forgive the sinner, not condemn them for an alternative lifestyle. Jesus loved people - ALL PEOPLE. But he particularly loved children. How would he feel to know that a nation that supposedly follows him allows one in five to live in abject poverty or that 2 in 5 are functionally illiterate?

To that end this blog has been created to encourage Christians to discuss ways in which we can get the message out to all who care to listen that the real Christ is in the gospels - not the temples of hate that regretably pass for some of our churches.

I am tired of hearing what Christians are against! Instead I want to know what we stand for. We won't have far to look if we open up those four gospels. Everything Jesus stood for is right there. If all we do is condemn and ridicule how are we any better than those we purport to want to "save?" If indeed it is our "mission" to bring the good news of Christ to the peoples of the world, then let's give them a message that has good news in it.

As someone who is in sales I can attest to this most diffinitive truth: Nothing kills a bad product better than good advertizing! Right now what the world is seeing is a VERY bad product getting a lot of free advertizing. It's time to change the channel, time that the world got to see a different product.

Let's start.

Some Ground rules.
1. Cursing is not allowed. If you feel so inclined there are other avenues available to you. I wish you luck in your endeavors.
2. Keep It Christ-centered. It seems to me that we have heard enough from hate-minded individuals who have no scruples about borrowing the words of Jesus for their own agendas; the least we can do is return the favor.
3. All Opinions Count. Even those that differ from the above statement.
4. ACT NOW! While your opinions are important your actions speak volumes about your faith. See the epistle by James if you need further evidence that faith without works is meaningless. Contact you local representative or congressman; run for office; or, if that's too ambitious, join your city council or townhall.
5. Pray, Pray, Pray. Rememeber we are - ALL OF US - children of God, and God listens to his Children.