Dead People Matter More Than Word Choice

     At the FOX News website they are conducting an opinion poll.  The question is wheher the shooting at Fort Hood was an “act of terror” or a “horrific cime.”

     Wasn’t it both?

     It’s just like the term “hate crime.”  What crime isn’t a hate crime?   There aren’t love crimes are there?

     Meanwhile, some of the victims are dead and others are recovering from wounds.  I would say that they were sufficiently terrified to justify calling the incident an act of terror.  I would also say that I am sufficiently horrified by it to justify calling it a horrific crime.

     How about you?  Do you see some substantial difference between terror and horror?  Do you see an important difference between an act of terror and a crime? 

     What they meant, I suppose, is whether the perpetrator committed the crime as a way to uphold his religious beliefs and to support his co-religionists or whether he was simply an individual killing people fo his own idiosyncratic reasons.  Why can’t they just say it that way?  Well, not exactly that way, but they could say, “Did he do it to uphold his religious beliefs or for some other reason?”

     How would anyone know the answer to that question anyway?  We still have insufficient information to make such a determination, although the reported facts do seem to suggest that he was just on more devout Muslim bent on fighting against the “infidels.”  Shame on FOX for sensationalizing a very sad event.

     Meanwhile, the murdered people are dead.  What we call the incident does not change that fact.  Their families are suffering incredible pain.  Who cares if you call it terror or horror?  Who cares if the man was a jihadist or just a nut?  It doesn’t make his victims either more dead or less dead.

Honoring Muslim Military Personnel

     Many Muslims have served and currently serve in our military forces with honor and integrity.  I honor them with this post.

      Thanks to all of you for serving our country the way that you do.  Thank you for defending our territory and our rights.  Thank you for taking an oath of loyalty and for keeping that oath.  Thank you for believing in the greatness and the goodness of America enough to risk your lives in her defense. 

     I do not blame you for the terrorist acts committed by some of your fellow Muslims.  I hold the individuals who did those things responsible. 

     I respect your right to believe and practice your religion.  I disagree with it, but I would never want to infringe upon your right to follow it.

     I honor you today, because the horrible event at Fort Hood would make it easy for some people to be against all Muslims, especially Muslims in our armed forces.  I want you to know that I will not take that route.  I want others to know that it is wrong to do so.  I hope that others give you the respect and honor that you deserve.

How Did I Know?

     When the news started coming out about the shooting at Fort Hood I was a bit frustrated.  There were so many false reports at first–from established media.  I think that they really do everyone a disservice when they give out unconfirmed information.  They misreported how many shooters there were, how many victims there were, and the status of the shooter.  First he was on the loose, then he was dead, then he was alive and in the hospital.  At least I think that is how it went.

     One thing that I was sure of was that he was a Muslim.  How did I know?  It wasn’t because I think all crazed gunmen are Muslim; it’s because the media were working overtime NOT to report his name or his religion.  Even after his affiliation with Islam was known, many media outlets were falling all over themselves to come up with other reasons for his rampage–he had been harrassed, he had gotten a poor evaluation, he had been depolyed too many times (he never has been, actually), etc., etc.  The fact that they did not come out and reveal that he was a devout Muslim who did not agree with out actions in Afghanistan and Iraq was the one thing that many news sources could simply not accept or report–right away.

     Come on, people.  We don’t want to jump to conclusions, I agree.  We don’t want to be prejudiced and think badly of all Muslims.  However, when a Muslim is actually involved in a violent crime, it is unhelpful and dishonest to avoid reporting it.  As much as somebody might hope that another violent act was not perpetrated by a Muslim, you can’t change reality by avoiding it.

     I know, I know, I’m a bigot.  If you think so, you did not read carefully.  For all I knew, the shooter might have been a blond-haired, blue-eyed Protestant.  The reason I guessed, correctly, that he wasn’t, was that the media would have just said so.  They might even have called him a right-wing religious fanatic.  Am I wrong?

Fort Hood Massacre

     I don’t want to write much today. I just want to suggest that we pray for the families of the dead at Fort Hood. Let’s also pray for the wounded to recover.

A Bit Too Literal?

     Have you ever seen one of these guys who carry a cross across the country?  I did once.  Every so often somebody gets the idea of pulling a cross for hundreds or thousands of miles, usually to call attention to himself in order to preach to people.  The guy in the link is doing it as a sort of penance it sounds like and also to impress a woman.

     It’s a bit strange, I think.  Better that the person just live a “normal” life and try to be a light to those around him.  Help out a needy neighbor, perhaps.  Listen to a troubled co-worker’s problems, maybe.  Volunteer at the local soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

     Of course, I cannot argue with God.  In the expamples I know of, the men all believed that God told them to carry a cross.  Maybe they took Him a bit too literally.  Maybe not.  The Bible does say that “God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” and the Apostle Paul talked about being a “fool for Christ.”

Jesus Is Not a Democrat (or a Republican)

     Let me make one thing perfectly clear right away. I have never believed that the Republican Party was the Christian party or that Jesus would support the Republican Party and reject the Democratic Party.  There is a lot of overlap between my Christian faith and my political views, but I do not confuse the two.  It is my opinion that the platform of the Republican Party during my lifetime has been more compatible with Christian faith (though decreasingly so), but I know that other Christians have the opposite view.  Let each person decide according to his or her own knowledge and conscience.  If Jesus were living in the United States in human form, I do not believe that He would join either party.  I am not sure that he would even say much about them.  He might just ignore the whole business altogether.

     Throughout the centuries, all kinds of groups have tried to co-opt Jesus for their political views–monarchists, classical liberals, revolutionaries, fascists, socialists, anarchists, neo-conservatives, etc.  Each one usually makes a persusaive case for why they are the group that supports Jesus and that has his support, but they obviously cannot all be right.  In my humble opinion, Jesus would find something to approve in each of the various political ideologies and something (probably much) to condemn in each of them, as well. 

     Jesus might approve of the monarchists’ use of authority to enforce just laws, but he might disapprove of the oppression that many monarchs have engaged in against their own subjects.  He might approve of the revolutionaries’ concern for the common person, but he might disapprove of their use of violence.  He might approve of the neo-conservatives’ desire to lessen the tax burden on working people, but he might disapprove of their lack of concern for the poor.  (I wrote might in each case, because I do not think that anyone should speak with certainty on such matters.  Who are we to put words into Jesus’s mouth?)

     Even when they do not actually claim Jesus for their cause, almost every group contends that it espouses the absolute moral and just set of values to make the world a better place.  It amounts to the same thing as co-opting Jesus (or Allah or Krishna or Zeus or whomever).  I am not saying that they should not believe in their cause or consider it right; I am trying to say that they should realize that others make the same claim.  They, whoever they are, must be willing to have a peaceful competition with other groups who espouse other ideologies, if we are to have any kind of liveable world or society.

     I was somewhat caught up in the conservative Christian movement of the 1980’s.  I made the error of conflating my Christian faith with my American citizenship.  Although, they are inextricably entwined, they are not identical.  I know that now.  One reason I know it is that my Democratic friends have gently reminded me of it. 

     Now the tables are turned.  Many Democrats are acting like they are part of the God party.  For the last thirty years or so, I have heard it preached over and over again that it is wrong to mix politics and religion and that the Republican Party is not the party of God.  Just when I and others started to get it, all of a sudden liberal Christians, including our current President, have taken to citing Jesus for their cause.  When not claiming to speak for Jesus, per se, they are telling us what our moral imperatives are.  Whoa!  What happened to not mixing religion and politics?  What happened to not legislating morality?

     I am not saying that it is absolutely wrong for folks to the left of center to believe that the teachings of Jesus support their views, only that it is hypocritical to say that those on the right may not do so but those on the left may.

     It really bugs me when some non-Christians and some apostate Christians to tell Christians what they should think or do.  Some examples that I have encountered include the quoting of Jesus’s words, “Judge not,” as a way of shutting Christians up.  Some people apparently think that the command not to judge (condemn, actually) means that we cannot call something wrong or work to prohibit behaviors that are immoral.  (Of course, that is precisely what the folks who tell us not to judge do–for example, prohibiting smoking in public places or prohibiting prayer in school.)  Another example, is quoting Jesus’s remark about rendering taxes to Caesar as proof that we should support government welfare.  Never mind that Rome provided nothing like our American welfare programs to the Jews and that Jesus’s words were simply a way to avoid the trap of a political argument, which is why I contend that He would not be either a Democrat or a Republican, and never mind that His greater point is found in what He said next:  “. . .and render to God what is God’s.”  He meant you.  He was saying that you and I and everyone else, should give ourselves and our lives to God, and that doing so is more important than the relatively unimportant question of whether to pay taxes to an oppressive occupying government.  Funny that liberals want to quote the first part of Jesus’s saying but ignore the second part.  (Actually it’s not funny, just strange.)

     So, please, stop it!  If you think that Jesus is on your side, be very careful.  He is probably partly on your side and partly on the side of your political adversaries.  If you ar not actually following all His teachings, then don’t throw selected ones in people’s faces.  He probably does not care much what your political views are or what the opposing political views are.  He cares about things that are much higher and much deeper than that.  Mostly he cares about you and about your status with Him.

Should Christian Schools Show THE Speech?

     Craig Dunham at Second Drafts thinks that Christian schools should show President Obama’s speech to their students. 

     He writes:

At some point, Christians have got to stop putting the mental in fundamentalist and start interacting with the world.  Teaching our kids to stick their heads in the sand and ignore anyone they may not totally agree with is, in a word, unChristian.

I agree.  How about you?

Great Grace

     God’s grace is amazing, as the famous hymn says.  However, I have recently encountered some people who have a somewhat distorted view of God’s grace.  It’s understandable.  Most Christians that I have ever known seem to struggle to keep God’s grace in the proper perspective, myself included.  This problem must go all the way back to the early days of the faith, since the Apostle Paul wrote about it so extensively in his epistles, especially the epistle to the Romans.

     One of the notions that I have encountered is that one must believe either in a “God of grace” or in a “God of works.”  That is, some people seem to think that we must either accept salvation as the gift of God and not worry about our behavior, or we must live by a strict moral code and reject salvation as a gracious gift.  The Bible I read indicates that both things are necessary.  Yes, God saves us by grace, his unearned favor, and by grace alone, through our faith in the atonement provided by Jesus on the cross.  However, he tells those of us who have received that grace to live by a certain set of standards that includes loving and forgiving others, caring for the poor and sick, living sexually pure lives, and praying and worshiping God.  He does not say that those things are optional, either.

     Recognizing that God has expectations of us does not undo his grace, especially once we grasp the proper way to view those expectations.  We should not see God’s commands as a way to earn His love; He already loves us.  We should not see them as a way to achieve a state of righteousness in God’s eyes; God bestows righteousness on us when we accept Jesus as our Savior.  God’s commands are, first, a privilege that His children get to follow and, second, a blessing that God gave us in love, because they are designed to give us joy and peace.

     Living a life devoted to God and in obedience to his commands is called holiness.  It seems to be a missing element in the lives of some of the young Christians that I have encountered recently.  They live, think, and talk very much as non-Christians do, and they justify their actions by saying that they are living in God’s grace.

     I am not talking about an attitude of superiority or self-righteousness.  I am not talking about things like how long one’s hair should be or whether one watches PG-13 movies.  Rather, I am talking about a way of thinking about every aspect of life.  Rather than live haphazardly, a Christian should consider every thought, word, and action in light of what God says about it.

     It’s sad to me that people think that God’s grace is an excuse to live an unexamined, unconsidered life–possibly even a life of sin.  Saint Paul specifically said that we should not live in sin just because God has forgiven our sins and extended grace to us.  In fact, the opposite attitude is the right one:  because we are grateful to God for His grace, we should follow the commands that  he gives us cheerfully, knowing that they are in our best interest.

Just a Thought

     As I look at comments made here over the last few days, a thought flashes through my mind like a huge neon sign: how far we have fallen!

     The culture war is real, and it has heated up in last few years.  I see it not only as a sign of moral and spiritual decline but also as a decline in just plain common sense.  I can only wonder what my grandparents would think if they were alive today.  I do not think that they could even conceive of having such conversations, let alone finding anyone taking them seriously.

     [At this point somebody will say that our great-great-grandparents would have been equally dumbfounded about the abolition of slavery and equal rights for all races.  I dispute that historically, since there were people since the very beginning of our country who wanted to abolish slavery, my ancestors among them.  I also dispute the relevance of it, since neither of the hot potatoes in America, abortion and same-sex marriage, has much to do with race.  In fact, I consider it specious logic and dubious morality to compare these issues with racial problems.]

     Behold the result of the Enlightenment!  Or perhaps it has not reached its full fruition.  That’s a thought I’d rather not pursue very far.

     People who uphold traditional morals are called bigots and haters and sociopaths.  What I wonder is when the detractors of conservative, evangelical Christianity plan to do to “cure” us?  Are we far from a new Inquisition–a politically correct one?  Will it be long before the things I write on this blog will be classed as hate crimes, and people like me will be sent to “retraining” centers?  We have already seen folks sent to “sensitivity classes.”

     I’m convinced that we simply cannot have a civil conversation about the two hot-button issues in the United State–the life of the unborn and the definition of marriage.  Since both sides consider the other side completely wrong and even completely immoral, I do not know how we can proceed. 

     From my perspective the best way is to hash it out democratically.  That’s probably the best that we can do.  As the Constitution outlines, these questions should be (and should have been) settled by state and local governments as provided for in their own constitutions and laws.  I really don’t see any other way forward in the debate that is both just and right.

     How about you?

God Does NOT Hate People

     The Bible lists some things that God hates, and none of them is a person or people.  God hates, according to Proverbs 6:17-19, a proud look, a lying tongue, murderous hands, a wicked heart, mischievous feet, a false witness, and a divisive spirit.  In other words, God hates evil actions and behaviors.  He does not hate people.

     God hates sin, but He does not hate sinners.  If He did, then He would hate us all, since, as the Bible teaches, all people have sinned.  The Bible is explicit that God loves everyone in the world, and that doctrine is the basis for so many important Bible precepts.  God loved the world so much that He sent His Son to earth to procure atonement for us.  Jesus loved people so much that He gave up His life to save us, even while we were in rebellion against Him.  God expects us to love other people, since He loved us and to prove that we love Him.

      Love is a major theme, if not the primary theme, of the Bible.  It is the greatest virtue.  It is part of the two Great Commands:  love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

     Not only are Christians forbidden to hate other people, but the Bible, particularly in I John, indicates that if we hate others we are lying to ourselves and others about following God at all.  I John 4:7-8 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

     If you hear a Christian saying that God hates anyone, that person is mistaken at best and an enemy of God at worst.  If you hear a Christian saying that he or she hates somebody, that person is also either very badly mistaken or maybe even completely reprobate.  It is likely that the person is not a Christian at all, or at least has no right to claim the title.

     To love in the Bible is to want the very best for another person.  It is to wish only God’s blessings upon them and to hope ultimately that they become a child of God, if they are not already one.  It is to be willing to put their needs before one’s own and to serve and help them in whatever way is needed.

     Biblical love does not preclude scolding or reproving.  In fact, the Bible makes it clear that parents, government authorities, and church leaders have the authority to discipline people and to enforce consequences as needed.  In fact the Bible indicates that God chastises the ones that He loves, just as a Father does. 

     Biblical love does not preclude upholding the truth.  If people state that certain behaviors are sins, according to the Bible, that is not an expression of hatred toward other people.  In fact, the very ones who uphold the truth on sin are sinners themselves.  They are not speaking from a vantage pont of superiority but of identification.  Who better to warn others of sin and its consequences than people who have been caught in its trap themselves?

     Finally, Biblical love does not preclude political activism, at least in my opinion.  I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus and a citizen of God’s kingdom.  However, I am also a citizen of the United States of America, and as such I have the same rights as anyone else.  Not only is it my right to try to shape the course of our country, but it is my duty to particiapte in the political process.  Loving people does not mean that I must deny my religious or political views in order to make other people happy–anymore than they must deny their religious or political views to make me happy.

     That’s the difference between me and some other people that I debate with.  I don’t consider people to be hating me when they oppose me politically or when they disagree with me on religious or spiritual matters.  I don’t really see that it has anything to do with either love or hate.  It has to do with trying to help set policies under which we will live.  And everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion on which policies are best.

     In fact I am worried about portraying the people on one side of any debate “haters.”  Logically speaking, both must hate, since they both oppose each other.  Each side has its goals and desires, and neither side should be compelled to yield in the name of love or be threatened into it by being called haters.  It is bringing the level of public discourse and debate way down to call people bigots and haters because they have a different opinion from you.  May the practice cease!