Keith, I never said and am not saying that the North was righteous or blessed. Far from it. I only wanted to point out that the South was not “blessed” — that is what you called the culture that had a system of cruelty. No place but heaven is blessed, although New England would be if there were such a place. Alas, there is not. I just wanted you to admit that the evils in the South disqualified it from being considered blessed. Now that we have that established, I do hope that you can forget the past and press on toward the higher calling you have received — the one other than eating grits and greens. If I didn’t know better I would think that you were like those Israelites who desired the leeks and cukes of Egypt over the promised land. They were reserved for destruction and perished in the wilderness . . . Take heed son of the Confederacy.
Keith, in Christ there is no east or west or south or north. You need to leave your southern-ness at the door brother. Unless of course your kingdom is of this world, in which case you may want to get out your rifle. Inasmuch as I am a northerner, I will still not defend all that happened in that “period of unpleasantness”. I will remind you of a couple things though. First, your brothers in So. Carolina cheered when the war began and thereby welcomed the devastation that came to them. Sherman’s approach of total war was in some respects merciful in that it helped end the war sooner and ultimately spared life and property.
Second, was it “blessed” for southerners to take children from their parents and sell them? Was it right for slave owners to sell wives away from their husbands? Wedding vows were taken “until death or the master parts us”. How would you feel if you had to witness your wife being sold to take care of another man’s babies. Is that blessed to you? I know there were benevolent owners, and I don’t want to beat up on the entire South. But, it was very far from blessed. And it didn’t end in 1865. I can show you the statistics of lynching in the South as recently as the 1920’s. They called it “strange fruit” because what tree produces dead black men from its branches . . . ? I refer you to very eloquent words who acknowledged that judging in this instance should be left to the Almighty:
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
Does it seem a little strange that Mel Gibson, the man behind The Passion of the Christ, would in a drunken stupor utter anti-semitic remarks? He reportedly told his arresting officer that the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. This is a serious issue.
First, because The Passion of the Christ is a serious movie about the Savior that millions of people consider a faithful portrayal of the most tragic event in history. For better or worse, the movie is connected with Gibson in a way that the Scriptures are not. Second, anti-semitism is real. My own grandfather, whom I never knew, suffered in pogroms in eastern Europe. He was hung in a tree and saved by his grandmother–and had the scar for the rest of his life to prove it. We live in a world of prejudice, where ethnic diversity stirs up scorn and even hatred. Third, alcoholism is ugly. Gibson fell off the wagon. When he did, not only did this lead him to drive drunk (though this is not drawing the ire of anyone as far as I can tell) but it led him to speak atrocious words. The question remains, is Gibson’s ranting a reflection of his true belief or was he driven by the alcohol to say things he didn’t believe? In other words, did the alcohol bring out his true self? The question is not unimportant. I know someone who, when drunk, phoned up a friend and threatened to kill him. Nobody believed this person really wanted to kill my friend–he was drunk.
The powers-that-be are ready to hang Gibson out to dry. Take Maureen Dowd, columnist for the New York Times (subscription required):
Mr. Gibson appears to believe that the Jews control everything. It is an ancient anti-Semitic insult. But now that he has gotten into trouble for his bigoted views, he has thrown himself at the mercy of the object of his bigotry.
Case closed, according to Dowd, he’s a bigot. She finds it ironic that in the wake of his behavior, Gibson has turned to the Jewish community seeking help. Self-serving behavior for a man in the public eye? Perhaps. Or, perhaps his apology is genuine:
I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested . . . I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.
I hate to interrupt Greg’s outstanding contributions to “Friday is for Poetry” but this article in the New York Times is worth taking a look at. It is old news really: Georgetown College’s move to sever it’s ties from the Baptist convention in the name of academic integrity. The trustees were convinced that academic integrity and Christianity and mutually exclusive. Interesting that the NYT would pick up on this. Those interested in pursuing this further may want to look at George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. He makes the case for secular institutions welcoming Christian thinkers, not casting them out.
And now I am going to change the topic.
I ask a question in my heading. What if George Washington and the other founders really had been devout Christians and believed every word of scripture as being authoritative? Did the violation of the contract between King George III and the colonists really warrant bearing arms against the King? Did taxation without representation really warrant armed rebellion against a God given government? IMHO, I have yet to see how Romans 13 permits anything the colonists did in 1776. While conservative Christians today want to extol the virutes of the founders, it seems the founders conveniently found a way to ignore Romans 13:1. When the South tried to use the same arguments as the colonists, they got smacked for it.
What if they had obeyed Romans 13:1 and didn’t bear arms against the legitimately established government? Today we would be celebrating with the other commonwealth countries the 80th birthday of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Times being what they are, I am happy to be a republican (the form of government.) Nevertheless, “Long live the Queen.”
If you would like to express your best wishes to the Queen, and express your regret for our failure to submit as commanded in Romans 13, you may do so at her 80th birthday website.
When I worked in politics my boss was fond of saying, “The Lord baptized me, not my voting record.” He wanted to assert that every vote he cast wasn’t a vote for the religious right (or left). He was voting as a Christian, certainly, but he wanted to leave room for Christians to disagree on numerous policy decisions. I think this was a wise approach.
Wills in the article you linked to, Jonathan, goes too far. I see no need for Christians in society to separate their Christianity from their political involvment. If Christians want to engage in politics with explicitly Christian reasoning then that is their constitutional right and it is the constiutional right of our atheist, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu friends to reject that reasoning. I don’t see this as the imposition of a theocracy–I see this as Christians having their say in the marketplace of ideas. He goes on to say that posting the Ten Commandments (I suppose he means on public property) is taking the Lord’s name in vain because Jesus never meant for the Bible to be used politically. While I would not encourage the enforcement of the posting of the Ten Commandments, I certainly don’t think it is rises to the level of taking the Lord’s name in vain. Why? Because we just can’t say that Jesus rejected politics since His teachings have a dramatic effect on how we approach not just our personal lives but our public lives. David Cook, a Christian ethicist at Oxford wrote:
If we believe that all of life belongs to God, we cannot neglect involvement in politics. Christians often hesitate because politics is a “dirty business”; but business will not improve until and unless Christians bring a different style and content to political life. The example of Wilberforce and his efforts to abolish the slave trade show the influence for good that Christians can have in politics. As citizens of earth, as well as of heaven, we cannot really complain about the political leaders we have, nor the decisions they make, unless we are willing to elect women and men of integrity who support policies that restrain evil and reinforce goodness and ourselves be involved in the political process, both by exercising our voting rights and opportunities and by encouraging suitable people into the vocation of politics.
This still leaves open questions of whether we vote for a particular kind of person as our political representative or for or against a party with a slate of policies we endorse or reject. Political decisions affect every aspect of our lives from taxation to issues like stem-cell research, abortion, war, and trade. Scripture is concerned with the totality of life and rule. (”What’s Your Attitude Toward Politics, Kairos Journal)
To your question, Jonathan, I think elders and pastors need to be very cautious about commending candidates and political policies from the pulpit and privately lest we give the impression that our opinion is somehow the Christian opinion. However, there are times when the church must speak out. There are issues that the Bible makes black and white (see Cook above). There are political platforms that are inexcusable from a Christian perspective.
WOW Greg! I am impressed, but I am certain blogs are not supposed to require CliffsNotes to understand. You make a great case of justifying these salaries based on a comparison of what Americans are willing to pay for goods. Does this really tell the whole story of how much we value these guys?
People pay $25-1,000’s of dollars to watch athletic games (and then $20 for a hotdog and Coke), wear their jerseys and specialized shoes, emulate their moves, buy the products they endorse, and hang their posters on the wall at home. Teachers get yelled at, cursed, slandered, and marked out in the yearbook. Do you really think we value them 66 times more than basketball players?
I am astonished by how much we Americans value the opinions and lifestyles of the rich and famous. There are multiple channels designated to sports and numerous shows that help the average Joe keep up with the latest celebrity news. PBS cannot even get funding.
Enough I say. These salaries (while justified on a comparison basis) are godless. One person accumulating this much wealth for playing a game so that, in many cases, they will become a bad role model for young people is not healthy for him/her or society. I do confess I may be bitter because I miss the glory days on the gridiron–if only I could get paid for tackling people!
