[Vision2020] A Really Awful Week For The Gospel
Gier, Nicholas
NGIER at uidaho.edu
Mon Sep 6 22:56:46 PDT 2010
Hi Keeley:
This is beautifully written and expressed. Thanks for writing it.
Nick
Nicholas F. Gier, Professor Emeritus
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
"The Palouse Pundit" on Radio Free Moscow, 92.5 FM
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO www.idaho-aft.org/ift.htm
208-882-9212, 1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com on behalf of keely emerinemix
Sent: Mon 9/6/2010 12:14 PM
To: Contact - thansen at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] A Really Awful Week For The Gospel
This has been a really bad week for the Church whose Savior is Christ Jesus and whose members, unfortunately, are behaving just atrociously.
The screeching protests about an expanded Muslim Center at Ground Zero, the vicious lie that Islam is a great religion for pedophiles, the public Koran burnings, and the continued insistence that President Obama is a secret, swarthy Muslim out to entrap and disable our country have been in large part made by evangelical Christians -- the people most identified with Jesus Christ, whether by similarity or, as is the case here, by contrast. Evangelicals, and I am one, are considered within the Church itself and outside of it to be those who hold most dearly to a high view of the Bible, a personal and transforming encounter with Christ, and the importance of bringing the Gospel to the world. The public nature of that identity means that how we act, what we do, what we say and how we say it is, more than any other "Christian thing," what people will link mention of Jesus or the Gospel to. I shudder to think what decent non-believers must think of Christianity after a week like this.
Those evangelicals who screech and holler about a country threatened by "Muslim terrorists," godless liberals, a socialist, terrorist-embracing President, and a sentimentalist, Islam-affirming culture, and who do so as good Americans fervently committed to the Constitution, honor neither it nor the Bible when they try to violate the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment and the notion of peaceful civil engagement spoken to "aliens and strangers" -- that is, Christians, who believe we are "not of this world," but of heaven -- in the Scriptures. Hatred of Muslims is not a Christian virtue, it's not a civic virtue, and it's not possible among those who claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If we can't engage with a culture, even a hostile culture, in truth and love, then it's best we not engage at all.
Likewise, Christians who whip up hate by tapping into the wellspring of bigotry and anger in this country and who then claim innocence when the floodwaters of violence and hate engulf the culture, are not only steadfastly anti-American, but also anti-Christian. Christians who demonize others who also call Abraham the father of their faith are guilty of the sin of bearing false witness when they lie about Islam, and they're guilty of malice and division when they use differences in belief to call for the subordination of those with whom they disagree. There are certainly parts of the Jewish Old Testament, which Christians revere as the very word of God, that, apart from context and without proper exegesis, make my faith appear violent, unjust, and even barbaric to those unfamiliar with God's Word and the redemptive culmination of his purpose represented by the New Testament Gospel. We don't appreciate being tarred as a people eager to stone adulterers, sack foreign villages, or enslave those who owe us money, and most of us have an answer to what the Gospel -- indeed, the Christian faith -- really entails. What possible justification is there, then, for doing unto other faiths what we would never want them to do to ours? Can any Christian truly envision the Apostle Paul striding into Ephesus and holding a public burning of silver statues of the goddess Artemis? Would he whip up a crowd to trash the philosophies of the various Greeks worshiping there and demonize them for their belief in what Paul claimed, in reasoning respectfully with them, was a god unknown now revealed in Christ?
I am not a Muslim. I am a Christian, which means, among many other things, that I don't hold to or believe in the doctrines of Islam. Muslims don't believe in or hold to the doctrines of Christianity, either. But the respectful reasoning together modeled by the Apostle can only honor God. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; in fact, I would gladly die for the glory of the One it points to. But I am ashamed of those of my brethren who have demonstrated recently not actions born of the Spirit of God but of the spirit of this fallen world, and I grieve at the damage they've done -- to the Muslim people, to the President, to civil engagement in our culture, and, mostly, to the testimony of what Christianity really is. I apologize, with all my heart, for the ugliness displayed in Christ's name.
And who am I to apologize? No one, really, except for one woman who has made many mistakes in her own testimony for Christ. That doesn't relieve me of, or excuse me from, the burden to offer something better . . . and I can't try to offer something better without pointing out that what's being offered now is really, really, awful.
I'm so sorry for it all.
I don't see them, but there may well be valid reasons to object to the expansion of a Muslim community center on privately-owned land near Ground Zero. That's not the point here; legitimate debate requires that debaters not lie, scream, and stoop to falsehood and bigotry -- the lowest common denominator of American political rhetoric
Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com
From: debismith at moscow.com
To: thansen at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:01:06 -0500
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Soldiers Allege Punishment Over Christian Concert
This is shameful, but hardly
surprising.
Given the enormous swing to the religious right in
the US, the military will be heavily inhabited by those who espouse
Fundamentalist views. The military has long been using training videos which are
odious in their portrayal of non-Christians as the "enemy"; forced
prayer is not uncommon, and Muslims, Athiests, Wiccans, and Buddhists have all
been targeted in some units for being "un-American". Don't Ask Don't
Tell may be repealed someday, but the beat goes on. Some group
must be the "outsiders", and the military always
uses this in order to utilize it as the(outdated) means of gaining loyalty
in the ranks.
When a nation which was founded to counter enforced
religion then begins to enforce religion through its military, we have a serious
problem. Of course, this is likely to go unaddressed as the Glen Becks, Sarah
Palins, and Rush Limbaughs continue unchallenged to spew their vilification of
anyone who is not white, born again, and wealthy. Unless the "left" gets off
their collective duffs and begins to fight back, this country is on its merry
way to becoming a theocracy..........
Debi R-S
----- Original Message -----
From:
Tom Hansen
To: Moscow Vision 2020
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 5:32
PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Soldiers Allege
Punishment Over Christian Concert
Courtesy of the Army Times at:
http://www.ArmyTimes.com
Soldiers allege punishment over Christian
concert
Army
officials launch inquiry
The Army is investigating allegations that soldiers were
pressured to attend a Christian concert - and punished when they
refused.
Pvt. Anthony Smith says he was one
of 80 soldiers in Advanced Individual Training at Fort Eustis, Va., who were
punished for opting not to attend a Christian rock concert on post. The
soldiers were confined to their barracks, ordered to clean and were barred
from using cell phones and other electronics, according to Smith and
another soldier who has asked to remain anonymous.
The Army is conducting an investigation into the incident,
ordered by Lt. Gen. John E. "Jack" Sterling, Training and Doctrine Command
chief of staff, TRADOC spokesman Harvey Perritt said. Perritt and a Fort
Eustis spokesman declined to offer details while the investigation
continues.
Col. Thomas Collins, an Army
spokesman at the Pentagon, said the military should not impose religious views
on soldiers.
"It's not a problem to hold a
Christian rock concert on an Army post; it's a problem if soldiers who didn't
want to attend were compelled to attend or feel punished for not
attending," he said. "That is not consistent with Army policy." Smith
said he believes his spiritual life should remain
private.
"The religion thing being shoved
down my throat is really something that doesn't work for me," said Smith, now
in Arizona with the 640th Aviation Support Battalion. "As far as what I
believe, I believe there's something out there, but it's a really
personal thing with me. If I have a relationship with God or that entity, it
is not anybody's business, ever." BarlowGirl, the Christian rockers
who played at Eustis as part of a Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness
Concert Series, describe themselves on their website as "tender-hearted,
beautiful young women who aren't afraid to take an aggressive, almost
warrior-like stance when it comes to spreading the gospel and serving God."
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is readying a federal lawsuit,
according to its founder, Mikey Weinstein. He blasted the commander who
originated the concerts as a "walking neon sign of Defense
Department-sanctioned, ignominious fundamentalist Christian supremacy and
exceptionalism." On the evening of May 13, Smith was with A Company, 1st
Battalion, 222nd Aviation Regiment, which was in training at the Army
Aviation Logistics School. The student leader and the duty noncommissioned
officer, a first sergeant, assembled the company in formation and marched it
to the mess hall for dinner. After dinner, the unit was marched to the parking
lot just outside the concert venue.
"As soon
as they told us we were marching to chow because we were going to this concert
together, people started to f---ing freak out, people started to get
angry," Smith said. "There were several Muslims in the company, and
people started getting upset right away." Smith said A Company appeared
to be the only group entering the concert as a unit.
Outside the venue, the troops were asked to split into two
groups, those attending and those who would not. Smith and the others who
opted out were marched to the barracks, where they were placed on "lockdown,"
their activities were restricted until the concert
ended.
"Anybody in the military will tell you
that lockdown is a form of punishment," Smith said. "When we don't want to go
to this concert and we're not allowed to use our laptops or our cell phones or
music, we're not allowed to be sitting in our beds - that's a form of
punishment." Smith and eight other soldiers attempted to file a complaint with
a succession of Equal Opportunity officials in their chain of
command.
Smith said as he went through
the ranks, each official tried to dissuade him from filing a formal
complaint, and all but one of the soldiers who first complained with him
backed off.
Smith said he spoke with the
company commander, who told him he took responsibility for directing the first
sergeant to send the unit to the concert.
Smith and the other soldier, who asked not to be identified, said
they would be willing to join the planned federal lawsuit. Neither said they
want to see soldiers punished; Smith said he wants soldiers to "know
and understand" why he and the other soldiers were
wronged.
"I want to help other people; I
don't think that anyone should have to feel this," Smith said. "I think that
somebody should look into these spiritual fitness events because I'm pretty
sure all of them are Christian. I guarantee I can't go to an Army base and see
a Muslim rock concert described as spiritual fitness." Both soldiers
said the incident has changed their view of the Army and the country. The
soldier speaking anonymously about the incident said he fears people who are
irreligious by choice are no longer tolerated.
"We have mob rule, where it is purely Christian in every
direction," he said. "For someone like me, you feel surrounded." Brig.
Gen. Brian R. Layer, who was the commanding general of the Army Transportation
School at Fort Eustis during the May incident, inherited the spiritual
fitness concert series from Maj. Gen. James E. Chambers. A professed
born-again Christian, Chambers went on to Fort Lee, Va., and in April became
director for logistics at Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base,
Fla.
As head of Army Combined Arms Support
Command at Fort Lee, Chambers duplicated the series, telling a post newspaper
in 2008, "The idea is not to be a proponent for any one religion ... It's
to have a mix of different performers with different backgrounds."
Between 2007 and 2009, the Army paid $125,000 to a booking agency for
Christian performers for events at Fort Lee and Fort Eustis, according to USAspending.gov, a searchable
database of federal spending. The contractor was Indiana-based Street Level
Artist Agency.
Several performers who were
publicized in the post newspaper and played at Eustis in recent months all
advertised themselves as conveying a Christian message: Mark Schultz, Josh
Wilson, the Micah Watson Band, Brandishing Steel, True Liberty, Alathea, Phil
Keaggy, SonicFlood and Barlow-Girl.
Lauren
Barlow, a band member, said in her Twitter feed Aug. 21 that the band "knew
nothing at all about soldiers being forced to go to our show." A federal
lawsuit by Military Religious Freedom Foundation would be the third in a
series it has undertaken against the Army over the last few years. The two
prior lawsuits, which took aim at alleged proselytizing by members of the
armed forces, were dismissed.
In January, a
federal judge in Kansas dismissed Spc. Dustin Chalker and the foundation's
lawsuit against the Defense Department, ruling Chalker failed to
exhaust all available remedies before filing suit.
Chalker claimed his rights were violated when he was compelled to
attend military events at Fort Riley, Kan., where prayers were made without
regard to his status as an atheist.
Also in
2008, a voluntary dismissal was filed in a federal lawsuit in which
Spc. Jeremy Hall alleged he was harassed and discriminated against
because he is an atheist.
------------------
The
Christian rock band BarlowGirl was performing in concert at Fort Eustis, Va.,
when some soldiers protested that they were punished for deciding not to
attend.
In my twenty years of Army service I had never experienced
anything even remotely similar to this allegation.
But then I retired back in 1989, long before enlistment
criteria was tragically weakened.
Seeya round town, Moscow.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
"Patriotism
is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady
dedication of a lifetime."
-- Adlai E.
Stevenson, Jr.
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