Skip to content

Monthly Archives for November 2007

Oh, those pesky presuppositions…

I have often mentioned that science is based on presuppositions, and that these presuppositions are, if not issues of faith, at least rooted in a certain philosophy or worldview. To me, this is rather obvious – and it’s not a bad thing, it just is. I have my own presuppositions, and freely admit to them. However, those of a materialist point of view tend to bristle at this; science, after all, is based on reason.

Paul Davies writes in the NY Times,

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational.

Davies makes an interesting point, although, as Lawrence Selden has pointed out, his logic could be a bit better. However, his was an opinion piece for the Times, not something in a scientific or philosophical journal. Selden puts it this way:

I think he is on the right track, but his arguments could be improved. One of the things he is getting at is that to do science, you have to have a philosophy of science and an epistemology. The scientific method is not provable by the scientific method. It comes out of a philosophy of science and is part of a person’s epistemology.

Again, “The scientific method is not provable by the scientific method.” The scientific method, its nature, its applicability and its effectiveness, are philosophical positions. I think it is fair to use the word faith here, but it’s ok if you don’t. “Philosophy” works just as well for me. This doesn’t diminish science at all; to borrow a Gumpism, “science is as science does.” It can explain some things (as far as we know), but it can’t explain everything. It shouldn’t have to. Unless, of course, it really is an issue of faith…

Written on 29 November 2007 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 3 Comments

On Beowulf, heroes and redemption

I haven’t seen Beowulf, and if the past is any indication of the future, I’ll eventually see it when it comes out on DVD. However, it’s apparently 3D, so may make a theater viewing a bit more interesting. Ben Witherington, who I have linked to in the past on a number of topics, tends to write some pretty decent movie reviews; today’s review (The Film that Cried ‘Beowulf’) of Beowulf is not a disappointment. What I found especially interesting were his comments about Beowulf and the need for heroes; Witherington writes:

But what is interesting in this film is the distinction made between a hero, like Beowulf and ‘the God Jesus Christ’. At one juncture in the film the Danish king is asked, after a raid by Grendel, if they should pray to and invoke ‘the new Roman god Christ’. No, says the king, we don’t need a savior god, we need a hero.

He continues:

Heroes with strength and courage, but also feet of clay are much preferred to a sinless savior who dies so that we might live differently than we do. We don’t want to live differently. We want to party down, and then have a hero rescue us when we go too far.

It’s true, of course. Even Christians have a hard time with the notion of a suffering, dying servant as savior; we’d often rather have a Terminator God who comes down and kicks some butt. This possibly explains much of the religious right (if anything can explain the religious right).

A couple of years ago I wrote an article exploring this notion, partially inspired by Spiderman 2 and the Bering Strait song I Could Use a Hero (great tune, by the way). As I wrote then,

Fear of reality might really be the issue. For whatever reason, living in reality often seems rather humdrum for some of us, and downright frightening or painful for others. There are many reasons to opt out of reality from time to time, but we all do it. Sometimes working with fantasy is healthy; myth allows us to work out many issues in a safe environment – similar to a child’s play or running computer simulations. You get to see how things might turn out if we make various choices, in essence, looking before we leap.

However, actually believing the hero-myth – failing to bring things back to reality – always has downsides. For example, consider the tendency to make heroes out of sports figures. It is okay to be inspired by various individuals, but there is also the tendency to live vicariously through our heroes – and no good comes of that. I’ve seen people whose emotional state varies depending upon the success of their favorite sports figure or team. No matter how well the hero does, there is no potential that the hero can provide what the person actually needs. There is only the potential for failure.

I still believe what I proposed in that article, that our need for heroes is an inadequate substitute for what we really need: a savior. The problem is, to accept the savior we have is to also release our own imperfect dreams of greatness, of success, victory and righteousness. It really is righteousness, after all, that we are looking for. The problem is, we tend to want our own instead of God’s righteousness.

Martin Luther defined the notion of Original Sin as looking for “better words” than the words God has already given us. That was the issue in the Garden of Eden, and I think from my own experience that Luther hit the nail on the head. Redemption is simply too easy on one hand, and too difficult on the other. To accept forgiveness, we also have to forgive … and that means no breaking heads or kicking butts. To quote myself again:

The whole concept of hero worship (it is worship, after all, as heroes always take the place of a savior) is based on a belief that performance matters. We believe that we have to perform in order to succeed, but we’re not good enough. Then, when we see someone else performing to the standards we have set, they become our heroes, and that is truly idolatry. Performance is important; however, Jesus’ performance is absolutely the only performance that matters.

Written on 29 November 2007 by me under Random Thoughts, Reviews with 1 Comment

Must everything change?

Brian McLaren, pop icon of the Emerging Church movement, has recently published a book entitled Everything Must Change, in which he attempts to make the case that if people really believed in the Secret Message of Jesus, everything must change. Now, to anyone who’s studied the Bible, our response should be something on the order of “duh…” However, while I’ve only read reviews and discussions of the book (I did read and review “The Secret Message…”), I question whether McLaren’s “everything” is accurate, or if how he’d like them to change is correct. I also question whether his personal “evangelical” context is shared by many people (it doesn’t appear to be in my circles) and whether his Anabaptist leanings are coloring his exegesis. Maybe some day I’ll read it (if I can find a cheap used copy somewhere).

McLaren has written some very good books in the past, but he’s not a theologian by training (not that I am), and I think it shows. He draws a lot from people like Dallas Willard and NT Wright (my personal favorite), and other than wanting to know McLaren’s agenda, I’d suggest skipping McLaren and going straight to Willard and Wright. My sense is from McLaren’s books that lead up to “Everything…” is that he’s reacting to an evangelicalism that avoided any real material consequence of faith, and while some conservatives reacted by doing the political thing, he’s taken the leftist route into a type of social gospel.

I tend to look at things a bit differently (as if you didn’t know by now); rather than the route McLaren takes, my approach is simply this: The kind of God you believe in determines how you live your life. The converse is also true: How you live your life reveals what kind of God you believe in. There are, indeed, personal, financial and political implications for our theology. Certainly the 70′s pre-trib “it’s all going to burn” thinking resulted in a lack of concern for both society and the environment, and in that context, if you accept a more orthodox theology, then yes, everything (or nearly everything) should change.

Greg Boyd is a pastor from Minnesota that I have been impressed with (although I don’t share his “open” theology), especially in his thinking about pacifism. I have not been impressed with most pacifists’ theologies, as they usually seem to start with pacifism and work backward. Boyd, on the other hand, really seems to be willing to go wherever the Bible leads him (hopefully it will lead him away from “openness” someday!). He’s recently written a series of posts that are worth checking out, starting with this post that takes loving your enemies to today’s extreme. The follow-up posts take a very interesting approach to the issue of heresy.

These are very important questions that we need to answer:

  • What kind of God do I believe in?
  • What kind of salvation to I believe in?
  • What does it mean to love God and my neighbor?
  • How do these answers impact my daily life?
  • Must everything change?

For some, extreme pacifism is one answer; for some like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, there are other answers, and there are certainly other issues to consider. The Gospel is offensive; if we allow ourselves to deal with it (or it to deal with us) we will undoubtedly be challenged, regardless of where we currently stand (or sit) on any issue. It’s easy to look at the church or American Christianity (if we can call anything that) and point to what must be changed. It is another to look at ourselves and see what must be changed.

Written on 16 November 2007 by me under Church, Reviews, Theological Musings with 1 Comment

The [Evil] Golden Compass

I haven’t read any of Pullman’s books, which by all accounts are intended to be anti-Christian and anti-God. I have been reading reviews on a few blogs, including thoughts posted by Tom Gilson. Gilson is one of the least reactionary reviewers I’ve found, which I appreciate. He lives up to his blog title, Thinking Christian.

My son Isaiah has read the trilogy, and likes it, even though he is not inclined to share Pullman’s point of view. While not writing an actual review (yet), he has some thoughts on how Christians react to these books, as well as anything that threatens them. Isaiah writes:

When I find something that I don’t agree with, or that threatens or offends me, I analyze it in order to find out what about it disturbs me, why the parts that disturb me don’t make sense, and, if they seem to make perfect sense, what the error is in my thinking. I believe this process is called “learning.”

But when Christians feel threatened or offended, they make no attempt to figure out why. They don’t bother to figure out what exactly the errors are in the other’s thinking, instead giving in to emotions and trying to silence the offending material so they won’t have to deal with it.

Another thinking Christian. I’ve encouraged him to write a review of the books, sharing his reasons why he likes them. If he does, I’ll let you know.

On the lighter side, also check out his informative post on how to prepare for a zombie attack.

Written on 15 November 2007 by me under Reviews with 2 Comments

Bibliolatry and blogging: the return to an oral culture?

I’ve been thinking lately about the importance that the written word (any word, not just The Word of God) has in our Modernist culture, as opposed to what is merely spoken. A few weeks ago Ben Witherington published on his website the text of a speech he gave at Baylor University on the subject of “Sacred Texts in an Oral Culture.” The “speech” got me thinking further on the subject, and also serves, somewhat ironically, as a recursive demonstration of the oral presentation converted to a written form.

On one hand, the pragmatism of converting oral to written information is obvious; any oral presentation has a somewhat limited audience, but the written form greatly multiplies the potential audience, while also serving to preserve the integrity of the material. Witherington’s point, however, was this: in ancient cultures, the written word was not seen as having greater integrity than the oral word, and he posits that the New Testament documents were initially written to be orally presented. We do know that in the 1st Century, the “Word of God” did not necessarily refer to any written document, but to the message as preached by the Apostles.

Due to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and the resulting growth of literacy, it appears to me (not that I’m any expert) that coincidental with Modernism was a growing reliance on the written word over the oral. Where once someone’s “word” was as good as you’d get (accompanied at times with a covenantal sign or witnesses), written documents grew to be considered more trustworthy. In the West, written tradition is accepted, oral tradition is questioned. In the East (which avoided Modernism and a number of other “isms”), that’s not necessarily the case. Today in the West, our “word” is essentially meaningless, without some piece of paper somewhere with our signature affixed to it. We hear some news item on the radio or TV, and immediately look to confirm it in print (including the electronic written word as “print”). As much as I love the written word, I wonder, have we become a society of bibliolators (or at least bibio-snobs), holding the written word in too high esteem?

But, perhaps the tension is not between the oral and the written, but between the cultural dynamics that accompany them. One is fluid, interactive, and based in community; the other is static, actually discouraging interaction and community. As Marshall McLuhan so aptly put it, “the medium is the message.” In the context of Christianity, we can see differences: On one hand, the Word of God is “living and active;” on the other hand, we have theological nit-picking over words and phrases and the fundamentalist, inflexible words of legalism. Did the Ephesians spend months picking apart Paul’s letter when it was read to them? It would be interesting indeed to know how these letters were received and treated, or how the 1st Century Church would feel about how we treat their letters.

Yesterday I read a very interesting blog post over at Totally Baked that got me thinking in another direction. Quixote writes about the blog’s short-term nature:

[I]n the blog we have access to a streaming ticker seamlessly tracing the internal weather of our collective psyche. Like Heraclitus’ ever-changing river, blogdom is a relentlessly variable torrent of the topical where history is only the last post.

In considering these thoughts, the medieval troubadour or minstrel came to mind, the roving conveyor of news and gossip, completely oral in nature. He was here today, gone tomorrow, to be followed by the next singer of songs and teller of tales, gathering news as quickly as he disseminated it. Could it be that the blog, with it’s overtly communal, participatory, grass-roots nature, has become a vehicle for the type of organic spread of information that we’ve been missing since the inception of the rather imperialist institutions of the book, the tract, the newspaper and the broadcast media? Could it really be they who controlled culture for a time (yes, I know, I really am sounding McLuhanish now).

As I researched (read “googled”) the issue, I came across a very interesting paper by John December entitled “Characteristics of Oral Culture in Discourse on the Net.” The paper states that is was “presented at the twelfth annual Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, University, Park, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1993.” Obviously a very intelligent man, December makes a similar point (pre-blog, of course) about computer-mediated communication:

This paper presents observations of a computer chat and a computer bulletin board system that illustrate qualities of orality in CMC. The implications of these oral qualities in CMC forums is that, ultimately, new discourse communities are created, with vast political, cultural, and social implications, recreating the immediacy of pre-literate cultures, but adding on space- and time-independence.

Would it be even better if blogs disintegrated after a few days, if we were forced to recall, to discuss, and to relay information from our rather inadequate memories? I’m not sure about that. I tend to love being able to Google nearly anything. But, perhaps it is time for us to let go (just a little) of our bibliolatry, our informational imperialism, to loose our grip on “it says right here!” and recover some of the spirit of oral tradition. Perhaps.

Go, blog. Go.

Written on 14 November 2007 by me under Random Thoughts, Theological Musings with No Comments

The Bourne Theology

I’ve been reading a very good little book on the theology of Martin Luther, Luther for Armchair Theologians, by Steven Paulson, and am being struck afresh with the power of Luther’s thought and emotion. Luther has been as close to a role model as I’ve had; I was raised Lutheran, something for which I count myself as extremely fortunate. In spite of the many different theological rabbit-trails that I have followed over the last 30 years, I am always brought back by the logic, symmetry and spirit of basic Lutheran theology. However, other than what I learned in my Confirmation classes (which were quite good), I’ve not really studied the ins and outs of Lutheran theology, especially as contrasted with other reformationist strains. So, I figure there’s no time like the present to reconnect with and deepen my understanding of Luther’s theology.

Paulson does a great job of dealing not only with Luther’s main theological insights, but also the context in which he arrived at those insights; amazing, really, in that the book is only about 200 pages long. Luther’s reformation was due primarily with his own personal struggle to understand how he could be saved. His was not a reformation based in rebellion, for he was, like Paul, very good at being a legalist. However, he couldn’t reconcile Roman Catholic doctrine with what he was reading from Paul in his letter to the Romans (and he’d have the same issues with much of evangelical theology today).

Luther’s soteriology (doctrine of how we are saved) resulted in a rather unique anthropology (view of man), which I believe would clarify a lot of confusion among the “undoctrinated” Christians today (those who have no real understanding of what they believe or why). His view is of the simul, the double-life, based on his 2-prong message of The Law and The Gospel. The Law declares us to be a sinner, and through Christ’s death and our baptism, we are dead. As Paulson says, we are “dead, helpless, passive, unable to do anything, and already divinely judged as having no future.” At the same time, through baptism and Christ’s resurrection, “a whole saint is there as well, newly raised from the dead.” One of Satan’s lies is for us to think we are 1/2 sinner, 1/2 saint, in a process of being sanctified through our participation with grace. Why is this a lie? Because then, we do not have Christ as sole mediator, and as Paul says in Galatians, then we have no gospel at all.

The Bourne Theology

Warning: “spoiler” ahead…

This way of looking at the old man – new man duality makes sense, considering what Paul says in Romans, and as I have also been reading through Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy, I began to grasp the concept a bit better. Now, the Bourne books differ considerably from the movies, so if you’ve only watched those, you possibly won’t see what I mean. In the books, the main character, David Webb, was “programmed” by a government agency to play the role of Jason Bourne, the world’s most deadly assassin. Due to a head injury, he “lost” his identity and memory as Webb, and in between the 1st and 2nd books, he recovers his original identity through intensive therapy. In the 2nd and 3rd books, he constantly struggles to maintain his original identity as David Webb, while circumstances force him to assume the hated Bourne identity.

This scenario is remarkably similar to Luther’s anthropology. The Bourne Identity is dead (literally), is hated by David Webb (and others) and has no future. The identity with a life and a future is David Webb; however, Jason Bourne is never far from David Webb, and his only hope of sanity is to keep the identities distinct and in proper perspective. To focus on rehabilitating “Bourne” would be useless, and David Webb would be lost in the process. Bourne must be allowed to remain dead, to allow David Web to live.

The books, by the way, are not great literature, and I’m not a big Ludlum fan. They are, however, much more complex (sometimes needlessly so) than the movies which – like some evangelical anthropologies – tend to ignore the distinction between the identities, instead trying to merge them to simplify the plot. They are great action flicks, though.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. – Romans 8:1-4

The Good News is that while all carry around our “Bourne Identities,” we know we have been given new lives along with the righteousness of God. While we still have a memory of these old identities, they are dead and powerless, and the sins of these identities died along with them. We are truly saved and truly free, solely by grace through faith.

The Reformation continues …

Written on 13 November 2007 by me under Theological Musings with 5 Comments

Reading levels

Today I found this site that analyzes and determines the reading level of blogs. As you can see from the box at the left, this blog has been rated at a High School level. If I recall, the average news reporting is at a 5th grade level, so I feel sufficiently erudite.

I input a few other blogs to see where they were rated. I found several that I read are also rated “high school,” although not all. One came up as Junior High, and a couple, one of which is one of the more popular evolutionist sites, was rated Elementary school. I only found one college-rated blog.

Again, I’m sure this is highly scientific. At least that’s what I’ll choose to believe.

Written on 12 November 2007 by me under Random Thoughts with 5 Comments

Blessed

Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.
– Psalm 127:3-5

Last Saturday night, I think it was, I was sitting in my living room, which is usually the noisiest place in our too-small home, and I was struck with the sudden realization that I really, really like my kids. They’re just really cool. That’s not to say that each of us doesn’t have our moments that push the limits; but overall, we like being together.

This weekend we’re taking a short vacation, except for my oldest who couldn’t get off work. It seems really strange to be going anywhere without him, and I know that we’re really going to miss his presence. But, he’s 19, and we know that this is just the start of his independence. What’s really cool about this is that we’d prefer to have him with us, and I think he’d rather be with us, too.

I may not be rich, but I am blessed.

Written on 07 November 2007 by me under Random Thoughts with 2 Comments

Existentialist worship and the death of community

We had emo-worship in our church yesterday; at least the singing part of worship (think Dashboard Confessional). Song after breathy, angst-ridden, emotion-filled song delivered by the 20-something worship leader invited us to share in a series of existential experiences that were not necessarily our worship experiences. They were, perhaps, the worship experiences and emotions of a handful of song-writers unknown to any of us in our church. Or, perhaps they were written in the first person to show how someone might feel at a certain point. These emotions and thoughts may have been shared to some extent by the 20-something worship leader, or perhaps he thought people in the congregation ought to feel the way a certain song described. In any event, rather than being invited or led into a corporate, unifying worship experience by singing songs of universal truth telling about a Great God who does Great Things, we were invited to individually try to emulate some unknown persons’ existential worship experiences.

It seems that attending a worship service is like trying to pick out an anniversary card for your spouse. I pick out card after card reading tripe like “I don’t say ‘I love you’ as often as I should” before I find one that I can actually relate to. These “issues” the cards refer to may be the card-writer’s problems, but they are not mine. Likewise, in church I often wait 3 or 4 songs before they play a song where I can authentically sing along.

This is not the case all of the time in our church, as we have a variety of worship leaders, each with their own style and favorite (but often limited) arsenal of songs. At times it does seem kind of like an old top-40 AM radio station, where you could expect to hear the same songs over, and over, and over… And, like top-40 radio, there are perhaps 5 actually good songs in the bunch, and not necessarily those in the top 10 playlist. But, like the DJs on the cool FM stations, each worship leader has their own playlist, which helps to create some diversity. The problem is, it seems that more and more of the newer worship songs are falling into that existential emo category.

But then, I was raised Lutheran, where we sang meaty songs like A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, not to mention a pretty decent liturgy. Not that I’m stuck on hymns, mind you. Maranatha!’s The Praise Album (that dates me, I know) was a breath of fresh air. And, having been in and around the Vineyard since the mid-80′s, I am no stranger or despiser of worship choruses, even those sung from a 1st person perspective. I believe there’s a place for talking and singing about God, and also a place for singing to God. And, there’s certainly nothing wrong with someone writing about their current thoughts and emotions; certainly the psalms of David reflect much of this. What I have a problem with is when worship songs chosen for corporate worship focus on the experience or the emotion in place of any real thoughts about God. As far as I know, we’re not supposed to worship the worship experience, or someone else’s worship experience.

One of the points of liturgical or confessional worship, whether it be Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran, is unity. The Church joins together in a common confession of truth and worship experience that joins us not only with the others in the room, but with believers the world over. Dietrich Bonhoeffer even warned in Life Together that singing harmonies during worship detracts from unity, and only serves to emphasize individualism. I think he makes a very good point, although I think an argument could be made that harmonies can also demonstrate the coming together of diverse individuals – the Church becoming one.

However, as I have written before, what I see happening is that our contemporary freedom in worship – to raise hands or not, to sit, stand, jump or twirl – plus the existential nature of the lyrics in our worship songs is undermining the goal of our churches, which is to create a corporate worship experience. I don’t have any sense of community with the people around me, who could be (and often are) engaged in any number of activities. Nothing we sing joins us in a common confession of faith; they could be Buddhists for all I know (especially since very few of the songs have any theological content whatsoever).

In our attempts to be culturally relevant, relaxed and “natural” (I am reminded of the old A&W commercials: “come as you are, stay in your car“), are we in fact undermining our own goals of creating community? Is this why the church organization (read “club”) has become so important to us? I am suggesting that yes, this is what is happening. Our contemporary church liturgies are encouraging individualism rather than community, and as a result, organizational structure is replacing community.

I also suspect that this internal conflict that we’ve created is at the root of a lot of the Evangelical angst that is feeding the “Emerging” movements, as well as simply driving people out of our churches. Existential worship, leading to Evangelical angst, and the death of community. Thankfully, we know that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. I don’t think our failures will prevail against it, either.

Written on 05 November 2007 by me under Church, My Own Personal Religion with 5 Comments

Westboro Baptist learns the cost of free speech

I remember a song years ago (can’t quite recall who the artist was, though) that contained the line, “Freedom is never cheap just because it’s free.” Jesus told his followers,

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’” – Luke 14:28-30

Well, the followers of Fred Phelps, the psuedo-Baptist paster of Westboro Baptist Church, just learned that the cost of free speech in America is in the neighborhood of $11 million; only I’m not sure that they can count that high. From the AP:

By ALEX DOMINGUEZ
Associated Press Writer

BALTIMORE (AP) — The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family’s privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine’s funeral. …

Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

Church members picket military funerals out of a belief that U.S. deaths in the war in Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

Apparently church members also carried signs with anti-gay slogans as well as anti-military slogans, even though Snyder was not gay. The jury felt that the right to free speech stops when it damages others, in this case, the right of the family to mourn without being picketed. Phelps, however, plans to appeal, believing that the case “will elevate me to something important.” My gut response at this point is simply, “what a jerk.”

I don’t know enough about the points argued to have any feeling for whether this case would be overturned on appeal. I could see an appellate court ruling in favor of free speech; however, the question remains as to whether the protesters’ methods went over the line, and whether they have the right to target individuals to make a public statement. The Westboro protesters were, after all, intentionally inflicting emotional distress; otherwise, the protest would have been ineffective (or ineffective in a different way than it already was). There are appropriate ways to express yourself, and as much as I believe in the freedom of speech, I do think there have to be reasonable limits. Call it censorship, but that’s how I see it.

Another issue in this case is also a 1st Amendment issue, the right to express their religious beliefs. However, that too has its limits. Human sacrifice, for example, is understandably over the line, as is serving poison-laced koolaid for communion and car-bombing. I wish being stupid was also over the freedom of religion line, but that would be harder to judge than pornography, and as you know by now, that would infringe on our right of free speech (the right to say really stupid things in public).

However, there’s a deeper issue here, from a Christian standpoint. Phelps has been quoted as saying, “The goofy jury threw a fit at God.” However, I don’t think God was the issue. In fact, I don’t think anyone saw God anywhere in Westboro Baptist’s protest; I know I haven’t. My guess is that God was comforting the mourners, not marching with the Westboro bunch. Phelps and company are not representing Christianity, they are only representing hate and self-righteousness (which are not fruits of the Spirit in my Bible). I am sure that Phelps and company believe that they are being persecuted for their faith; however, as I’ve said before and will say again, you are not being persecuted if people hate you because you’re a jerk. So again, you’ve got to “count the cost.”

And, it appears the cost of being a jerk is up to $11 million.

Written on 01 November 2007 by me under Politics/Current Events, The Freedom of Speech Awards with 2 Comments