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Wednesday, 18 November 2009

'In God We Trust' is Source of Controversy Again

The US national motto, “In God We Trust,” is just about everywhere. It is on every piece of US coinage and currency, in many government buildings, and even on license plates in Ohio, Florida, and the Carolinas. Yet it is the engraving of the motto on the entrance to the Capitol Visitor's Center that is drawing the most recent controversy.
According to a recent article by the AFP, “The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed suit in July to scrub 'In God We Trust' – designated the modern US national motto in a 1956 law – and the US Pledge of Allegiance from the wall of the Capitol Visitors Center.” The group cites, among other things, the Establishment Clause, which states that government cannot endorse a religion, as the basis for their claim.

Though the phrase has been the US national motto for only 60 years, its use dates back more than 150. It was first seen on the design for the two-cent coin in 1837, and in 1873 it was approved for use – thought not made mandatory – on all coins. In 1955, the slogan was made a mandatory feature on all currency. Shortly thereafter, the phrase was adopted as the national motto.

The motto has seen its fair share of controversy since its establishment. In the 1970 case Aronow v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the inclusion of the phrase on coinage and currency was not in violation of the Establishment Clause because, according to the ruling, it “has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.” (Aronow, 432 F.2d at 243)

In response to the recent lawsuit, The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed an amicus brief on behalf of more than 40 Congressmen and women, asking to dismiss the suit. According to the ACLJ website, they disagree with the plaintiffs, explaining that the “expressions echo the sentiments found in the Declaration of Independence” and that “the First Amendment does not compel the redaction of all references to God just to suit atheistic preferences.”

If the FFRF wins the suit, the ACLJ fears other references to the motto and God found in government buildings – like the one found in the chambers of the House of Representatives – will also be in jeopardy.

Do you believe that the national motto endorses a religion? Should all references to God in government buildings be removed, as they might offend those who choose not to identify with a religion?

Friday, 13 November 2009

Stuff Christians Like: Building Kindergartens in Vietnam

The blogosphere is a surprisingly powerful thing. Celebrities are made, rumors are spread, and people are united all in one abstract, digitally existent universe. Revelife is a part of this world, and there are many other more popular Christian blogs out there. One such blog is called Stuff Christians Like.
Written by the young and vibrant Jon Acuff, Stuff Christians Like is a site dedicated to explaining—and sometimes poking fun at—the things that some might consider characteristic of Christians. Here are some of my favorites:

#106. The Side Hug
#129. Chick-Fil-A
#254. Secretly wanting to name your son “Aragorn” or your daughter “Arwen.”
#476. Facebook friend suggesting Jesus.

These examples are all humorous, but Acuff also hits upon some serious issues. Recently, he discussed the plight of starving children in third world countries. After feeling the weight of the issue on his shoulders, he contacted Samaritan's Purse and asked them how he could help. They responded by telling him about a kindergarten that needed to be built in Vietnam.

“It costs $30,000,” Jon wrote in his blog on November 9th. “I’d like to raise it by December 31, 2009.”

It only took 18 hours to raise the money. Rather than simply rejoicing and going back to life as usual, Jon raised the bar: he decided to go for two. In the last four days, Jon and his readers have raised almost enough money to build two kindergartens in Vietnam, and from the looks of things, there's no end in sight.

“What blows me away about this whole thing,” writes fellow blogger Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine, “is that it’s an awesome example of how God can use people and potentially trivial media such as blogs and Twitter to change the world. Sure, you can keep blogging about your cat and tweeting about your Starbucks order if you want to, or you could set your sights a little higher.”

It's so easy to write blogs off as inconsequential; it's so easy to write Revelife off as nothing more than a place where some of us get to write posts and everyone else gets to criticize them. What Jon has proven through the example of his blog is that there is something much bigger going on here. We have the ability to do something huge with this site, and it makes me wonder...

What do you think Revelife could do if we all banded together? Who would you like to see Revelife help, and in what way?

Thursday, 12 November 2009

The Bible, Coming to an XBox 360 Near You

This week's release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 broke video game sales records despite the economic downturn and the typical consumer's lighter wallet. Make no mistake about it: video games are quickly becoming the forefront of digital media.
Which is why it should be no surprise to know that Christians are entering into the video game industry. The games that have been produced until now have been largely reproductions of already successful games, like Praise Band, the Christian alternative to Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Yet a division of LifeWay Christian Resources is coming out with a completely new kind of Xbox 360 application unlike any game currently on the market for the console: Bible Navigator X.

Sure, the name implies that one will be soaring Luke Skywalker-style through the famous stories of the Bible, but the application is no game at all; it is actually the entire Bible made available for the very first time on a major gaming console.
More Here...

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

The Blame Game of Fort Hood: Christians Should Stay Out

Do any Google news search for “religion,” “faith,” or “christianity” and you'll find articles written about what occurred at Fort Hood, Texas, last week. It is a tragedy that all of America is trying to understand and come to terms with, and we all have different ways of coping with tragedy. A seemingly more common coping mechanism for this tragedy is that of placing blame.
One entity being harshly criticized is the US government. “Finger-pointing erupted between federal agencies Tuesday over Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan,” reads a recent Associated Press article. “Government officials said a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan's contacts with a radical imam months ago, but a military official denied prior knowledge of the Army psychiatrist's contacts with any Muslim extremists.”

Even the soldiers at Fort Hood, some of whom were likely the shooter's victims, are being blamed for the massacre. According to ABC News, “his cousin says he was the target of constant harassment from others in the military. His tormentors called him a 'camel jockey,' said his cousin, Nader Hasan.”

Of course a more obvious scapegoat is the Muslim faith. The New York Daily News reports that “Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood massacre an act of 'Islamist extremism' - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers.” Some have even suggested screening Muslim-Americans before they enter the military. Jon Soltz, a veteran of the Iraq war, writes in his Huffington Post blog:

Brian Kilmeade asked if it's time to have "special debriefings" or "special screenings" of all Muslims in the military. Because, as he said, "If I'm gonna be deployed in a foxhole, if I'm gonna be deployed in an outpost, I'm gonna want to know that the guy next to me isn't gonna want to kill me."

He concludes by saying that “trying to blame this on his religion isn't just offensive to the thousands of Muslims who fight to defend people of all faiths in this great nation, but is the height of media malpractice.”

I don't pretend to know why what happened at Fort Hood occurred, but I do know one thing: it's not going to help the Christian cause to place blame on anyone prematurely. We all want to know what happened, but the majority of us were not there, and therefore we can't make an accurate conclusion. If we point fingers at any other entity, we should also point the fingers at ourselves. For when we harshly judge and accuse groups for the actions of one person, we perpetuate the hostility.

As Christians, we are called to love, not hate. Instead of being angry and blaming the president, the government, and other religions, we can treat those involved with these entities with love and respect. If we disagree with them or their actions, we can disagree gracefully and mercifully, living an example of peace and compassion in the same way Jesus did.

We all agree that Fort Hood was a tragic incident, but the hostility that caused it will only persist if we get suckered into the blame game.

Do you believe Americans, including Christians, have the right to point fingers and place blame when a tragic incident occurs? How do Christians act gracefully when faced with these situations?

Monday, 09 November 2009

The Berlin Wall, Still Standing in Spirit

Today marks the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. On November 9, 1989, the masses living barricaded within the walls surrounding West Berlin tore down the wall, having heard on the news that East Germany would allow travel between East and West Germany. Although the physical wall is a seemingly distant memory—with the exception of a few remaining panels, the wall is virtually nonexistent, save for a line of cobblestone through a few city streets—Berlin pastor Christian Nowatzky told Christianity Today that an invisible wall still stands, separating those of differing political beliefs, cultural heritage, and faith.
“You have a huge Christian scene in the U.S. where everybody's screaming about how we're losing ground,” Nowatzky told Christianity Today writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey. “Here, the church has been losing ground for decades and really lost the ground.”

Nowatzky experienced this shift in religious belief first-hand; he was eleven years old when the wall fell down and before that lived in communist-occupied East Germany. Christianity was, in Nowatzky's words, “decimated” by communism, which could be the reason why faith is so hard for Germans today.

He explains, “Germans are very skeptical towards a conclusive ideology, because they fell prey more than once, in succession: imperialism, National Socialism, communism in the 20th century. So if someone says, well, Christ is the answer for everything, it immediately creates big problems.”

It certainly doesn't help that some of the same cultural, political, and economical differences that existed between East and West Germany still exist today. According to a recent MSNBC article, “unemployment in the former East Germany is roughly double that in the former West, and for those who do have jobs, incomes are significantly lower.” Some people even still refer to themselves as East Germans or West Germans, or Wessis and Ossis.

Nowatzky clearly understands that these differences are hard to overcome, but he believes the church can be the middle ground that unites all Germans. He says, “We can really be cultural leaders in a diversified world and in the city of Berlin, where people long for a message that unites, yet without superficially brushing over real differences.”

What memories do you have, if any, of the fall of the Berlin wall? Do you believe that Germans can be united by Christianity despite the country's deep wounds?