Islamist terror to start the new year in Egypt, Nigeria

That's a really great question. If the "spread the word" passages didn't exist in the bible or qu'ran, maybe there would be some semblance of harmony...

 

(you know there are churches out there that are different than the ones you're talking about, right? that talk quite a bit and have an ethos around calling out THEIR OWN hypocrisy while seeking to serve the world around them instead of judging it...i can point you to a couple in Houston if you're interested)

 

Because it is some of the most senseless and preventable violence there is, really.

Not a crime of passion or compulsion, but rather a calculated crime that takes a long time to culminate.

Fighting over resources will always happen, petty thefts, rape, murder... but the systematic killing of people for reasons pertaining to religious belief/doctrine is the most senseless form of violence there is, IMO.

 

to be fair, i think your view of the Christian faith is entirely colored by your family's church...a church that creates the impression of "us vs. them" as opposed to "how do i serve them? how do i follow in the footsteps of one who loves without condition?" If you don't believe, you don't believe...and that's fine. But please don't paint the Church with the brush of the church you knew. That brush isn't anywhere near broad enough to cover it all.

there are churches that work in that direction....who see "spread the word" as spreading love, meeting needs, and pointing to Jesus as the example, without ANY condition.

here's an example that comes to mind. there are countless others:

http://thesimpleway.org/

http://archives.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/claiborne.html



Here's a letter from the founder of that group, that seems applicable here:

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn's Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn't quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don't know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, "I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ." A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.

Now for the good news.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it... it was because "God so loved the world." That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven... but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our "Gospel" is the message that Jesus came "not [for] the healthy... but the sick." And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God's Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." On earth.

One of Jesus' most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan... you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I'm sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine... but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David... at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: "The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you." And we wonder what got him killed?

I have a friend in the UK who talks about "dirty theology" — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man's eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, "Nothing good could come." It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society's rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors... a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, "I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you." If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.


Your brother,

Shane




Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/shane-claiborne-1209#ixzz19tEJhbcg

 

Or to the million Iraqi children whose lives were 'worth it'.

 

Curious, but what does that have to do with this discussion?

 

jumping in here a bit, i personally find the "spread the word" doctrine one of the silliest aspects regarding religion, regardless of the motive behind it. Even if you're just trying to spread peace, love and harmony (groovy, dude), it still ultimately always comes across as a "forced" mission of "conversion".

If something is so good and right, one needs to just open the doors and the populace will flock to it. this doesn't seem to happen in the case of religion, which is much more of a land grab, with people as the land.

 

I'm not saying Muslims are better than Americans. I'm saying everyone's the same. The only difference being what you have to work with. One side can only work with suicide bombers. The other side has the biggest, most powerful military on the planet. I wonder which side can, and has, cause more mayhem?

Conflicts and wars have been a part of humanity since forever. The only difference between various conflicts is how awesome the weapons are. Muslims, quite frankly, have pretty sorry weapons compared to certain other nations...

 

Really? The last time I checked, the largely Muslim nations in the Middle East were raking in billions in oil money. It is not exactly like they lack power ("we have the oil you need") or money.

 

So you are saying that these are acts and declarations of war?

If so, then nobody should be shocked when there is an appropriate retaliation. After all...it's war.

 

They are largely also being killed by Islamist terrorists?

 

what exactly are we discussing? How evil Islam is? I guess the typical way to refute someone's argument in this type of discussion is to say how evil the other side is too.... I guess that's how it relates to this discussion? Are you that dumb that I actually had to explain that?

 

My friend is in Egypt, says it is absolutely a mad house over there right now. Also said that they reported there were bombs placed in the front, back, and alleyways of the church, then grenades were thrown as well.

That was supposed to be the launching point for my mid-east trip in June, I think I'll reconsider...

 

True....true.....

DD

 

Good old Stone Agia.....so forward thinking....talk about a man's club....sheesh !

DD