Category: Culture
Opinion: Responding to ‘The Response’
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Bill Leonard. He considers himself, “old-timey Baptist”, which are the kind of Baptist that I usually associate with reasoned Christian faith and practice in a nation embracing pluralism. I found his opinion piece on the Associated Baptist Press refreshing. Sadly, I doubt he will be interviewed by any major news outlet about the geo-religious and political worship that happened in Houston over the weekend. Here are a couple of paragraphs and a link. It is worth a few minutes of your day.
Opinion: Responding to ‘The Response’
by Bill Leonard | Associate Baptist Press | Aug. 4, 2011The organizers’ concerns for America are unapologetically Christ-centered. Sponsors reflect a largely evangelical coalition from various churches, denominations and faith-based programs. Preparations have the feel of a revival crusade, aimed at exalting Jesus and promoting a particular Christian witness in the public square.
So why does that witness require sanction and support from the governor of Texas, who is listed as the “Initiator of The Response?” If the event’s primary purpose involves “a recognition of the power and might of Jesus to save all who call on His great name,” why depend on the prestige and politics of a governor’s office?
Since many of “The Response” sponsors want government out of multiple aspects of American life, why not start here? A religious community that benefits from one governor’s invitation today is only one election away from being on the outside tomorrow. Governmental sponsorship of one kind of prayer is a bad precedent. In the end, perhaps there really are no Christian nations, only Christian people, bound to Christ not by citizenship but by faith.
Atonement Theology: The Ideological Root of Christian Terrorism
I read a blog titled, Two Friars and a Fool, a couple of times a week and came across this post from discussing the root of “Christian” terrorism. Many have revisited this topic after the bomb and shooting in Norway. It is a worthy conversation and exploration of how there are segments of Christianity as “radical and violent” as there are Muslim, Jewish, and other religious “freedom fighters.” And like the mainstream of Muslims, most Christian celebrity TV preachers, radio hosts, or mainline denominational leaders say nothing to refute the violence in the name of God. A few paragraphs and a link for you to read more.
Atonement Theology: The Ideological Root of Christian Terrorism
Posted on August 2, 2011 by AricClark | Two Friars and a FoolThe Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who borrowed Timothy McVeigh’s strategy to blow up a public building, outdid him by gunning down dozens of young people at a camp after the explosion. Both were young Caucasian men who wanted to provoke a cosmic war to save Christendom and rescue society from multicultural religious pluralism. Both were Christian terrorists, “crusaders” in ancient terms.
Atonement theology says, “Jesus died so we might live.” It suggests that the torture and murder of crucifixion is “good.” This proscribing and prescribing life from a model of trauma after violence is a dreary way to live. It tends to squeeze all the beauty, joy, and inebriating juice out of life for the sake of a perpetually unrequited promise of post-mortem salvation.