BattleCry

Recently, I was sent a link to a page from truthdig.com. Here is the link so you know exactly what I am talking about:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060511_battle_cry_theocracy/

Where do we begin? Well, let's focus on the first couple of lines. "Editor's Note: In this opinion piece..." Great, now we know what we're up against and can hopefully "truthdig" into this editor's arguments.

Sunsara Taylor's basic argument goes something like this: The answer to our country's deep, moral crisis won't be found listening to Ron Luce educating thousands of teenagers about the destruction of pornography, violence, and drugs, but...through opposing the Bush Administration? Huh?

That's the answer? It's obvious Sunsara Taylor doesn't have a clue what Ron Luce, BattleCry, or even Christianity is about.

"If you’ve been waiting to get alarmed until the Christian fascist movement started filling stadiums with young people and hyping them up to do battle in “God’s army,” wait no longer." -Taylor

C'mon Sunsara, with all the propoganda on your website and calling BattleCry, "God's Army," you'd swear they were handing out machine guns and machetes to 13-year-olds. You obviously don't understand the language of Judeo-Christians, nor do understand the very constitution you say you defend. Freedom of speech was never more genuinely, peacefully, or lovingly carried out then on the steps of San Francisco City Hall in March by those teenagers. As your political group, "The World Can't Wait-Drive Out The Bush Regime," hollared slanders and personal attacks on them, they turned the other cheek and said nothing."

The logic behind this—that men must be protected from the sin of sexual temptation—is what drives Islamic fundamentalists to shroud women in burkhas!" -Taylor

And because I like peanuts, I'm an elephant. No, Taylor, the reason Islamic fundamentalists 'shroud' women in burkhas is better put like this, "Accusations that modestly dressed Muslim women are caving in to male-dominated understandings of Islam neglect the reality that most Muslim women who cover by choice do so out of subservience to God, not to any human being."

For a different opinion on why Muslim women wear their burkhas, check out this article by Semeen Issa: http://www.mwlusa.org/publications/opinion/veil.html

Reading Taylor's 5th paragraph in the article starting with "Teen Mania and Battle Cry..." it's tough to wade through all the ad hominen arguments, and "insightful information," but one get's confused when she makes statements like, "This weekend’s event will include Franklin Graham, who has ministered to George W. Bush and publicly proclaimed that Islam is an “evil religion,” just after she got done blasting Islamic fundamentalists for shrouding women in burkhas! Where is the happy medium? How does one keep from drowning in a pluralistic, pseudo-tolerant, anti-Bush world!?

Oh the tragedies!

And this is where I start to wonder, "When is Taylor - whom I'm sure has thoroughly read through the Bible in it's entirety - going to take some Biblical scripture out of context and use it to build up her straw-man argument...?" How about now? She sites Deuteronomy 21:18-21 and 22:13-21, Leviticus 20:13, and Peter 2:18 as her allies. Let me say for the sake of time - if you're still reading this - that Biblical scripture needs to be read in it's context. There have been scholars who have read and studied scripture over the course of thousands of years, from it's original text to current translations, whom have cross-referenced over thousands of ancient manuscripts, all of which shows that the Bible is not to be read in the same way as "Green Eggs and Ham."

For a great link to understanding how to read the Bible, check out this:http://www.carm.org/demo/Bible/interpret.htm

Lastly, there's just too much to say about an article like this in the time I have been alotted.

"These young people need to be challenged to look around themselves and think for themselves. I am confident that if they do, many of them may find that the truly moral way to live is to throw their tremendous energies and dreams of a better world into stopping this madness and driving out the Bush regime."
-Taylor

Editor's note: Here's an idea:

How about we let BattleCry encourage young adults to live healthy lives free from pornography, violence, and drugs? Stick to the politics of kicking Bush out of office and let BattleCry stick to putting values back into our youth.

Blessings always...even to you Sunsara,

Joe

Contemporary Theology

Currently I am listening to a series of discourses by R.C. Sprouls on Contemporary Theology. In short, he is talking about Christianity's history; what it's been through, the struggles it's had, the philosophical systems it's gone through, the fragmentations, and so on.

In the first couple of CD's he is laying the backround. He's talking about the areas of confusion people have today and around in our church's. He sites three major areas of confusion being Worship, Ethics, and Church Unity. Specifically, the areas of confusion are being defined in terms of the Doctrine of God. How can the Doctrine of God - who God is, what his character is - add to the confusion in terms of Worship, Ethics, and Church Unity? The area I find most interesting is in the area of Ethics.

Who God is and what God wants is dramatically imporant if we are to understand ethics, both individually and socially. "Christian ethics," as R.C. Sprouls says, "is understood personally and socially, as being a normative discipline. It looks for standards, norms, laws that govern our behavior as well as social behavior." If ethics is merely relative, there is no standard by which to behave "good." Words like justice, oughtness, and righteousness cannot exist, atleast rationally.

However, if there is a just and righteous norm, such as God, then it is plausible to have a universal standard to govern. God becomes the norm by which we base our ethics on. We see this universal standard everyday in how people behave. We "learn," or somehow know, that cutting in line is bad, name calling is rude, and stealing is unethical. If you don't agree, remember this blog the next time you are cut off on your way to work or school. C.S. Lewis talks more about the "oughtness" that governs the universe in his book Mere Christianity.

I find R.C. Sprouls' lectures very intriguing and thought provoking.

Blessings,

Joe