Faith

From a Reuters article on AOL News by Rebecca Harrision:

Billed as the world's first black Jesus movie, "Son of Man" portrays Christ as a modern African revolutionary and aims to shatter the Western image of a placid savior with fair hair and blue eyes. The South African film, which premieres on Sunday at the U.S. Sundance festival in Utah, transports the life and death of Christ from first century Palestine to a contemporary African state racked by war and poverty. Jesus is born in a shanty-town shed, a far cry from a manger in a Bethlehem stable. His mother Mary is a virgin, though feisty enough to argue with the angels. Gun-wielding authorities fear his message of equality and he ends up hanging on a cross. "We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spindoctors and to strip that away and look at the truth," director Mark Dornford-May told Reuters in an interview. "The truth is that Christ was born in an occupied state and preached equality at a time when that wasn't very acceptable." By portraying Jesus as a black African, Dornford-May hopes to sharpen the political context of the gospels, when Israel was under Roman occupation, and challenge Western perceptions of Christ as meek, mild and European. "We have to accept that Christ has been hijacked a bit -- he's gone very blonde haired and blue-eyed," he said. "The important thing about the message of Christ was that it is universal. It doesn't matter what he looked like."

Joel Stein recently published a provocative article in the LA Times with the first line "I DON'T SUPPORT our troops":

I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on. I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas. And I've got no problem with other people - the ones who were for the Iraq war - supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of. But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken - and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward. Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there - and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake. Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach." The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

He goes on to make what may be the most controversial assertion of the article...that the soldiers on the ground bear some of the blame for the mistakes that have been made:

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood. But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

Hewitt and Malkin ripped him a new one over it. Admittedly, I don't really get why soldiers bear any more responsibility than the politicians who give them marching orders or the public that elected the politicians. But I think there is a point to be made about supporting the troops. Ribbons and decals and bumper stickers probably do have some meaning to a soldier that sees them, but in the grand scheme of things, trinkets and slogans aren't that useful. There are a bunch of more meaningful suggestions at the americasupportsyou.mil web site such as donating a computer, donating frequent flyer miles, supporting scholarship funds, sending a care package, etc. It reminds me of how annoying it is when in a time of trajedy some says "keep them in your thoughts and prayers" but often prayers are left out for the more PC version "keep them in your thoughts." Thoughts won't make much of a difference. It's the actions that can make a difference. From 1 John 3:

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

From an article titled "5 Reasons Torture is always Wrong" by David P. Gushee in Christianity Today:

1. Torture violates the dignity of the human being.
2. Torture mistreats the vulnerable and violates the demands of justice.
3. Authorizing torture trusts government too much.
4. Torture dehumanizes the torturer.
5. Torture erodes the character of the nation that tortures.

It is past time for evangelical Christians to remind our government and our society of perennial moral values, which also happen to be international and domestic laws. As Christians, we care about moral values, and we vote on the basis of such values. We care deeply about human-rights violations around the world. Now it is time to raise our voice and say an unequivocal no to torture, a practice that has no place in our society and violates our most cherished moral convictions.

ChristianityToday.com has compiled a list of the best Christian albums of 2005. We've never been that into contemporary Christian music, but that seems to be changing. During 2005, we saw three of the artists from the "best of" list live in concert (Andrew Petersen, Sara Groves, and Jars of Clay).

#12 Ashley Cleveland - Men and Angels Say
#11 House of Heroes - House of Heroes
#10 Eisley - Room Noises
#9 Bart Millard - Hymned No. 1
#8 Andrew Peterson - The Far Country
#7 Jars of Clay - Redemption Songs
#6 4th Avenue Jones - Stereo: The Evolution of HipRockSoul
#5 Sara Groves - Add to the Beauty
#4 Mae - The Everglow
#3 David Crowder Band - A Collision or (3+4=7)
#2 Over the Rhine - Drunkard's Prayer
#1 Switchfoot - Nothing Is Sound

A quote from my Franklin Planner on MLK day:

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. - Martin Luther King, Jr.