What Ireland can teach the U.S. about the separation of church and state

I read this the other day on my Android via The Week app. Thought my readers might enjoy it too. It's a sobering reminder that even if the U.S. were to suddenly outlaw abortion and teach Christianity in the schools, like many religious conservatives want (or at least something close to that), that's not going to magically solve our nation's problems. History shows that when religion is mandated by the State, people become less religious, not more religious. -----Aaron

By Tish Durkin

I never thought I'd find myself living Rick Santorum's dream, but here I am. After all, I live in Ireland, where there has never been any of the "absolute separation of church and state" that Santorum and a politically significant, passionately committed bloc of like-minded religious conservatives abhor. Far from limiting state involvement in religion, the Irish constitution enshrines it. There isn't just prayer in most public schools; there is full-on Christian — almost always Catholic — education. (Just last week, on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, my 6-year-old skipped in from her government-funded school with a cross of soot on her forehead.) Government agencies sometimes give cash to poor families to help cover the costs of First Holy Communion and Confirmation finery; recently, when the continuation of this practice in fiscally strangled times caused a public outcry, the objection was that such grants were unaffordable, not that they were religious.

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Violence in Egypt forces Christians to pray in their homes

Pastor George, a church pastor who partners with Open Doors in Egypt, had just returned home from a prayer meeting in the house of a believer shares, “We cannot go to the church. In every street is a mosque, where Muslims can go to, but there are few churches and most people feel unsafe.” As a result of the danger of going to churches, Christians are coming together in houses for praying for their country." We see that the uproar could lead to a better Egypt and that things could turn out for good, but we do not know yet. The people are afraid for the future, since this is an extremely critical time. But we trust in God, and we hope and pray for a new Egypt, with democracy and freedom for Christians.”

Pastor George adds, “The situation on the streets is difficult. We hear gunshots and people are killed on the streets. We also are having problems with the provision of our food. The infrastructure in the country is under pressure.” According to Pastor George the work of his church in Egypt, in partnership with Open Doors, has come to a standstill. “Our co-workers and other volunteers cannot go to their ministries or work anymore,” says George. “Road blocks, lack of public transportation and curfew are all hindering this. Banks have been already closed for a week and the ATMs are empty. Almost everything in Egypt runs by cash money, and that is finished for almost all Egyptians.”

The current crisis in Egypt is challenging for Christians and they are calling on the church in the West to unite in prayer with them for the future of their country. Dr. Carl Moeller, president/CEO of Open Doors USA says, “The events of recent days show that while the majority of Egyptians support the existence of the Coptic church, many more Muslim Egyptians, while not militant, are religiously opposed to those who convert from Islam to Christianity. Muslim Background Believers continue to face widespread hostility simply for wanting to exercise religious freedom and change their religion from Islam to Christianity.

“It is also causing many to consider the consequences of a potentially more radical Muslim government replacing the current regime. While the situation is still very unclear, the potential for any power vacuum to be filled with extremist political groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood is very real and could have grave consequences,” says Moeller. “This is a time for the entire body of Christ to pray for the church in Egypt and the entire region. It is also a time for all peoples of every religion to come together and work for true freedom, democracy and peace.”

Egypt is ranked No. 19 on the Open Doors 2011 World Watch List of the 50 worst persecutors of Christians. On New Year’s Day a suicide bomber killed 21 Christians and injured hundreds of others in front of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria. Last month an Open Doors team visited Egypt where a Coptic Christian brother shared this message.

The devil said to Jesus, “I killed 21 of your people” (Referring to the bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria). Jesus replied, “You did not kill 21. You sent them to Me and you mobilized the church to pray.”

Father we unite today in prayer asking for a peaceful end to the demonstrations with no more casualties; protect your flock and shield them from injury and further bloodshed. Also we ask that You richly provide them with provisions of food and resources so that Your work can continue in Egypt unhindered. We know that some demonstrators want to cause harm to the country and Christians, and have hidden agendas. We pray that their schemes will be thwarted and that their intentions will be exposed. And, if there is a change of power in the government we ask that it ultimately results in complete freedom of religion for Christians and other minorities. Father You are sovereign and in control of all the details. We give thanks in advance for being “our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1) Amen.

If this story has touched you, please share your thoughts with us below:

Source: Open Doors

Still following Jesus...But not for the reasons you might think

I got an interesting e-mail this morning. I left the person's name out in the interest of privacy. Notice my response. What do you think?

Question:

I came across your blog after watching the movie Jesus Camp and reading your interview with Pastor Tim O'brien. I was born Jewish, after my parents divorced, my mother remarried and my step-father, who basically introduced my to Christianity. After being in a Protestant Church for some time, my step-father felt the need to return to his Catholic roots, and we convert to Roman Catholic Church when I was in middle school. In high school i began to doubt my faith, and now that I'm in college I would consider myself an atheist. The arguments that led me to my current convictions could not be answered by my father or our local priest, and so I would like to see if you can take a stab at them...

1. The idea that the human race began from two individuals?
Answer from father and Church: The story is symbolic, the importance being that God created the first humans, and that we are separated from animals through the soul.
Further Questions arisen: How do we tell which stories are symbolic from the bible and which are not? Can we take any words from the bible literally? Other than obvious reasons of why this is scientifically false such as problems with cross breeding, ask the European royalty, I found this idea to be very troublesome as evolution and the progression of man from our monkey brothers becomes more and more viable with more and more evidence.

2. The idea that the bible is infallible, written through humans by God?
The earliest version of the bible that we have found was written around 350AD. Which means that the words that people take as the true words of Jesus Christ were passed down orally for over three hundred years. I know a belief of Christians is that humans are morally bad or corrupt, so I ask has it ever crossed your mind or any Churches minds that the words that are seen in todays bibles may be different from what Jesus said. But the bible is still quoted and accepted as the absolute truth and the words of God. From written evidence we found today, there is no way to know that some human along the way did not change any of the stories or words. If you have ever taken a history class, you would come to a conclusion that the new testament is a weak secondary document at most.

3. That god is outside of time...
One idea that frustrates me to the core is the idea that god has everything planned ahead of time. That he has a plan for everyone and that God planned the coming of christ since the beginning of time. Time, defined by the constant expansion of the universe is a nifty little thing that makes sure that not everything happens at the same time. For God to know what will happen in the future, he would then have to be outside of time, therefore knowing how every position and action would happen before it happens. To disprove this I will not turn to science, but to Christianities own infallible source: the bible. Anything that could disprove this theory would be any passage that says God changed his mind, for instance after flooding the world, won't even go into that one, God realized that killing every human other than Noah was a bad thing and promised to never do that again, oh wait did he change his mind?

Well I won't take up any more of your time, but I found your blog interesting and wanted to know if you could offer any answers to the questions I have.

Thanks

Answer:

Thank you for writing. You bring up a lot of issues. I appreciate your honesty. So let me be honest back. I'm a follower of Jesus not because I have everything figured out. Not because I can explain how time works and how God fits into that equation (though if you're interested in the subject, I'd check out Greg Boyd's website He's a Jesus follower with some unorthodox views on this matter) . I follow Jesus not because I have it figured out which passages in the Bible are more literal than others. Frankly, that's not so important to me anymore. I don't even follow Jesus because I can substantiate everything written in the New Testament, though there's a guy named Josh McDowell that's an expert on that sort of thing, perhaps you should look him up, but again, not the point. Point being, I follow Jesus for none of these reasons. Even if there was no heaven above or hell beneath, I'd still follow Jesus.

Why?

Because His life and teachings are so stinking compelling! Jesus was a man of the people, a champion for the oppressed, a critic of the establishment, a thorn in the side to the rich and the powerful, and above all, a friend of sinners. His kindness and compassion knew no limits. I love how He went out of His way to upset the religious establishment of His day by befriending harlots, Roman soldiers, tax collectors, and Samaritans. I don't know any teaching more compelling than "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who persecute you." I'm sickened that most of my Christian friends don't take His teachings more seriously in their attitudes towards war-- but don't get me started. Because just when I feel myself getting self-righteous, I'm reminded that Jesus said, "Judge not lest you be judged" and "Remove the plank in your own eye before considering the speck in your brothers eye." When Jesus was on the cross, He prayed for His torturers "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." If God is like Jesus, then that's good news for everybody.

This is why I follow Jesus.

Everything else is icing on the cake.

Peace,

Aaron

A Muslim makes the case for Christ--from the Koran!

Over the past few days, I've been privy to a private e-mail exchange with some very influential people (including best selling authors and high level politicians) about how followers of Jesus should engage the Muslim world. For accountability purposes, the conversation thread was cc'd to a few influential Muslims. Here is a response from a devout Muslim on the question of whether a Muslim can follow Jesus and still be a Muslim. I'm not endorsing everything he says here, but I do think that Christians in the West, especially American Christians need to be better educated as to what the Koran actually says about Jesus. It's so easy to stereotype Muslims as anti-Jesus, as if every Muslim thinks about Jesus the way that Bin -Laden thinks about Jesus. That's never been true, and it's not true today. Christians and Muslims indeed have some theological differences, perhaps even irreconcilable differences, but the differences are far less than what we might think, especially when we allow the texts to speak for themselves.

I've posted his words with permission:

I agree that Evangelist Churches in America are subject these days to kind of panic and their bosses sometimes act without showing great sense of responsibility. By the way, we have often seen such extreme behaviors and Manichean philosophy (world I only between very good and very bad and nothing in the middle) in this over passionate environment.

However, the fact is that their fears and worries are not out of scope and in my view it would be a mistake to rush blaming them and even more dangerous, to confront them. They will simply never accept it.

But what about the other side? Muslims must make the effort and Christians and Jews must ask their Muslim friends, sometimes without indulgence, to produce this effort.

Take as an example your question 2 which in my view should be changed into: “Can a Muslim be a true Muslim if not a Follower of Jesus?” The answer is: “No” and to explain this, I’d like to propose from a strictly Koranic perspective, kind of an overview…. Again, strictly Koranic… Not New Testament, not Old Testament… only Koran… In advance I want to apologize for the length of my message.



On behalf of Allah, Muhammad recited once a verse:

“Yes, We have given Moses The Book and after him, we have followed with the Envoys and We have given The Credentials to Jesus and We endowed Him with the Holy Spirit”… (S2, V87)

Audience asked questions to Muhammad about these words in particular about the exact meaning of the obviously distinguished rank granted by Allah to Jesus among all Envoys and also about who these Envoys are and whether he too, Muhammad, was an Envoy (Messenger) of Allah. And later the answers came from Allah:

“Yes you too truly are one of the Messengers”… (S2, V252)

“These Envoys, We have favored some over the others and some had spoken to Allah and We have over-ranked some of them and We have given The Credentials to Jesus, Son of Mary and We have endowed him with the Holy Spirit”… (S2, V253)”…

Each of Allah’s Envoys belongs to a certain rank. An Envoy can be only Envoy or Envoy and Prophet (Nabi) or Envoy and Prophet and Nazir, or Envoy and Prophet and Nazir and Messenger (carrying a message, Rasul) but among all Allah’s Envoys there is only one who is altogether Envoy, Prophet, Nazir, Messenger and Christ (Messiah) and this one is Jesus, son of Mary and this is because He alone, was endowed with the Holy Spirit. In the entire Koran there is not even one single Envoy and of course not one single human whom Allah endowed with the Holy Spirit as He endowed Jesus.

Muhammad recited a verse about how Allah comforted Jesus who was feeling sad because people were disputing his Status:

“Allah said: “Jesus, I shall now put an end to your life in this world, and I shall elevate You to Me and keep You away from those who have not believed in You and until the Day of Resurrection, I shall rank your Followers above those who do not believe in You and I am the One Who Judge and among all of you I shall account those who disputed Him (Jesus) and as for those who have not believed Him, I shall punish them a harsh Punishment and for them there will be no help”… (S3, V55-56)

This clearly confirms that Jesus is above all the Envoys and that from the days of Jesus life in this world and until the Day of Resurrection, people shall be judged by Allah according to whether they were Followers of Jesus or were not. Again, this divine judgment does not only count for those who lived during the days of Jesus-Christ but for all human beings who lived since these days until the Day of Resurrection…

And why is it that all creatures shall be judged at Judgment Day according to whether they were Followers of Jesus or were not? This is because Allah’s Mercy is infinite and because of such infinite mercy all sins are eligible to Allah’s Pardon except one sin that shall never been pardoned: “the sin against the Holy Spirit” (as Christians must know this also was, according to the Gospels, the exact answer Jesus made to some who asked Him which sins shall never been pardoned).

And what does “sinning against the Holy Spirit” means according to Allah? Allah gives the answer:

“There is Jesus, son of Mary, Word of Justice (Logos) about Whom they argue”…(S19, 34)

Sinning against the Holy Spirit means disputing Jesus because Jesus alone was endowed with the Holy Spirit…

Now the Big Question came: why Jesus alone was endowed with the Holy Spirit? And here came Allah’s answers which altogether form the Center and the Perimeter (Alfa and Omega) of Mystery of Faith because they cover several mysteries: Mystery of Creation of all Creatures whether Human or not Human, Mystery of Resurrection Day, Mystery of Judgment Day, All Mysteries of which Jesus is the Center. Let us read what Muhammad recited as being Allah’s answers to these questions:

On behalf of Allah, Muhammad recited:

“It is for Allah about Jesus as it was about Adam who He created from soil and said to him:”Be” and there He was” (S3, V59)

This means that mankind that has started with Adam started again with Jesus Christ.Muhammad also recited (the first Koran verse Mohammad has recited. This was around January 17, 611CE in Makka, Western Arabia):

“Recite… Recite in the name of your Lord, Who created human from a spermatozoon” (S96, V1-2).

Few months later, Muhammad recited again:

“Human must consider from what he was created… He was created from an expelled liquid”…(S86, V6-7)

I shall not quote all verses restating the same evidence (it needs a book) and shall conclude by saying that Muhammad recited several verses in which Allah has indisputably drawn the following theological understanding about the Great Mystery of Faith:

1. All humans are creatures. A human creature is a combination of a Soul and a Body so as for the entire life of the creature in this world, the Soul lives in the Body. The Body is mortal and corruptible because it is resulting from a biological process that starts with a mate between a Female and a Male and which ends up after the Female has carried the creature to finally deliver it after a certain period of time (6 to 9 months). The Soul is immortal because it comes as a single unit part of a Universal Soul that is the source of Immortality.

2. This framework is valid for all human creatures including Envoys except Jesus-Christ because Jesus Christ is the only one whose Body hasn’t resulted from a mate between his mother and father. That is exactly what the Koran says because according to the Koran Jesus is born not from a human father but from the Holy Spirit. Now since the first verse of the Koran says that all humans are created from a spermatozoon and the same Koran also says that Jesus’ Body, though delivered to life by His mother, wasn’t created from a spermatozoon but as a Holy spirit, should we not conclude that according to the Koran, Jesus is not exactly a Human? And if He is not exactly a Human, so what is He? Especially that the same Koran adds that Jesus has the power to create life, overcome death, heal sicknesses and accomplish miracles which all are divine and not human attributes?

3. When the body dies, it get corrupted while the Soul goes back to the Universal Soul until the Resurrection Day. At Resurrection Day, Soul and Body are reunified again and the Creature, Soul + Body, present before Allah for the Judgment and Allah decides whether a Creature shall be pardoned and rewarded or punished and damned. And this divine decision depends on whether during the life on earth, the Creature has been a follower of Jesus-Christ because all sins can be pardoned except the sin of disputing about Jesus Status as a Holy Spirit. This body corruption occurs for all human beings including Allah’s Envoys except for Jesus and John The Baptist who resurrected alive from death (Koran S19, V15 for John and Koran S19, V33 for Jesus noticing that in the Koran Allah testifies for John while Jesus testifies for Himself). Jesus and John’s bodies were never corrupted because they resurrected ALIVE. According to the Koran (S3, V39), John was granted by Allah that extreme privilege because he was a prophet assigned to announce the uprising of the Logos of Allah. This is the confirmation of Jesus words: ”Among all men born from the flesh, John was the greatest”…

Carl all these words come from the Koran and they are Allah’s words and it is Muhammad who recited these words. Christians do not know that Koran says what is here and more dramatic, Muslims do not know, do not understand and many of them do not accept these words though they come from the Koran…

Is it not here that our focus must be put? Is it not more than time to tell the truth about Muhammad’s life and Islam, especially to Muslims? To overcome legends and fables that Muslim Scholars from the early caliphates times have invented about Muhammad and later transformed into sacred stories? Don’t we believe that peace between nations with different believes and more specifically between Muslims and non-Muslims is a global issue and that nothing serious could come out from a so-called “inter-faith dialogue” unless this dialogue is based on the truth which is that Jesus is at the center of the entire prophecy cycle and not only one step among others in this chain?

To simply tell the truth: A Muslim does not need to convert to Christianity provided he/(s) understands that not being a Follower of Jesus takes out from any chance of salvation?

Are we not sure that once this truth shall be accepted by Muslims, Evangelists will have no more issues with Muslims?

Muslims do not need to “convert” to Christianity… They need to understand that according to Koran as recited by Muhammad, Islam is impossible for those who are not Followers of Jesus and that Salvation is through Jesus-Christ and only through Jesus-Christ.

Again, pardon me for having been so long….

Your brother,
Riad

Sometimes I think that Christians need to be reminded that we don't own Jesus. Thank you Riad for reminding us that Jesus is bigger than the religion we know of as Christianity. May the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah, the Logos of God, continue to illuminate our hearts with His light and love.

Dinesh D'Souza, the New Atheism, and Constantinian Christianity

Last week at the Innovative Evangelism Conference I got a chance to hear Dinesh D’Souza speak to a standing room only crowd. Many in the crowd were fellow evangelists, but there were a few seekers and skeptics present as well.
Dinesh D’Souza is a renowned Christian apologist known for taking on the proponents of the New Atheism (people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens). He’s also one of America’s most influential conservative thinkers.

Dinesh’s arguments from science and philosophy were well thought out. He addressed post-modern arguments against Christian exclusivism with sensitivity, breezed through the theodicy problem (the problem of why a good God allows evil to happen), and built a case for Christian morality without resorting to bashing heads with Bible verses. He even managed—rightly in my view—to avoid the trap of defending irreducible complexity as an argument for intelligent design. All things considered, I thought that Dinesh did a good job presenting arguments for the reasonableness of Christian faith. So why did I leave disappointed?

The weakest part of the presentation for me was when Dinesh defended Christianity against the charge that people in the name of Christ have committed some pretty horrific crimes against humanity, crimes like the Inquisition and the Crusades. Rather than renouncing the evil perpetrated in the name of Christ, Dinesh chose the standard apologetic response of stacking up the body count of crimes perpetrated in the name of Christ against crimes perpetrated in the name of atheism. The body count for the Inquisition? Four thousand. The body count for atheism? Millions. Christianity wins.

Not to say that there isn’t some merit to D’Souza’s argument mind you. It’s true that when you consider Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot; the body count for atheism in the 20th century alone far surpasses the body count for crimes committed in the name of Christ. D’Souza also rightly pointed out that atheism—more specifically the Marxist brand—was crucial to the philosophies of these barbaric dictators as opposed to the supposedly religious conflicts that are often really about land and resource distributions (like the Catholic/Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict).

Leaving aside the potential counter-argument that Christianity has it’s share of religiously motivated wars as well (think—the 30 years war, the Great Schism) it’s at this point that a thinking skeptic could say, “Yes, it’s true that without religion there would still be wars over land, ethnicity and political philosophies, but the thing particularly dangerous about religion is that religion provides a transcendent source that allows people to dehumanize others with the approval of their conscience”—and the skeptic would be right.

This is why Jesus—not historic Christianity—should be the object of our apologetics. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus categorically rejected violence, nationalism, and the fusion of faith with earthly power, as did His followers for roughly the first 300 years of Church history. At around 325 A.D. the church and state developed a very cozy relationship under Constantine, producing what author David Bercot from Scroll Publishing likes to call the “Constantinian Hybrid.” It seems to me that in his counter-arguments to the New Atheists moral objections to religious faith, what Dinesh defended wasn’t so much Christianity, but Constantinian Christianity—the kind of Christianity that’s very comfortable fusing faith with earthly power.

Lest I be misunderstood, I’m not suggesting that Dinesh D’Souza approved of the Crusades and the Inquisition in his presentation. It’s just that something seems awry to me when a leading Christian intellectual has to tell his fellow believers that we should all be patting ourselves on the back because our predecessors haven’t tortured and killed as many people as the predecessors of other faiths and belief systems. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not sure why a non-Christian should be impressed with that. It seems to me that once we accept Constantinian Christianity as normative, we’ve seriously lowered the bar. As a Christian evangelist, D’Souza’s presentation forced me to ask myself perhaps the toughest of all questions. To what degree does the Christianity that I’m preaching look like Jesus?

I apologize

In the Pentecostal Christian tradition, there’s a practice that has gained some ground over the past few years called identificational repentance. Taken from the examples of men like Daniel and Nehemiah in the Hebrew Scriptures (also known as the Old Testament), identificational repentance is when a group apologizes for the sins of its ancestors or when an individual apologizes for the sins of his or her family, church, or nation.

The term is a bit controversial because the word “repent” literally means “to turn the other direction.” Nobody can change his or her ways on behalf of another, so perhaps “confession” is a better word to use. Theology and semantics aside, the direction that Christianity has taken ever since the fourth century when the Church and State became one has produced an ugly monster that looks nothing like the movement that Jesus and the Apostles founded. There are many people trying to bring world Christianity back to its non-violent roots, but before that happens I think an apology is in order. So allow me.

I apologize for trampling on the teachings of Jesus and turning “love your enemies” into “kill your enemies.” I apologize for twisting Romans 13 to justify every single act of violence committed against my fellow man—as long as a “legitimate authority” perpetrates the violence. I apologize for listening to Augustine, Luther, and Calvin instead of the Apostles Peter, Paul, and James. I apologize for silly “arguments from silence” concocted by “just war theorists” to evade the clear-cut teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

I apologize for the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, the religious wars of the 17th century, the genocide of Native Americans in the Western Hemisphere, centuries of anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust, and all of the American wars that we rallied around with our crosses and our flags. Speaking of the cross, words cannot express how sorry I am for turning what should be the supreme symbol for non-violent redemptive love into a banner for blind patriotism. I apologize for confusing the Kingdom of God with the Kingdom of America. I apologize for wrapping Jesus in an American flag and turning Him into a tribal deity that we ask to bless our bombs.

I apologize for the T.V. evangelists that fleece the poor and use the money to finance Jewish settlements in the West Bank. I apologize for rallying around the Iraq war, calling for pre-emptive strikes against Iran in the name of God, failing to speak out against torture, and demonizing those that advocate for nuclear disarmament and an end to wasteful Pentagon spending. Perhaps most importantly, I apologize for my complicity in expanding the culture of empire, an empire that looks a lot like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Rush Limbaugh, very little like Jesus.

I realize that some of the things that I have mentioned are stereotypes that not every evangelical, let alone Christian, falls under. Indeed, followers of Jesus have also done much good in the world. Even in the midst of all of the terrible things I just mentioned, there have always been Christians that have shown the world a different path. For every Oliver Cromwell there’s a Mother Theresa. What grieves me is that the clear-cut teachings of the New Testament have been so perverted by so called Christians throughout the centuries that many people might confuse the perversion with the real thing, and never give the faith that I love a second glance.

My hope and prayer is that through this heart-felt apology, the harlot church might be exposed so that the church of the enemy-loving, foot-washing Jesus might shine brighter. One of Christianity’s best-kept secrets is that the New Testament is in fact an anti-war, anti-nationalist document, and that Christians for the first three hundred years unanimously and categorically rejected violence and warfare in honor of their founder. Rather than cursing the darkness, it’s time for a dedicated few to rise up and reclaim the faith. It’s time for a Reformation!