HOME
Message Board
CURRENT COLUMNS
- Editor's Corner
- Blogfest 2005
- Commentary
- Commentary Too
- Down The Middle
- Faulking Around
- Global Warning
- This guy walks into a bar...
- Investing 101
- Faulking Opinions
- Off The Rail
- Words
ARCHIVES
LINKS
CONTACT US
 | |||
Commentary - Sep 16, 2004 - Printable Version
- Christian Soldiers
by Down The Middle
Very soon, we will be answering that all important question, do we give President Bush a second term or hand him his eviction notice and bring in the next guy? The next guy, in this case, is Senator John Kerry. Most of our fellow countrymen, I'm sure, have already made up their minds. By now, most of us know who our family members are voting for and probably most of our co-workers, too. In fact, I can't seem to find anyone who's really "tight mouthed" about their presidential preference but it's their reasoning that befuddles me..or in some cases, their lack there of.
One of the most outspoken of these groups is the "religious right". They are convinced we are now in a "religious war of good and evil", as the President has repeated many times, and most of these people seem to be 100% behind him in his quest to convert the Middle-East to democracy, if not Christianity, itself.
I have a brother who was "reborn" a few years back, and I have to admit, he seems to have chilled out a little from his earlier days of punching everyone he didn't agree with and is a bit kinder to all those around him. His solution to the current problem is rather simple - "Kill two hundred million Muslims". Another man told me, during the standoff in Fallujah, a few months back, between the U.S. Marines and Moslem insurgents, that "We should nuke the city." Yet another suggested we should do it like "Black Jack" Pershing did in the Phillipines. (When he captured fifty Muslim insurgents, he executed forty-nine of them by shooting and threw their bodies in a pit, pouring pigs‚ blood on them before they were buried, thus, destroying any chances for their "unclean" souls to go to heaven. The one man not executed was released to spread the word of what had taken place. The insurgency stopped.)
Now, I consider myself a Christian, although, I confess, I've done a pretty lousy job of it for most of my adult life but I do, truly "believe" and am trying to get my house in order. The problem I am having is that all of this is beginning to sound a lot like the Crusades, or maybe even the "later days". I tell you now, Christianity is NOT to be spread by the sword. If we have to kill our fellow man to protect our nation, let us do it in the name of our nation, not in the name of God.
Abortion is another hot issue for our Christian countrymen, whether fundamentalist or moderate. I am personally against abortion, but, I've noticed, Bush isn't pushing too hard on the subject and hasn't attempted any legislation to overturn Roe vs Wade, even though he has a strong Republican backing in Congress. John Kerry has stated that he is against abortion, and his Church is completely and adamantly against it, but I seriously doubt we will ever see a change in the law no matter who wins the election, as it may be almost impossible to legislate to the satisfaction of the majority. After all, we don't want to send pregnant girls to the "back alley" abortionists again.
We need to change to a system where we can truly educate these young women on the horrors of clinical abortion and better provide for assistance in the care and/or adoption of the children. We also have to get back to preventing these unwanted pregnancies in the first place, whether by birth control or, yes, even abstinence. As the joke goes, "We know what causes that, now".
Not long ago, we saw how the separation of church and state is still a tremendous issue and I've heard some very good arguments from both sides of the fence. Surely our forefathers were Christian and just as surely, they knew the problems with religion having a controlling influence on the government and the people. As for what should be discussed in school, it seems quite obvious to me, both major beliefs of "Creationism" and "Evolution" should be profiled but neither taught as an absolute.
Even capital punishment will still be an issue for some. Though many churches are still very "Old Testament" in their preaching, others, like the Catholic Church, believe killing, either before or after birth, is wrong.
Whatever Christians do believe, I think we all should be skeptical of politicians who "wear their religion on their sleeve" for the purpose of gaining our votes.
Perhaps even scarier is the thought of one being convinced he is doing "God's work". After all, we're not talking about feeding the poor here. We're talking about what is perhaps the greatest of all evils...war.
Voice your opinion on our message board (you don't have to sign up to post).