American's most-read Christian youth magazine, Group, is a shocker.
Whilst major media networks were airing reports about a crass “Jesus Loves Osama” billboard in Sydney, Australia, Group magazine, America, was hawking Osama-sensitive lessons across the States. Stunningly, the latter was ignored.
In the religious magazine’s February issue, for instance, churches are invited to make a magazine art gallery. “We often cut out pictures,” explains Kevin Davis, a youth leader from North Carolina, “to use as visual hooks for a wide variety of lessons.”
There is, for some inexplicable reason, a glowing photograph of Osama posted to a door. Below the terrorist’s image is a little sign with a question “Do you love me?”
In his article, Davis writes about how his quaint youth group will “cut out pictures of people that seem hard to love – convicted criminals, Osama bin Laden, Jack Nicholson – whomever.” You know. According to Davis, this is part of a lesson on “forgiveness or loving your neighbor,” even if they have beheaded your children by brunch.
So what do teens do with an image of, say, Osama? “We tape these pictures to the walls of the hallway leading up to our meeting room or hang them from our ceiling,” explains Davis. “We also tape on or hang little signs with questions such as, “Do you love me?” or “Could I get a hug?” or “How far would you go to love your enemy?”
Surprise, surprise; youth leaders are leading impressionable readers to an obscure bible passage (taken out of historical context, of course) in order to deliver a point on "loving" and "forgiving" Islamists – and other assorted nuts.
Amazingly, learners are not given verses to explain why tyrants will burn in hell forever. Another problem with this lesson is that Jesus told us to “love” our personal enemies generally, but not child rapists or the local anti-Christ specifically.
As the editor of Group, a magazine devoted to equipping churches, Rick Lawrence, in my view, owes America an explanation. This is beyond parody.
The magazine’s latest issue, after all, is pushing what I call a “politically correct gospel.” Forget the Bible’s masculine pro-war ethic.
Lawrence believes that: “As adults – parents or youth workers – our first responsibility is to engage in kids’ media influences firsthand.” But, again, does this argument justify the trivialization of 9/11?
Elsewhere, Rick Lawrence writes about the dangers of the “Baghdad-like world of Grand Theft Auto,” in order to impress his “anti-war” readers, no doubt. Apparently, today’s Iraq is no different than a violent video game – and Osama may need a hug.
In reality, however, pacifists would be better off writing about the "Washington D.C.-like world of Grand Theft Auto." The Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000 is relatively small. Washington D.C., by way of contrast, is home to 45 violent deaths – excluding partial birth abortions – per 100,000. You do the math, King Solomon.
(Tonight’s Youth Trivia Questions: If Iraq’s death rate is the issue, then shouldn’t the Democrats pull out of America’s capital too? Also, how can we love our enemies when we’re all dead? What’s your view Susie Sunshine? How about you, yes, Peter Positive, you? I’m busy now being killed, so please give me your answers in heaven.)
In addition to supporting the pretend peace movement, these so-called Christian lessons are harmful to young minds, a point apparently lost to the magazine’s editor.
Having good teaching skills – knowing what to teach and how to relate to teenagers – is important. For example, you wouldn’t give a 2-year old a complicated algorithm. Nor is it wise to talk to a 14-year-old about hugging a strange man with a fake tan, and a sword.
As an informed adult with a degree, I can clearly demonstrate why shouting “Jesus loves Osama” from the rooftops is biblically unsound, and insane. Yet, to post pictures of a barbarian on Church-owned property puts teenagers in an overwhelming position.
In what appears to be a case of social engineering gone wild, liberal Christians are trivializing the deaths of innocents through “selective-focusing” and other mind altering games through “interactive learning” techniques.
Keep in mind that, Jesus was a military hawk. True, he wanted his followers to love their enemies in social situations during peacetime, but that’s not the same thing as loving child-killing terrorists in war.
Indeed, Christ taught us that if a thug is guilty of encouraging a boy to engage in sin — say, terrorism, in peacetime — “it would be better for him, if a millstone were tied around his neck, and he were drowned,” a message that tells us about real, tough love.
True love, after all, is justice, and justice fuels love. But where is the “justice” in trivializing the deaths of innocent Americans? Why, in God’s name, talk about giving Osama a hug when Al-Qaeda is trying to behead your neighbors’ kids?
Now is the time for real men to talk about millstones and not “hug fests.”
Source: Group Magazine, January/February, 2007. "Slow Down and Think," by Rick Lawrence, page 13. "Halls & Doors," by Kevin Davis, page 86.
pizzatrays@yahoo.com
http://pizzatraysandbeerbottles.blogspot.com
Read more articles by Ben-Peter Terpstra
I am quite confused about this whole column. I confess, I'm new to the blogging thing, and I've been looking for some good conservative reading. But to say that that Jesus is a militaristic hawk, who only wants us to love our enemies during peacetime is about the most off the wall opinion I have ever heard. The Bible's "masculine, pro-war ethic"? Maybe the Old Testament can be characterized this way, but the New Testament has a great deal to say about turning the other cheek. This is not to say that just war does not exist, quite the contrary, that doctrine is well established in Christianity. But one is still morally obligated to love one's enemy. This appears to me to be a crass invasion of politics into theology, and hardly deserves to be on an "intellectual" blog.
Comment by tmcothran | February 16, 2007
Amen. I can understand forgiving your enemies, but the thing that a lot of people need to understand is, you can forgive your enemy and still punish him. Wiping a slate clean for someone who will turn right back around and swing a sword your way is lunacy. As the author said, True Love is justice.
Comment by Jekken | February 17, 2007
As I've heard it rightly said, "Jesus is not a bearded woman."
No More Christian Nice Guy: When Being Nice–Instead of Good–Hurts Men, Women And Children
by Paul T. Coughlin
[The church has] "very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of
Judah, [making him] a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious
old ladies." Dorothy Sayers (from "Wild at Heart")
Comment by Michael Kilpatrick | February 17, 2007
"Turn the other cheek" has become the catch-phrase for leftists who want to use Christian theology against itself. That passage reads more fully: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Jesus was preaching against a practice prevalent among the Jews of the day to seek personal vengeance against their enemies and justify it with the law (Old Testament Jewish law says "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"). It doesn't mean that if someone breaks into your home and starts robbing your possessions that you offer him a cold drink and tell him where the safe is. It means that you don't go to his home and steal his possessions in return. You have him arrested and dealt with through the law. Without historical context, the verse seems ludicrous and seems in fact to contradict other areas of the Bible.
Nevertheless, Jesus was also not a military man. Never in the Bible did he support any particular military action. That wasn't his purpose. He made it clear in his conversation with Barabas that he did not come to revolt against the Roman government (which is partially why he was rejected as the Messiah by some Jews). But his teaching was most assuredly NOT that his followers should allow themselves to be wronged by evil people. Applying Jesus' teachings to Osama Bin Laden, we should personally forgive him for his actions, but we should collectively punish him for them as well. Forgiveness does not mean "free pass". Forgiveness does not mean lack of punishment. Forgiveness means that you release a person from their personal debt owed to you because of an offense. They are still responsible to the law and to God for their actions. Forgiveness in the Biblical context means that you release a man who murdered your friend from the personal offense he committed against you, and then he is subjected to whatever human punishment is established for his crime. You don't have to have the warm fuzzies for them or want to invite them back to your house for dinner.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 18, 2007
it was kinda easy for Jesus to be what he was, being the son of God and all, he could come back to life and knew it as well. Unfortunately, we as normal children of 'man' cannot or were not given that gift. Once you are done you are done…At least in this world
Comment by Dean | February 19, 2007
Mulligan is correct, and we might look to Niebuhr for help here: society's "morality" differs from the individual's. Laying charges, though, that this magazine is advocating some effete Christianity seems intellectually boorish — Group perhaps hopes to transcend the unreflective positions this column so helpfully illustrates. You know.
Comment by endless_student | February 19, 2007
The problem with a billboard form of evangelism, is that it has to be hype and sensation. The Ministry of Jesus Christ would not demonstrate such grand standing evangelism. Our Lord was not a crowd pleaser or promotional ad campaign pragmatist. I believe that even if such a statement bears a grain of truth, the message of Jesus Christ is distorted here.
To follow Jesus Christ requires one to count the cost.
Has O'sama Bin Laden done so?
I believe that such shock jock methods cheapen the message of Salvation through the God-Man, Jesus Christ, Son of God
What Christians need today is fearless prophets who are willing to go face to face in the public arena, not cliche type billboards of this sort.
Far better to put a few Verses of Holy Scripture on a board like that.
Try Romans 10 versus 9 and 10 perhaps.
But what can you expect from a sectarian protestant, considering how much they have sold out to the contemporary culture and its gimmicks?
Comment by muscat | February 21, 2007
First off, I would not dare to call Christ's life on earth "easy," Dean. Secondly, Jesus demonstrated for us what personal Christian self-defense and force should look like: he escaped from murderous crowds when his death would not have served God's purpose, he drove away the money-changers with a whip, and he encouraged his disciples to carry swords. Yet when God's timing was right, he willingly gave himself over to beating, scourging, and the cross, all the while forgiving and loving his enemies.
With Osama, the Bible is clear: if a man takes another man's life, since men were created in God's image, that man should lose his. God commands it, Jesus is God, and therefore, Jesus' justice demands that we put Osama to death. God does indeed discipline those he loves and commands that we do the same.
The false dilemma implied in simplistic slogans as "Jesus loves Osama" is that one cannot love another while carrying out Biblical justice.
Comment by Jim | February 23, 2007