The Muppets

So, thank you Texas Lions Camp for giving my kids movie tickets for Christmas. We went to see The Muppets today. I went in fully prepared to have someone crap on my childhood. Especially since I knew Jason Segel wrote it. So, after a quick run to the Dollar Tree for some candy that doesn't cost $80 (give me a break, I've got 5 kids) we went and caught a matinee.

It. Was. Great. It was smart. It was funny. Jim would have been proud.

i think that pretty well sums it up.

Make it stop.

This letter was attached to an email I got because we home school our kids. Apparently, if we home school, we are supposed to hate Muslims. (I'm going to guess I should probably hate the "gays" too.)

Never mind the complete lack of anything remotely resembling evidence to his wild, dangerous claims... No references are given, and a quick search of the Google yields little in the way of verification. Labels like "terrorist" and comparisons to the Nazis should be backed up by something, shouldn't they? Never mind all that (even though I'm pretty sure I just defined slander)...

I will pose the question again...

How does a "Christian" organization circumvent Ephesians 6:12 which tells us that our enemy is not people. Beyond this, how does that same organization further circumvent Matthew 5:43-48 wherein we are called, by The Rabbi, to "Love our enemies".

I have yet to see anything resembling an intelligible explanation.

ANGRY...

I put my angry boots on this morning. Because I don't understand. I don't understand why people that put forth teachings that are antithetical to the gospel... why organizations that use the cross as a political leverage point... why they get to call themselves Christian organizations. It disgusts me. It makes me want to ditch the label just so I'm not associated with them.

Yes, OakInitiative, Mo Ranch is hosting a Muslim Youth Group. No, Oak Initiative, Muslims are not the enemy. Allow me to deconstruct/reconstruct that sentence for the slow among you:

People... Are... Never... The... Enemy.

Never. 

Despite any scriptural posturing you would like to do, or any other fear mongering and hate speech you would like to produce, people are never the enemy. 

AND, even if they were, Christ was explicit in His instruction on how to treat your enemies.

I cannot find a single passage where Jesus mandates that we take up arms or start a political movement. In fact, his own followers were shocked and disappointed when He refused to do these very things (research the Zealots). AND Christ actually lived under an oppressive regime, not this laissez faire, do what you want, consumer culture we call a Christian nation.

Say what you would like. The beauty of this nation is that you are entitled to your opinion. But please... Please stop using the word Christian or twisting the scripture while you spout anti-christian theology.

News Flash: God is not Republican. In fact, He's not even American. In fact, She's not even just a He. Jesus wasn't Swedish, with feathered hair, a Marriot bath robe, and a beauty-pageant sash(thanks to Rob Bell for this imagery). He probably looked like a young Yehuda Krinski.

Every time in history that the cross has been used to bolster the flag under which it found itself, very bad things happened. You throw around Nazi and Gestapo labels so loosely (spits in the dirt). The Nazis used the cross to support their flag. Don't do that with ours.

worst. blogger. ever.

So, maybe it's the fact that I still have not owned the fact that I own a blog... Self-denial that I am contributing to the blather that fills the empty corners of the interwebs... Perhaps in protest I have chosen not to blog, thereby keeping the web freer of so much textual clutter.

Or maybe camp has started and I have other things that need doing.

I hate myself for doing this...

I feel like it invalidates my need to own a t shirt that reads, "I don't give a crap about your blog." It seems a bit pretentious, really. To think that anybody would want to spend any amount of time reading what I type... But here I am, a bona fide, card-carrying member of the blogosphere.

Please be gentle.