The Catholic Church excommunicates someone for having an abortion…and yet they’ve all sinned too.

The BBC is reporting today that the Vatican is backing the decision to excommunicate a mother and the doctors of a young girl who had an abortion.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support abortion at any point in a woman’s pregnancy but I don’t know what to think about the church deciding to expel its members because they sinned.  Shouldn’t the church take these people in and love them since they’re exactly the same as everyone else: THEY SIN.  I’m assuming they consider the mother and doctors’ actions murder but Jesus said that getting angry at someone was just as bad as murder.  I’m really getting sick of the hypocritical tendencies of Christian establishments.

Be happy…(rather thankful)

I don’t know if I have the energy for an angry/critical post today so I’m just going to thank God for the amazing life He has given me.  I am not hungry (and if I am I can get food by walking into the dining center,) I am not thirsty (and if I am there’s clean water in the tap,) I  don’t need to worry about disease (and if I do there’s medicine covered by insurance that will fix everything,) and I have an education (in fact I’m paying more than I’d like to for an education now.)  And on top of all that I have the funds to buy a computer, music, DVDs, etc.  I am truly blessed and I don’t spend enough time being aware of that (I gave up complacency for lent.)  So today I’m going to praise Jesus for everything.  You should do the same…

(Don’t worry more anger soon when I talk about my college’s $52 million athletic center that’s about to be built…)

Preaching instead of helping

Today I was downtown depositing money and I saw a man on the street corner shouting Bible verses, in what I’m assuming was an attempt to convert/influence those who haven’t been “saved.”  After I finished depositing the money in the bank I was walking back to catch a bus and saw the guy again.  Now just down the street is the downtown location of the department store Target, which tends to be an area that homeless people hang out because there’s a foyer area that they don’t get kicked out of, a resturant that is supposed to only let people stay for a half an hour (I’m assuming so the homeless can’t stay there for very long) and if nothing else an area to sit outside.  So what’s the problem?  Maybe instead of wasting his time yelling at people (because let’s be honest, yelling about anything rarely works) and helped someone who (especially on a frickin cold day like today) probably needs a meal, or at least someone to talk to.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to talk to him, or help one of the homeless people near Target but it certainly made me angry.

It’s time for Christians to act like Jesus would.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3358i_hello-angry-christians-pat-condell_shortfilms

I just watched this video on Dailymotion.  It breaks my heart.  Pat has clearly never had a good experience with a Christian person the only reason being that he disagrees with what they believe.  It’s absurd that Christians have told him that they can’t wait for him to burn in hell.  Those Christians need to take a second and look at their faith because that is NOT how Jesus would have acted.  It is important to emphasize the fact that without Jesus you will go to hell but you cannot go around yelling that at people and expect them to want to learn about Jesus.  He may never find out what Jesus is really like and Christians are to blame.

Christians: read you Bible and figure it out because in many cases you are not acting the way Jesus taught you.

Born Again American? Not me.

I know it’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve posted something but this made me so angry that I couldn’t resist.

A professor sent me a link to this site (which right away annoys me a little bit since it had nothing to do with the class: Public Communication,)  Born Again American.  First let me express my view of patriotism, and related topics (it involves some religion, brace yourself if that’s a problem.)  I don’t feel I owe America anything.  Of course, I enjoy the freedom that has been established, not necessarily created, by the Founding Fathers of this country, but those freedoms are luxuries, not necessities.  My primary purpose on this Earth is to serve Jesus (which often means serving other people.)  America hasn’t contributed to that in any way.  While the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech have made it easier for me to become and develop as a Christian, these freedoms are not responsible for my religious beliefs.  Through Jesus I have freedom from sin, which is infinitely more important than any other freedom America or any other country could offer me.

Of couse these are my beliefs, not something that I think everyone should follow; if you wish to be patriotic I have no problem with that (although I may consider it foolish and I would encourage you to reconsider what you think.)

To reference Rob Bell’s ideas that I echoed in an earlier post, Americans love to use the phrase “God Bless America,” but hasn’t America already been blessed?  We live in what has been described as the most powerful empires ever to exist on this planet.  Many of us are among the 8% of world citizens who own a car.  We just passed a near $800 billion stimulus package to help our economy recover.  In one year we spend the same amount of money on ice cream that it would take to cure world hunger for one year.

We are so rich.

Here’s what bothers me about Born Again American.  Half of the world (3 billion people) live on less than $2 a day.  I can buy a cup of coffee that costs more than that.  Remember that disease called polio?  Half a century ago it was a pretty scary thing, now not really at all.  I don’t think to myself “Should I be concerned about getting polio?” all the time, I just know that I don’t have to worry about it.  People in third world countries?  Not so much.  Tuberculosis, polio, AIDS, all these diseases that most Americans don’t even know the symptoms of are real dangers to people who live in the world’s poorest countries.  The lack of clean drinking water kills more people per day that ANYTHING.  But why should I care?  I live in America.  I’m Born Again American.  We have water purification plants here.  We have vaccines and medication.  We have food.  I can go to Starbucks and get my $4 coffee and not once think about the people that I could have fed with that money.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand this is a gigantic issue but I believe that charities and aid organizations aren’t the answer.  The problem is even too big for them.  So how are we going to fix this?

The war in Iraq has cost us 1 trillion dollars.  We have passed two “bailout” bills in the past 6 months totalling 1.5 trillion dollars.  The UN estimates that to solve the hunger problem, get clean water for everyone and provide basic medical assistance for everyone in the world it would cost $40 billion (that’s not exactly a solid fact, more like a compilation of a few different sources but the idea is the same.)  Let say we take half that money (1.25 trillion dollars) and spend it on what we did.  War, freedom, economic delight, etc.  And we take the other half and give it to the people who are dying because they don’t have that $2 to make that day happen for them.  We just bought the world around 30 years of relief from poverty.  And it might not even cost that much because some of that money goes towards building wells and other things that once built don’t require the same amount of money every year to maintain.

How’s that for improving our image abroad?

How’s that for being Born Again American?

I do want to be Born Again American but not in the way that www.bornagainamerican.org is.  I want to throw off the materialism and greed and ignorant ideas that run rampant in this country and instead be generous and thoughtful and respectful to those that don’t have as much as I do (to be cliche, those less fortunate than I.)

That’s being Born Again American.   Not committing to being in love with my country and doing whatever it asks me.

In writing this post I have made myself sick, disgusted, frustrated.  We have so much but we’re so stingy that we don’t feel that we can help others who don’t have as much.  I am so angry that people die every night because they don’t have enough food to eat and I eat 3 times a day.  The Bible talks about how Jesus had a heart for the poor.  Above everything else (although he loves everyone equally) he cared about the poor and the women and the children.  I’m afraid we’ve lost that in the American Christian Church.  We’re so satisfied but we never think to give thanks, much less give some of the immense amount of funding that we possess to those who are about to die because no one has ever said “Here you take some of this, I don’t need all of it.”  Let me reiterate: this is life or death for these people.  It’s not “Oh my stomach hurts, I haven’t eaten anything all day.”  It’s “If I don’t find something to eat tonight I could die.”

Please don’t consider yourself “Born Again American,” at least not like the people on the website do.  That’s misplaced pride.

Born Again American’s website says “I hear the calling once again, my country needs me now.”

America doesn’t need you.  The people of Zimbabwe and Haiti and Kenya and Sudan, among so many others, need you.  America does not.

If this post has inspired you to take action against this disgusting issue these are some great places to start:

1. Call/Write to/Email your representatives, president, senators, mayor, city council, anyone who has any sway.  They have money.  They have influence.  They need to hear that you care about this and that you are willing to sacrifice for someone other than yourself or the other rich people of America.

2. The One Campaign–All you have to do is sign petitions that they email.   Their slogan is “We don’t want your money, we just want your voice.”  Brilliant.

3. Charity Water–Like I said lack of clean water kills more people than anything.  This organization wants to stop that.

4. Heifer International–They give livestock to families in developing countries who need it.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

5. There are myriad charities out there.  Find one that helps the extreme poor.  Give them some money.  Feel better about yourself.  Repeat.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?

I’m speechless:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/11/20/harvey.home.destroyed.wave

A happy post…

After a fairly long hiatus of sorts, the blog is back.  I know it’s a little late to announce this but I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts:

Ladies and gentlemen, recently, America reached a milestone: We have elected the first African American president in the history of our country.

And mark my words: This is only the beginning. In the next 50 years there is no telling what we’ll accomplish in the field of equality and social justice but one thing is for sure.  As monumental as the election of an African American is, the strides that we will take next will be ten times as monumental.

It is truly a remarkable time, not only for African Americans but for all of America: black, white, red, yellow, male, female, gay, straight, Hispanic and non-Hispanic.  We are truly living in times of change.

Regardless of your thoughts about his politics, please respect Mr. Obama for the change that he has brought to the racial fabric of this country.  He is a figure that inspires hope for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, in any situation.

When asked if the American people could elect a black man as their president, they replied: “YES WE CAN.”

This is why I hate politicians…

This video is from CNN (regardless of your feelings of the bias or lacktherof of CNN this is still a great example of my frustration regarding politicians) and features Campbell Brown grilling Tucker Bounds about Sarah Palin’s experience in foreign policy.  Basically the aide defends all of Browns questions with weak and often off topic responses that in the end fail to answer what Brown was asking.  This is what frustrates me about politicians.  When asked about a topic that they either don’t have the answer to or can’t answer positively they return a response that doesn’t answer the question and often simply frustrates the viewer.

Let me also state this: I have not yet decided who I will vote for and although at this time I am leaning towards voting for Barack Obama, I believe John McCain is just as qualified to lead this country.  While this video features, and my criticisim is focused on a member of the Republican party, there are certainly politicians in the Democratic party who would give the same off topic responses to very direct and very clear questions.

Video Link

We are so rich

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth…but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

-1 Timothy 6:17 (NIV)

The following is a part of the NOOMA video series that Rob Bell produces, which some Christians will recognize. He has a great point and I think every American should watch this…

Description from NOOMA website:

There’s a popular bumper sticker that reads “God Bless America,” but hasn’t America already been blessed? It’s easy for us to fall into a mindset of viewing “our” world as “the” world, because it’s all we generally see. We’re constantly bombarded with images of the latest styles and models of everything, and it can easily leave us feeling like what we have isn’t enough because we see people that have even more than us. But how does what we have compare to what most people in the world have? Maybe what we have is enough; maybe it’s more than enough. Maybe God has blessed us with everything we have so we can bless and give to others.

Visit the NOOMA website to buy the full video.

China apparently isn’t good enough for the Olympics, so the government has to lie to make it look better.

Ironically my first post on this blog involves Chinese materialism rather than American, but either way, here we go.

CNN Video

Apparently the Chinese government needs to lie to make their country look good.  CNN reported 2 stories about this subject today, one being the fact that the girl who sang at the Opening Ceremony was really just lip syncing.  The real singer was not “flawless in image, internal feeling and expression,” according to the musical director of the ceremony.  The second involved the government adding fireworks to the some video streams of the Opening Ceremony to make the fireworks seem more spectacular.  These issues come after it was reported that China spent $100 million on the Opening Ceremony, a part of the $40 billion that the government spent to prepare for the Games.

It’s not so much that the Chinese are willing to falsify information to make their country look better because I know organizations in the US do the same thing, it’s more that apparently as humans we feel this incredible need to lie to appear good at something, and that China decided to spend a ridiculous amount of money on preparing for the Games that could have helped alleviate the millions of Chinese people who live in poverty.  Apparently looking put together is much more important than actually having a country that works.

Aside from these issues, China’s terrible human rights record and support of the Darfur genocide have convinced me that I don’t really need to pay attention to the Olympics, I’ll spend my time on something that can actually make a difference