Is Christian Hypocrisy Destroying The World & U.S.?

Before Pope Francis addresses America, I thought I
would offer this great nation a religious address of my own.

Gay marriage, or the war to stop it, is a religious one.

The war against aborted babies that may or may not be kicking on a table while clinging to life that is ironically, only being sustained for the proper harvesting of the brain from this particularly described- unwilling research donor- is a religious war as well, even if Carly Fiorina tells you its about the decency of all Americans.

Marijuana? Religious, even among  Catholics (Mexican, Irish, Italian...etc.) who drink for sport but abhor dope heads and question marijuana's medicinal value over that prescribed medicine waiting to potentially be recalled or over prescribed to a depressed PTSD soldier who is likely to die from the depression or the pill addiction but not the weed.

God knows that those hooded folks used religious justification to terrorize long before Dylann Roof thought it could kick off that religious race riot that way too many so-called religious folks promised was sitting on the edge of inevitability 20 years ago or more.

Religiously conservative Jews are now promising us all that Iran is the worlds great Satan while religious Iranians say similar things about Israel and America.  Regardless of who might be right, the mere references are a tug at the heart strings of religious folks who understand man's historical journey towards a manifest anti-Christ destiny, and the unwitting preemptive strikes from all sides that only help to prepare the necessary smokescreen for his comfortable arrival.

I could have titled this post, "Religious Hypocrisy" but that's not an accurate depiction of America's reality or my particular grievance.

Jews are already on record as describing JESUS AS A HOAX while anxiously waiting for the REAL Christ to please stand up and prove that previous Jewish rabble rouser a liar.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Muslims are too deeply engaged in their own religious disagreement as a tenant of religion itself.  Sharia law could never come to exist without a faction of Muslims insistent on this caliphate mission. How gracious can Islamic Sharia Law pursuant's possibly be towards other religions while struggling to be tolerant towards the very people that they pray with every day and in the same way.

Although Muslims don't quibble with one another over the day, the necessity and quantity of prayer, worship and fellowship, they are at war over the importance of their religions founding prophet, Muhammad, whose family lineage and rebellious life journey pointed one direction for some Muslims, a different direction of thought and behavior from other Muslims, and that inevitable "third" group who can empathize with both sides of this war.

Islam and Judaism are Exempt from Grace

These two confused and thus confusing religions are actually free from the unequivocal call of Grace that asks but one thing from each and every Christian;

Exercise your faith in the gift of Grace by exercising your giving of Grace.

It puts Christians in the cat bird seat of religious pecking order relative to who and whom God expects to be the most gracious.

Might that be religious piety for a Christian (Me) to place a higher expectation upon the behavior of Christianity over every other religion?

I dare any Muslim or Jew (or atheist and agnostic for that matter) to battle EVERY Christian in a war to be gracious. I'll bring my crew and you bring yours, and we'll battle it out near the performance stage at Denver City Park next weekend.

As it stands, American Christian lawmakers, and the people they think they represent, aren't necessarily kicking butt in the battle to be gracious, especially towards desperate middle eastern refugees and migrants praying to God for a little American Christian Grace.

Long before Ben Carson's recent stupidity towards Muslims, Muslims questioned the full divinity of the prophet who inspires Christians to be gracious. Yet, this historically tolerant capacity of people inspired by Grace must have influenced a few of these refugees and migrants into death tempting sea voyages towards western/Christian refuge instead of more Islamic disagreement and violence.

For times like these.

At times like these, I often find myself confident that God needed black slaves in America.  Not so much for the reason that whites found valuable, but for value that would manifest itself in years and days after the scars solidified their shape on our backs.

The necessity of blacks in America and the necessity for America in the world is similarly linked, ordered and scarred to achieve tenacity and temperance when a balance is needed from both powerful forces. Insensitivity and intolerance on a macro or micro level is an entirely understandable human policy for the selfish, the weary or the scarred.

It's just not gracious.

For the Grace of God, trees made to nourish a nation have to grow up and take their place in the forest. Not only to realize the value of their purpose, but to stave off the proliferation of the selfish trees that evil uses to overtake the landscape and swallow up the rain and the sun from the rest of US.

If that analogy doesn't quite make sense to you, its likely because I'm talking to a different kind of Christian.

Does The Media Exclude Themselves From The Reflections They Create?

What is the cost of freedom?

If indeed there is a vital necessity for America, the land of freedom- home of the brave, our media is the vital conduit of the freedom we enjoy, a virtual mirror if you will.

Under president Bashar Al-Asaad, Syria was a mess
long before ISIS came to take over.

The value of the American media is its relentless pursuit of the truth.  Even at the risk of death, western media culture- lead by the red, white and blue, is the watchdog to the world at large. In essence, freedoms hope stands at the listening side of the interview microphone.

Yet, on the other end of the recording stands a human being with all the natural frailty that every human experiences.  Most people simply see the mic or camera as an opportunity to connect others or to connect ourselves with our world, but a sacred few recognize them as the mantle in which more wrong than right is likely when not handled with care.When any modern political leader finds them self at the wrong end of the microphone, the challenge of prudent rhetoric comes to fore.

Why Should We Share A Plan?

The most wise and lucid response to the matter called radical Islamic terrorism came when the man in tan said, "we don't have a plan..... yet".  In reality, we still do not know the plan for what will become of Syria even as we fight to help the good guys of Iraq maintain all of the hard work we did when removing Sadaam Hussein. Longstanding unrest in Syria has opened the doors to ISIS fighters anxious to enact their Islamic social engineering plan on any middle eastern soil that they can acquire. Any plan for Syria will take years and multiple presidents to play out and will be dictated by the long-term will of those desperate for an Islamic state, not those hopeful to stop it.  Millions of Muslims actually support the caliphate mission of ISIS (including 16% of citizens in France) even if they despise their methods of achieving it.

Syrian president Bashar Al-Asaad is a failed leader of a dangerous nation, but many other nations of the middle east came into existence with similar sectarian violence- Syria is just the poster child of such disarray. The fact that the face of radical terror found Syria suitable for caliphate building should have been quite predictable.

Can WE ever remove the stick?

America can (and should) find a way to encourage Iraq into accepting our long-term assistance against the forces of ISIS and against sectarian violence as a whole, lest they become an exact reflection of Syria. What that demands is a military presence that mirrors our presence in Germany, in which roughly 100,000 soldiers maintain a strong security prop, a prop that could increase given the unrest between Ukraine and Russia.  New and evolving strategic locations in the world demand a necessary presence that America will simply have to come to grips with. Worldwide unrest demands an ongoing US presence in every strategic location that we can assume without inciting the kind of growth in radical response that will outweigh the value of our presence.   Call it occupation or protecting our best interest if you must.  The necessity of supporting the fight against terror may not force American boots to the ground, but it will force America to become the backbone of whatever boots  assume the job. In other words, propped up armies must never have the stick pulled out too quickly.

President Obama has essentially sent this kind of American boots on the ground leadership to Iraq already, but he can't publicly emphasize their role or their clear and present danger if he hopes to remain the president who also brought our men home from Iraq. Even Afghanistan has a residual force (9,800 troops) left behind that most Americans are oblivious to. Two years remaining in office will be way too long  to think that air strikes alone will allow this president to delay detailed actions in Iraq and Syria, so Obama must recognize that the microphones  and cameras are circling around him, and a more specified plan must materialize.

What are you going to do about the beheading's?  What about that burned pilot?  How are you going to supplant ISIS and Asaad all at the same time? Why did you wear a tan suit to a press conference?

Does the media pressure politicians into
compromising America's security?

The right answer is often, "I don't know" or "we are still formulating a plan" because  world problems and their questions evolve faster than solutions ever will.  When WE become cursed by the need to find the one who has the answers, WE end up with a bunch of plan-less people who talk in circles until WE forget the original question.  There may never be a publicly shared Syrian Plan because there are no good options that are pleasing to the ears, only several bad ones.  Not one military general or political leader has a reasonable answer about Syria that won't send America right back into a REAL war again.

Maybe real war is the right answer (despite our war fatigue)?
Whether real war, fake (airstrike) war or NFL football, having a plan and telling your plan are prehistoric philosophies that only help to inform  and incite an enemy that does not deserve advance notice.  Since critics will criticize regardless of the detailed plan, detailing a plan only helps politicians to appear as if they have a plan to begin with.  Once you actually accomplish your goals, the successful plan will reveal itself  anyway, so detailing a plan often opens it up to criticism and failure.  Thanks to the western media, whether its in our best interest or not WE say too damn much!

Strategic ignorance is calculated brilliance in disguise and can produce dividends in areas beyond a Superbowl pursuit.  Marshawn Lynch and Bill Belichick can't be the only two people in the world smart enough to proceed carefully when in the presence of media, but modern politicians seem confused by the lessons of these grid iron greats. Politicians once wrote the book on how to be functionally vague, but its beginning to seem as though they've never read it.  In a nation in which the next campaign begins when the last one ends, the once reasonable hope for international affairs free of political posturing is becoming a distant memory as unprepared politicians open their mouths to give answers long before they have even thought about the questions.

Christians who've closely read Gen 1:26-27 have had to
reconcile a connection between  evolution and creation.

Politicians like Scott Walker (Gov. WIS) have traveled across the globe recently in an effort to convince voters in England to give a preliminary thumbs up to the next president of the United States of America, because they think step one for walking into the white house is acquiring the consent of the royals.  More often than not, those rebellious royals are forcing would be presidents to fumble footballs slick with oil.  Political football has always been a slick game in which the smart politician pre-cleans the balls and maintains a keen view of the sidelines to avoid running out of bounds.  If Scott Walker had already prepared his nuanced view of evolution instead of convincing himself that a pro-God Governor of Wisconsin was being touted for his business acumen, he would have never needed to punt the 'evolution' football or to later rebutt and retweet a nuanced view.  Being vague is okay, but today's media no longer allows political leaders to get away with punting the football, so you had better avoid or prepare yourself for the microphone and camera, mirrors that reflect regardless of pretense or punt.

Let Us Make Man In Our Own Image  -Genesis 1:26

Humans are a reflection of our divine creation- of each other, and of society as a whole. Within the success and failures of this society that we've created for ourselves lies the hope for tomorrow.  Sometimes life beats you down until your last best hope comes from another persons failure. By shoving microphones and cameras in the face of another, we can be entertained by their unlikely success or revel in the bruises that they get while tripping and falling on tape.  Some of the players in this performance are on the quest for power while others actually derive power from the pain of someone else.  Public disclosure does allow your pain to be my business, but at what point do WE compromise the quality of our existence for the right to be empowered?  As we seek to expose and heal the depths of our own depravity, the cameras and mics have become a caustic mirror that WE are using to replay and continuously expose unhealed wounds.

Mirrors Are Good?

Mirrors are healthy for healthy people, but the sickest of human beings typically shun the mirror or destroy them altogether. WE should never stop using mirrors just because some people can't stand reflections, but we have to recognize that the faces the media hopes to expose with their mirrors are never totally someone else.

In the end, the only people WE can actually fix reside on the other side of the mirror.