A Lack of Faith

The Archbishop of Canterbury made his lack of faith in God known:

African Christians will be killed if the Church of England accepts gay marriage, the archbishop of Canterbury has suggested. Speaking on an LBC phone in, Justin Welby said he had stood by a mass grave in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been massacred by neighbours who had justified the atrocity by saying: “If we leave a Christian community here we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians.”

“I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact,” Welby said. If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, “the impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes round the world.”

This reasoning has until now been kept private, although both Welby and his predecessor, Rowan Williams, anguished about it in private.

(Brown)

It is not that we should expect Christians to follow in the footsteps of their founding predecessors, suicidal megalomaniacs who looked forward to being murdered. To the other though, there is a phrase for the Archbishop’s stance: Giving over to bullies.

Still, though, there is a contrast of courage. Sort of. Again, screw the lions.

But think about the logic: If we do the right thing, it might upset some bad people who might do some bad things. Let us therefore honor God by not doing the right thing.

I have a proposition for the Archbishop: Since some would inevitably use Christ’s gift to harm, kill, and suppress people, perhaps He should have honored God by not doing the right thing, saving His own life, and leaving humanity to Sin.

Walking in the footsteps of Christ is not supposed to be easy. The Archbishop of Canterbury is faithless.

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Brown, Andrew. “African Christians will be killed if C of E accepts gay marriage, says Justin Welby”. The Guardian. April 4, 2014.

Mississippi

Is hatred really a Christian value?

Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill yesterday that supporters say will assure unfettered practice of religion without government interference but that opponents worry could lead to state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The bill, called the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, will become law July 1. It also will add “In God We Trust” to the state seal.

(Associated Press)

The whole point of this law is to empower Christian supremacism.

Kansas

There is nothing about Niels Lesniewski’s report for Roll Call that isn’t sad. While we already know American politics is a strange country, but consider the state of the Republican primary for the Kansas U.S. Senate race:

Alexandria, Va., and Alexandria, Kan., are nothing alike.

One is a suburb of the national’s capital. The other is just a few miles from Leavenworth. But a tea party group based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., wants to host a Kansas Senate primary debate, and the long-shot challenger has already accepted the invitation.

A group known as the Northern Virginia Tea Party is offering to host a debate between veteran Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and challenger Milton Wolf. Wolf may be best known to HOH readers as a distant relative of President Barack Obama.

Wolf, a radiologist, has fire for, among other things, posting patient x-ray images on Facebook ….

…. Of course, the invite’s an attempt to get some publicity for residency questions for Roberts that gained attention from a New York Times report back in February.

It is almost enough to feel sorry for Kansans. To the one, they have a distant cousin of President Obama trying to use that association to give credibility to his opposition to the White House. But he’s also an unethical radiologist, which could easily be exploited for an attack about what kind of person so pointedly opposes President Obama. To the other, a career politician who is so ensconced in the Beltway culture that it is hard for Kansans to figure out if he even lives in the state.

Like I said, though, almost.

There comes a point, after all, where we must accept the fact that the people of Kansas did this to themselves.