I’ve been looking for something to be offended over for my cronies
Ever since this Tweet…..
“@philosophybites: I wonder how many people are at this moment enjoying being deeply offended by something or other.” Working on it…!
— Nick Baines (@nickbaines) September 15, 2012
….I’ve been looking for something to enjoy being offended about and I think I’ve found a couple of things.
Firstly, this Christian Post article:
Evangelicals Should Avoid ‘Muslim-Baiting,’ Says Professor
WASHINGTON – An evangelical professor who was part of a summit on foreign policy held at Georgetown University believes that evangelicals should avoid “Muslim-baiting.”
David Gushee, founder of the organization Evangelicals for Human Rights and professor at Mercer University, told The Christian Post that evangelicals should not participate in projects like the anti-Muhammad film that sparked violent protests in the Middle East.
“We certainly need to have no participation in what you might call ‘Muslim-baiting.’ If we know that attacks on the character of the prophet Muhammad evoke predictably violent reactions, it’s just foolish and unwise and immoral,” said Gushee.
“You want to avoid such things from happening and we need to quarantine out of our community this kind of Muslim-baiting that is happening on our fringes.”
I don’t know of any ‘proper’ evangelicals engaging in ‘Muslim-baiting’ or are liable to produce ‘anti-Muhammad films’, what the heck is the good professor on about? Now if he wants to talk about fundamentalist extremists that’s a different matter.
My second offering is from the Telegraph which features comments by Roger Bolton warning that Christians are being treated unfairly in TV broadcasting compared with other faiths. It’s an interesting article and I suspect many will agree with the premise.
The headline and subheadline caught my attention:
The TV elite ‘assume Christians are lunatics’
The BBC and other broadcasters are dominated by a “liberal secular elite” whose “default position” is to assume that Christians are “lunatics”, a Radio 4 broadcaster warned last night.
As you can see much is made of the ‘lunatic’ element which appears entirely derived from this comment by Bolton:
“There should at least be an effort to say that just because somebody is against gay marriage or against IVF doesn’t necessarily mean they are a lunatic – it is part of their belief, they have a genuine problem here with the legal authority or whatever – understand that position”
‘Lunacy’ is closely tied with ‘insanity’ which is a legal definition and certainly depicts ‘unsound mind’; or from the urban dictionary, ‘crazy’ or ‘psychotic’.
A couple of things occurred to me.
Perhaps it really does seem as insanity to believe as we do, especially to those without the Grace for Faith. How about this Scripture from the Aramaic Bible in Plain English:
The message of the crucifixion is insanity to the lost, but to those of us who have life it is the power of God.
So perhaps the Bible itself tells us that non-believers will consider our beliefs as ‘insane’; therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised.
The other point is where does this leave the ‘insane’ Christian? Are they less of a Christian because they are insane? Does this negate or diminish their faith?
I decided to make mention of this Telegraph article on Twitter to MentalHealthCop and he responded:
@echurchblog Gets straight into Richard Dawkins’s use of the word ‘delusion’ in his book doesn’t it? He spoke to psychiatrists about it. >>
— Insp Michael Brown (@MentalHealthCop) September 15, 2012
@echurchblog << eventually deciding he should use it notwithstanding the provocation it could be seen to represent.
— Insp Michael Brown (@MentalHealthCop) September 15, 2012
An excellent point indeed.
By the way I’m not really offended by any of this and wasn’t going to blog at all, but felt encouraged and spurred on by this comment:
Why don’t you just give up blogging and give us all a rest! What drivel you and your cronies turn out. For God’s sake get a life!
I’m heartened to learn I have cronies….
So this blog post is for you dear commenter and my army of cronies.
Goodnight x
Tags: Christian Life, Christianity, Media, Mental Health