Well, my Fourth of July was lots of fun, but not nearly as eventful as it apparently was for this church in Memphis. Oh. My. Oh. My. My. My. This is so awful on so many levels I'm not sure where to start. Um, gold? Are those the Ten Commandments? (Oh. They are. Actually, they're just Roman numerals I-X. Which raises a whole 'nother set of questions.) Where is, "Give me your tired, your poor, your weary, yearning to be free"? (Oh. My. Gulp.) Why would a pastor's wife be called a First Lady? More importantly, how long will be before their store is online so I can buy Melissa the Missionary a birthday present?But I digress. Seriously. This is funny, but it's also really disturbing, and not just on a church-state separation level. If you need a statue to prove "that Jesus Christ is Lord over America, he is Lord over Tennessee, he is Lord over Memphis," I'd say your faith has more pressing problems than whether or not you just wasted $260,000 that could have been given to the poor. At least some of the onlookers recognized that this ain't right.
I am so tired of this junk. I am so tired of David Barton's attempt to rewrite history. I am so tired of American Christians, "for whom," as Walter Shurden put it last week, "the adjective is more important than the noun." I am so tired of people claiming that the genius of these United States - the idea that all people should be free and that none should be preferred over others - that this is the thing that is destroying our country. I am so tired of people substituting the easy games of politics and power for the difficult choice of real discipleship.
I finally got around to reading this wonderful article today. It's a really interesting, accessible assessment of the actual history of the Founding Fathers and their beliefs and intentions about the relationship between church and state. But then I came home and saw that picture. And now I'm just tired.
(Photo from the New York Times)
.jpg)