America Doesn't Like God Or Jesus (According To ESPN)

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." - G. K. Chesterton

“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.”- G. K. Chesterton

Many people may have heard by now of ESPN's refusal to air a commercial by a St. Louis based children's charity because it contained the word's "God" and "Jesus". The commercial by the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children Medical Center and was in aid of the Center's Tree of Hope Campaign where people are expected to leave messages for the children being cared for at the Center. According to the reports, the network refused to air the advert in it's original state because according to the network, they didn't want to cause offence to anyone. Really?

Christians are told that we need to become more tolerant. What they actually mean by that is we should drop all our convictions and live by their own ways. Which we forsook in the first place by becoming Christians. They say that we shouldn't try and force people to live the way we want. But that is what they want to to do. To live the way they want us to live. To think the way they want us to think. They say our doctrines and beliefs are discriminatory and steeped in hate yet the first chance they get they're discriminating against us. Already there are soldiers in the United States being punished and discriminated against by their superiors because of their faith. Teachers are being told they face lawsuits if they show any sign of their faith in the classroom such that they can't even put a Christian themed screensaver on the computers. And they say we should be tolerant. Make no mistake, there is a battle on about how people should think and behave. 

I understand that ESPN is a private station and they have a choice about which commercial they will air. However when the reason given is that the advert mentions Jesus and God, I can't understand it. What does it matter if there is a mention of God or Jesus as long as some good is being done? How can people be offended by the mention of people they say they don't believe in, as long as good can be done and some children can have a happy Christmas? After all, Jesus is the reason why there is Christmas in the first place even though people would like to forget it. I don't get offended when people mention Mohammed, Allah, Krishna, Ram or whatever god other people worship. So what is it about the Christian God that offends people?   

I believe that tolerance is about understanding that we are all different, and that we all have a right to be different. I am ready to be tolerant as long as you do not ask me give up or not say what I believe to be true. However, a situation where people get offended by words such that they don't even want to hear the words in an advert for a good cause is not tolerance. It's hatred. And we should be cool with that. Jesus said the world hated him and a servant cannot be greater than his master. So maybe while we should be outraged and sad that people don't want to hear about God, it's something we should expect. 

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

While Men Slept, Culture Came In Unawares

The whole Miley Cyrus thing has got me thinking about the insidious nature of culture. The whole country seems to be disturbed by the whole dancing and tongue thing. I think the problem is that people are not comfortable with the 20 year old singer trying to act more grown up than she is. The question I would ask is, would people complain if it was Lady Gaga? I doubt. I saw the outfit Lady Gaga wore to the event and it worse than anything Miley wore. So what then did Miley do wrong? I think her problem was that people thought she was too young to do what she was doing. Also, her Disney and Hannah Montana connections didn't help. If it was Madonna, would people find it acceptable.

Before you get uppity, I'm not saying what she did was right. I think it was outrageous. But my problem is that quite a lot of people having been complaining about Miley Cyrus before the VMA’s and nobody took notice. For me, that is the insidious nature of culture. Culture creeps up on us insidiously until something that was previously unacceptable becomes of no issue because we no longer think it matters. Not only does a previously unacceptable behavior become acceptable, it drags along its nasty cousins who are similar to it and we don’t notice anything wrong till it’s too late.

The recent rage is to take nude pictures in the name of art. In years past, posing naked was exclusively reserved for models. Now film stars, musicians, athletes and anyone wanting to get famous and make money while at it are all jumping on the bandwagon. The funny thing is that even those who claim that they are doing it for a “good cause” like PETA all get paid. Jesus said that anyone who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery. Therefore he didn't need to actually need to sleep with the object of his lust to commit adultery. If I were to extrapolate that, I would say that you don’t have to stand on the side of the road to be considered a woman (or man) who has sex or sleeps around for monetary gain.

Agnieszka Radwanska, a polish tennis player who says she’s a devout Catholic couldn't understand the outrage that greeted the nude photo shoot she did for ESPN magazine. She had been named a patron of a youth group in the Catholic Church in her native but was subsequently dropped after the pictures came out. According to her, there was nothing wrong with the picture as she wasn't really showing anything that should make her feel ashamed. The question I asked myself was, what if that happened in America or some other Western country? What if someone who professed faith in Jesus as an evangelical Christian decided to pose nude? Would there be some form of outrage on the part of Christians? Would she (or he) defend it as an expression of his or her faith in Jesus? Would liberal people take his or side and say it’s freedom of expression? Would they say it was just another way in which Christianity seeks to oppress women and keep them down? Would other Christians come out and tell those outraged that it was the poser’s body and that he or she could do whatever they liked? They might even argue that the naked picture glorified Christ. After all was said and done, would those who were initially outraged, feel cowed and back down? In today’s 21^st century Christianity, anything is possible.    


JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO, a political thriller about the persecution of Christians. DECEPTIO is published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. DECEPTIO is available here http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU-194087/deceptio.aspx. He is also the author of LOST, BUT FOUND, a story about rejection, love and redemption. The book is available here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/