Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Birthday Boy!

Marshall is four!! He is the most adorable, funny, smart kid! 


I love him to the moon and back!!! More than a grandma Trex loves her little Dino!!! So so so so much!


Last night the priests and laurels were asked to attend an interfaith summit on religious freedom. I didn’t want to go, Rob was excited about it and volunteered to come with us. Well I was right. It was awful. For the record I wanted to be wrong. 
We took the laurels and also Taylor (one of the priests with us) and met 2 other boys there. 

Parts were okay. There are these 3 guys with a radio show called the 3 wise guys, they are a rabbi, an imam, and a minister. They were up first and made some comments. I think their show it probably interesting as they discuss their different view points. Then a Sikh leader gave the invocation. Honestly I didn’t realize he was praying until he was almost done but that was fine. 
Up next was a discussion between a senior pastor of the baptist church that was hosting the event and an atheist. Here is where it really went down hill. The atheist was intelligent, articulate and sure of himself. The pastor was afraid to offend, kowtowing and vague. It was very upsetting.
 One question that they were asked was if we have similar values where do those come from? The atheist talked about how all species benefit from good behavior and reward it so it propagates that in its culture and offspring. He said it more eloquently and scientifically than that but that was the gist. Then the pastor was up and he said some bologna about how we can’t really call it Christian values because all good people share them but his “human values” come from his faith, blah, blah, blah. He spoke a long time and didn’t say anything. 
He should have said all people are born with the light of Christ. If they choose to call it that or not doesn’t matter, they are still His children and as such have that in them. He is our creator. Our values, come from Him and the Devine, eternal truths that He teaches. 
I was very upset that in a conversation about how people have religious differences and the freedom to have those differences is important no one was speaking from the perspective of a follower of Christ. It’s okay to say what you believe; you can still allow others to believe what they do, respectfully and sincerely. 

Last up was Rabbi David Saperstein, who truthfully is as much a politician as a religious figure but he was interesting, well spoken, verbose and sincere. I liked his comments but they were long and following the other guys it was too much for me. 

Then we bolted. It was a long night. The best part was probably our conversation on the way home about what it means to be a disciple in a fallen world. 

Is there value in a discussion of different belief systems, learning what others feel and think? Yes. 
Should we work for a world that demands tolerance for different faiths, or even no faith? Absolutely. 
Was this that?? I don’t think so.


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