Saturday, May 31, 1997

Throwback sticks foot in mouth

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR / Abilene Reporter-News

And the whitewashed sepulchre award goes to - the envelope please - Dr. Henry Jordan of Columbia, S.C.

Seems the good doctor is a member of the school board and wants to make it possible for students to display the Ten Commandments at school if they vote to do so and pay for the display with private funds.

When someone on the board suggested this idea might not be acceptable to other religions represented in the district, he replied, "Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims." He also added that his statement could be put in the minutes. The statement was expunged from the written record, but a tape of the meeting was obtained by a newspaper and his remarks were made public.

Jordan tried all sorts of dodges to explain himself. He said he thought the meeting was over, and he was speaking privately with other members of the board. The tape shows that to be untrue. He claimed he didn't mean to be taken literally, and then stuck his foot further into his mouth by saying the two religions were cults. And he claimed to simply be defending the true faith - sort of a throwback to the era of the Crusades - just what we need in the 20th century.

Jordan was quoted as saying that he's frustrated because Christians are faced with intolerance but are expected to be tolerant of other religions. Apparently he's unaware of the Sermon on the Mount - you know, the part about loving your enemies and praying for those who despitefully use you.

I understand modern Christians frustration - Christianity once claimed the mainstream of American society. Now it must compete with the influx of immigrants to this country, a goodly number of whom are here because the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion means they can't be punished for not being a member of their home countries' official religions, or lack of religion.

And I understand that the Founding Fathers wrote that amendment in a climate where some brand of Christianity was the dominant religion of the day. Of course we shouldn't forget that many of the framers were influenced as much by deism and Enlightenment thought as they were Christianity.

But constitutional arguments aside - though I believe they fail to support Jordan's pharisaical attitude - the New Testament makes it pretty clear that Christians will always face persecution, will rarely be the majority and will have a responsibility to demonstrate the transforming power of the Gospel in their lives.

Christianity doesn't need defenders of the true faith as much it needs humble disciples who show they world they are true disciples by their love for one another and through their sacrificial giving of themselves on behalf of others.

If Jordan wants "the true faith" to be the faith of the land, he can best accomplish that by learning to be "quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not work the righteousness of God."