Unfettered Blather

Seattle Airport removes Christmas trees after Rabbi complains

It’s not a joke, it’s for real. In order not to offend anyone, the Seattle Airport has removed all of its Christmas trees.

What stuns me is that the person who complained is a Rabbi. I would think if anyone understood the importance of tolerance, especially in the context of reaching out to others, it would be a Rabbi.

I continue to be amazed by people who want respect and tolerance for their beliefs, but can’t do the same for others. A large part of the US population celebrates Christmas, even though many who celebrate don’t really go to church on a regular basis or only nominally acknowledge the presence of God. Even I, a practicing Christian, tend to think of this holiday beyond it’s original Christian origins. The Christmas tree is not even a Christian symbol, though there have been those that have tried to rationalize it as such.

Congratulations, Rabbi, for adding fuel to an already stoked anti-Semitic fire and also keeping to the status quo for intolerance.

Despite the common misconception that Christians are all the same, the reality is that they are an incredibly diverse group of people. The challenge then for companies trying to sell to that particular religious demographic is that you’re trying to please a group of people who sometimes have wildly different interpretations of fundamental values.

The concept of violence, for instance, can be very touchy. Some Christians are almost pacifistic in their beliefs, aschewing violence in all but the most dire of circumstances. Some of these Christians may still beleive strongly in self-defense, but will not advocate the use of pre-emptive violence at all. So making a first-person shooter for a Christian audience is nearly impossible because you’d have to make it so totally non-offensive that making it fun would be near impossible. You can’t just go around blasting demons because some other Christian group will be offended that you mentioned demons, even if they are the bad guys.

In other words you can’t please them all. Yet every game ever made always takes this approach of trying to please the entire Christian demographic. That’s like making a game that tries to please everyone in America, offend no one, and is still fun. You’re hitting such a diverse strata of the demographic that it is going to be impossible. This is why you can’t make a fun Christian game.

I’ve read the press releases for the Left Behind game and to say I feel underwhelmed would be inadequate. Sadly, the assumption the game developers are making is that people like me are going to buy the game. Maybe so we can support the concept of Christian games? Not likely. I’m not really for supporting something just because it claims to be a “Christian” game. Though they’ve proposed some intriguing concepts for Left Behind and have suggested some themes and features that will offend someone, I still see it as an extension of trying to shoehorn Christian concepts and values into a game. Worse, it’s really more about leveraging the name recognition of a book and video series then it is about promoting Christian values. Not that there is anything wrong with using licensed materials, aside from the fact such games usually stink like a skunk, but that it’s an attempt to push marketing as “Christian Values”.

In essence they think their audience is stupid. Also they are trying for mass-market appeal but I think the secular market will either be turned off to the concept or simply not get the source material.

Maybe I am being too harsh and simply not giving it a chance. Perhaps I am being too cynical. Let me put this from a purely secular standpoint then. In terms of a market perspective the targetted demographic is too diverse to nail down and the mass market will either be apathetic or openly resistant to adopting the product. I seriously doubt the game is going to sell well enough to turn a decent profit.

I welcome being proven wrong, I really do. I just don’t think the people developing the game are honest enough or understand the game market well enough to pull this off.

Back in my freshman year of college my next door neighbor Jesse was, like myself, in a long distance relationship. This was 1992 back when not everyone had an e-mail account, cell phones that charged something like by the second or some such, instant messenger wasn’t even conceived, and just having internet access was extremely uncommon. So what you had to do was either pick up a phone and call long distance, taking out a loan in advance for the charges, or show up in person. Jesse did not have a car.

Now, I am a Christian and Jesse was not. When Jesse’s girlfriend visited I was often subjected to various noises that resulted from their sexual activities. I, on the other hand, waited until marriage despite having dated my future wife for four years. Our values on the subject were night and day. That said, I thought he was a pretty nice guy and I liked his girlfriend well enough.

As it turns out Jesse’s girlfriend was attending a college that was on my way home. I didn’t visit home very often, though I went back at least once every six weeks. (I tried to visit once a month but wasn’t the best about it) On one of my forays home after finding out where Jesse’s girlfriend went to college, I thought about offering him a ride. Except I had this little moral conundrum.

See, I was a pretty new Christian and wasn’t really raised in a church setting. There is a long involved story there, but the short version is I was real rough around the edges. I have never been what most people would consider typical of a Christian. Still, I was very serious about making my life better and trying to follow the teachings of the Bible. If I gave Jesse a ride, he and his girlfriend would no doubt have sex and I would be facilitating that activity. At this point you may roll your eyes and groan.

I struggled with this for awhile and finally decided to offer him a ride. The solution, as I saw it, was simple. The Bible teaches us how to live a healthy and moral life, but it also teaches that your sin is between you and God. I was not encouraging Jesse to do anything wrong, but I also have to be willing to let him choose to do the right thing. Yes I know he is going to choose to do something that I saw as wrong, but it’s still his choice. By not offering a ride based on a moral decision, I was trying to enforce my morality on him, even if it would never have been known to him. In the end I did offer to give him a ride and he got to spend a rare opportunity with his girlfriend.

Believe it or not, I am about to tie this into gay marriage and a lie I told the other day. By outright banning gay marriage we are enforcing our morality on others. We are not giving them the choice to chose their own morality. I believe we can legislate morality and we do it all the time in this country. At some point though we have to be willing to let people make their own choices. That line has to be drawn somewhere and I don’t believe it should be drawn at a point where only consenting adults are involved and no illegal activity takes place.

The lie I made the other day was about state’s rights concerning gay marriage when I said I believed they had the right to ban gay marriage. I wasn’t exactly lying, but not telling the whole truth either. I understand there is no real “right to privacy” as most people understand it. At the state level they can very well decide who can and can’t marry. I support their right to do so. I just don’t agree with it. I don’t support gay marriage, it does not fit into any definition of “marriage” as I know it. That does not mean it should be illegal.

You cannot force morality on someone and expect them to be happy about it. You can’t tell people who their romantic partner should be. No one has that right. If you want others to come to your point of view, then live your values. I have severe reservations about a group of people protesting homosexuals marrying when said group is actively engaging in theft, fraud, fornication, adultery, and divorce.

I’ve been married for 12 years to the same woman. We did not have sex before marriage and neither of us have had an affair. We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall we’ve had a very happy and fruitful marriage. As far as I am concerned, that is the best testament that my moral code works. That it is not outdated or irrelevant based on a highly successful relationship. I’m not perfect and I screw up all the time, but I also live my values as best I can. The very depth of hypocrisy is trying to force a moral code on someone that you don’t follow yourself.

Before Christians start protesting gay marriage, lets start fixing the marriages in our churches. Let’s get the branch out of our eye before we start trying to remove the twig in our neighbor’s eye.

This is going to be tough because I want to talk about the DaVinci code but I don’t want to be like the news media I just criticized by giving away the entire story. I think I will settle on this one little spoiler, and you’ve been warned and say that story centers on a cover-up by the Catholic Church where they essentially made-up Christ’s divinity. In essence, the story is really heavy with gnostic overtones, which really when you get right down to it doesn’t present any new theories or philosophies we have not already seen about Jesus Christ.

Which is why I am not up in arms about the movie even though I am a Christian. Well, that and the fact that the DaVinci Code is fiction even though the author has often alluded to his “accurate historical research” and not so subtly implied that there is more than a ring of truth to the conspiracy even if the events in the book are clearly fictitious.

Ok, so Dan Brown isn’t a Christian and he questions the divinity of Christ. Wow, real controversial.

I’m going to put this out there and feel free to disagree if you want, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you’re a Christian and want to go see this movie and you feel that you can handle the content then go right ahead and see it. I have no desire to see the movie or read the book not based on what it professes but because I have had too many non-believers whose literary opinions I respect tell me the book has a paper thin plot, is a substandard murder mystery, that is poorly written, and is difficult to plod through. Plus, in general, it falls into a genre that doesn’t really grab me anyway, so the bad reviews are a real turn off. In my opinion the book simply gets by on its controversial premise more than anything.

Still, if you want to go see the movie than do so. I am of the mind that my faith is not so weak that it cannot be challenged. I never liked the mentality of people of any faith who act as though any belief contrary to theirs is somehow intolerable. I have had discussions at length with good people questioning, examining, and analyzing my beliefs. I find this good for me if I can question my own faith. Do I believe because I really believe in all this stuff about God, Christ, and the Bible or am I simply a sheep who follows blindly and does as they are told? I want genuine faith, and genuine faith is not easily challenged. If you walk into the DaVinci code a Christian and walk out an aetheist, then obviously you either weren’t that strong of a believer to begin with or the movie makes some good arguments against your faith. I’m telling you that if you can convince me to stop believing, you’ve made some darn good points!

Which is why I don’t understand the resistance to the movie by the Church. It makes them look afraid, it makes them look like they have something to hide. There is nothing wrong with saying they don’t recommend it, that they find the movie supports a dubious claim, and that it is clearly a work of fiction that seems to make a point of making the Church look bad. All these things are fine. Calling for a boycott of the movie on these same grounds is practically the same as buying tickets for the movie. I think the Catholic Church is actually helping the DaVinci Code sell tickets by constantly drawing attention to it. Maybe if the Catholic Church had acted with a little more integrity with recent scandals people would respect its wishes a little more, but with the credibility of the Church in question, them protesting the movie only raises public curiousity.

As Christians you will not see riots in the streets. Some misguided people acting as “believers” may send some threatening letters, but no one involved with the movie is going to wake up next to a horse’s head or find their loved ones disappear in the night. I can fairly well guarantee you won’t see a Christian radical website beheading a set painter for the movie. I think the general lack of violence, with very few exceptions, is one positive aspect of the Christian beliefs. The downside is we have to deal with things like the DaVinci Code. However, even that is not bad, because we can set an example here, turn the other cheek, and show we do not fear such things. After all, if none of it is true, what is there to fear?

John Scalzi, a new favorite author of mine but not a Christian has some relevant thoughts on the “Religious Left” that I find interesting.

Not to belittle his other points because the whole post was good reading, but the one thing he really nails is the “binary thinking” which assumes if you’re not A then you must be B. Of course, the minute anyone talks about Christianity you become a member of the “Religious Right” by default, and if you don’t subscribe to Conservative political idealogy then you’re on the other team. Well, no, since I prefer to bat for my own team really and am wary of either political camp. Furthermore, while I think my religion is central enough in my life to actually base political decisions I make from my beliefs, I don’t think it defines my political associations.

Just to expound further on Mr. Scalzi though, the real annoyance I have is how the “Religious Right” is blamed for everything these days, even though their numbers are not near great enough to swing votes the way they are often blamed. For example, the ban on gay marriages in Ohio during the 2004 election was blamed on the religious right, nevermind that not every religious person is necessarily a Republican nor are there enough Christians to have voted the overwhelming numbers against the measure that led to the ban. Could it be that the non-religious, agnostics, and everyday people don’t support gay marriage as much as the media would lead you to believe? Surely not!

That is what increasingly annoys me about the “reality-based” party is that whenever reality doesn’t line up with their expectations it becomes part of a conspiracy. What bothers me the most is how they expect me to behave, believe, and vote a certain way based on their preconceived notions. Were I to do the same to others I would be called prejuidiced. However, since I am a Christian I am supposed to behave a certain way.

Yet Scalzi, and others, are right to be wary of the “Religious Right”. There numbers may not be great, but just like certain aspects of the Democrats, they are extremely loud. I never expect a group who is out for amassing political power to put their beliefs first. These are not people out to defend Christian values but rather to gather power for themselves. There is nothing that differentiates them from any other special interest group in D.C., and that is enough to make me wary of anything they do or so.