Huckabee Makes No Apologies For Decade-Old ‘Christ’ Comment

This from Associated Press:

Mike Huckabee, a Republican relying on support from religious conservatives in Thursday’s hard-fought presidential caucuses, on Sunday stood by a decade-old comment in which he said, “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

In a television interview, the ordained Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor made no apologies for the 1998 comment made at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Salt Lake City.

“It was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists,” Huckabee said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He gave the speech the same year he endorsed the Baptist convention’s statement of beliefs on marriage that “a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.” Huckabee and his wife, Janet, signed a full-page ad in USA Today in support of the statement with 129 other evangelical leaders.

Read Full Story/AP

_______________

Pizza Chain Chaplain

FEEL GOOD

This from the NY Times:

Staff Chaplain Sets a Restaurant Chain Apart
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

ORANGE PARK, Fla. — Midway through the dinner rush at the Loop Pizza Grill on a November night, the Rev. Becci Curtis, graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., pulled a disposable glove onto her right hand and plunged it into a container of shredded romaine. Her mission, at the moment, was to assemble a Gorgonzola salad.

As she worked, adding the croutons and cheese, Ms. Curtis chatted with the waitress beside her, April Mechler. They talked about the Thanksgiving just past, about how Ms. Mechler’s homemade mac-and-cheese had turned out. Then they talked about Ms. Mechler’s dream of becoming a journalist and her application for a summer internship at The Florida Times-Union, the daily paper in nearby Jacksonville.

Ms. Mechler stepped away from the salad station to deliver an order, and Ms. Curtis walked through the swinging door into the kitchen, spotting Richard Calalang amid the grills and deep fryers. She knew his dream, too: to move to California and work for a catering company that serviced film studios and even the Playboy Mansion. She also knew his private worry about fitting in on the West Coast: He did not know how to surf.

It was all part of Ms. Curtis’s job, the conversing and the confiding and the salad-making, too. A lifetime as an observant Christian and a top-rank education in divinity had led her, improbably or providentially or both, to being the spiritual leader of a pizza joint. She worked four hours a week for $10 an hour, plus the occasional tip, and on her flowered blouse she wore a name tag that identified her official position: chaplain.

Read Full Story

UK Teacher: Does Keeping Religion Out of US Schools Prepare Kids For Life?

In the Jesus Glasses and Bloggers For Chad Farnan post, a high school politics and sociology teacher in the UK asks in the comment section some very pointed questions. Seems he is a bit perplexed by Capistrano Valley High School teacher James Corbett’s “teaching” approach…and on a wider scale, the US public school approach to religion.

Here’s his comment:

Could you tell me, is the kind of agenda pursued by Corbett quite common in US state schools?

What I find a bit of an enigma is this: On one hand, religion is to be kept out of the classroom and yet, on the other, as some defenders of Corbett seem to be pointing out, it is impossible to cover European history without looking at the role of religion. How do your educators reconcile the two?

When it comes to the coverage of European history in your schools, does the role of the Reformers such as Luther and Tyndale in empowering the common people by translating the scriptures out of Latin and into their own languages ever get examined? Do your schools examine the huge roles of Calvin, Knox and Zwingli in liberating the people from the 16th century bondage of a corrupt Roman Catholic church?

Or does religious history only get examined when it’s appropriate to bash the church?

When Martin Luther King gets covered in the US syllabus, is his spiritual motivation as well as his social and political activism examined?

It seems like your system is quite similar to France’s where religion is to be kept at a long arm’s length. I once asked a French school teacher, “Why are you so afraid of religion in France?” He didn’t like this as the French, like most of us, are a rather proud people!

In Scotland, we actually have Religious Education (as distinct from religious “instruction”) in schools. Yes, it’s subject to abuses and I’m not happy about confusing kids with TMI too early, but it does bring a hugely relevant part of people’s lives into the school, rather than simply pretend religion doesn’t exist.

Our students are encouraged to pursue their own ‘Personal Search’ and the RE classroom is an environment where Christian students can, for example, say why they believe in Jesus Christ, and atheists can say why they do not. I’ve seen this happen from time to time in my own classes.

We also have Religious Observance where local miisters come into the school and regularly address the youngsters. If atheists do not wish their children to be exposed to this they have the protected right to withdraw them from such events.

In the UK, like everywhere, we have our problems, but I don’t see how, particularly in such a strongly Christian country as America, you can keep religion out of school and at the same time be fully preparing kids for life after school. Some say, if people want God let them send their kids to a private Christian school, but is that fair when your state school system which is so hugely funded by Christian taxes?

Please go to Jesus Glasses and Bloggers For Chad Farnan to join the discussion.

We Are Not Afraid!

Benazir Bhutto
June 21, 1953 – December 27, 2007

Dec. 27: Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto waves to her supporters during her last public rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP)

Update From Nativity Display Battle in Green Bay

CHURCH AND STATE

This from Associated Press:

GREEN BAY, Wis. — An organization of atheists and agnostics won’t drop its federal lawsuit against the city of Green Bay even though the nativity scene that sparked the suit was taken down from City Hall Wednesday morning.

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation will continue with its suit, which co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor expected would be officially filed Wednesday or Thursday.

Even if the city argues that the issue is moot since the display is gone, “we want a court ruling that they can’t do it again,” Gaylor said.

Their lawsuit claims the display depicting the birth of Jesus is an unconstitutional governmental endorsement of religion. Among other things, it asks a federal judge to declare the city’s actions a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Read Full Story