I pledge allegiance too...

I hesitated whether or not to write an entry for this, because I see and hear so much "stuff" every day on the internet, email forwards, etc. that I usually try not get too excited about any of it and try and pick and choose what's really important. But as I was sitting in church listening to the wonderful sermon (we have fantastic, caring pastors at Zumbro Lutheran), it made me start to think of a whole bunch of stuff related to this one.

The email forward I got yesterday was from a friend of mine, and it was basically a "new" version of the pledge of allegiance, and a "new" version of a school prayer. The basic idea was that it's so unfair that we can't say the pledge with "God" in it anymore, and we can't pray in school anymore because it's "politically incorrect". Basically the same anger and annoyance I hear from so many Christians - that they're taking God out from everything.

I have so many things I want to say about this, but I'm going to try and keep it to a couple of things. First of all - it is very simple to look at history (as well as the current world) and see how completely bad a theocracy is - a government-chosen or government-enforced set of religions or religious beliefs. Horrible horrible things all over history and all over the world have been done "in the name of" fill-in-your-deity - the crusades, slavery, etc. etc. the list goes on and on. All you should ever have to think about when you start to get upset about why our government tries so hard not to mandate one set of religious beliefs over another, is "what if they did, it wasn't the one you believed in?" You see Christians persecuted all over the world in other countries for their beliefs. Just because the majority of our country probably falls under the "Christian" category, that doesn't mean you have the right to push it on the rest of the people who have other beliefs.

So this leads me to my second point - if you call yourself a Christian, shouldn't the way you demonstrate this be to demonstrate the qualities Jesus demonstrated all throughout His life? Love, patience, kindness, respect, compassion, understanding, etc.? Love your neighbor as yourself? No government, no ACLU lawyer, no school principle, no court can or would even try to take away your ability to do that. No one needs a pledge of allegiance with the word "God" in it to do that. No one needs a mandated out-loud school prayer to do that. No one has told you you have to stop praying - last time I checked, I can pray ANY time I want, anywhere I want! So what if it's not out loud? The only reason I can see for praying out loud in a public place is to make sure other people are seeing you do it - that's certainly not the reason I pray.

I am a Christian, I believe God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our salvation. I also believe that I best honor this belief by living my life as the best human being I can be toward my fellow human beings. Actions speak louder than words....rather than arguing about it or fighting about it in court, why not try living it for a change?