Michael Brown: The Governments Scapegoat

It is shameful to see how easily it was for our congress to be manipulated. As the media pounced on Michael Brown for issues that clearly were not soley his, the congressional committee that is investigating jumped on the bandwagon of blame without apology. Someone needs to be blamed for the lawlessness of New Orleans (though only seven were killed by violence during the week, less than a normal week in one of America's murder capital) and Michael Brown was the easiest target.

Not to mention the govenor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans jumped on the same bandwagon, retreating from their own poor response to their own community. Really, in a city of corruption, to look the other way from the mayor only perpetuates the corruption. Had money gone where it was suppose to before the tragedy, much of the response would have been far better.

The collapse happened on all levels of government and shame on the congressional committee for seeking to retreat from their own responsibility by blaming Brown. Had they voted for financial support for Louisiana's infrastructure the levees may have been properly re-engineered.

Then the media says that when the govenor of Louisiana went before Congress the blame game didn't come up and she didn't respond to Michael Brown's allegations. They made her look like a saint, like she's above it all. Except that it was a different committee! Different context! She was not going before government to defend herself like Brown was asked to but was asking for money. Brown did this years ago but received none and it took a tragedy to open the eyes of congress. Now congress, by blaming one person in the collapse of all the local, state and federal government agencies, is desperately seeking to close their eyes again.

Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty

The buzz generated by the six Dove women is telling. The advertising agency has spent years destroying the self esteem of females everywhere and to think that Dove and these six women have the audacity to show pictures of themselves in their underwear with curves and all is, well, a breath of fresh air.

The human body is beautiful and yet very few women ever think of themselves as beautiful. Insecurity encouraged and perpetuated by images of women unhealthily skinny in every add from Michelob Light to Victoria's Secret, is an epidemic in our society because society has tried to tell us that skinny is healthy. Even men are now having complexes when their stomach isn't washboard tight.

Dove falls short in one area, however. The girls they chose are beautiful but the only beauty we can see is their bodies. We are making value judgments based on how they look. It is a step in the right direction but still feeds our obsession with our bodies--an obsession that somehow makes us feel less at home in the crude matter called flesh.

But our bodies are part of us, part of our identity and part of our reflection of the image of God. The obsession we have with our bodies is an incredible detriment to who God created us to be. Girls are dying around the country due to anorexia all because of an obsession with how bad they believe their bodies look.

We must remember we are more than our bodies. That is to say our value as a person, as a child of God made in his image, is not based on how we look but on who we are in our very essence as a person. Someday we will receive new bodies to live eternally with Christ Jesus. In that some day we will mirror Jesus (1 John 3). But in mirroring him I do not believe we will look as he looks. If you are females you won't look like a male. But our hearts, character, minds and bodies...the whole person will be reconciled to God and the whole community of God's people. Together, as a community, we will look like him...perfected.

Emily Rose: thoughts about the movie

This past weekend I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  I hate horror movies.  I went into this movie thinking it would be a horror movie.  Something like Danzel Washington’s movie Fallen.  In Fallen they take a biblical theme or idea, throw in a little Catholic church and make a darkly entertaining movie that as a film is descent but its theology is way off.  I cannot say the same about The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  I have not seen The Exorcist and remember only brief moments that were shown on Geraldo but this particular movie was unnerving.
     I have not found too much in the movie that seems to be outside of either the experience of the Bible or of the Roman Catholic Church.  I am a Protestant, and grant the movie portrayed the Methodist Lawyer as a callous, egotistical brainiac, for the most part I had a hard time finding items in the story that were inconsistent with the Bible.  And yes, there were a few parts of the story that seemed to be Hollywood, the Theology seemed solid though I would be more than willing to debate this point with anyone simply to see other sides of the argument.
     That being said, what I fear about the movie, is that evil is given a face outside ourselves.  It is a necessary reminder that evil is ugly, destructive and far more powerful than we give it credit.  Christ is eternally more powerful but we as human beings are not.  In stories such as these evil is fantastical and easily recognize but it would be foolish to think evil is always this way.
     There is other evil in this world that at its core is just as ugly and destructive though it lacks the flair of demon possession.  Systemic racism, bitterness toward our neighbors, gossip, debauchery, and gluttony are all evils that are pervasive in American culture and we see them everyday but a movie about such things would have a hard time selling tickets (exception might be Crash, 2005)  There is a darkness that lies within us all that needs the light of Christ to shine upon it so we may ask for our forgiveness.  The little everyday things do matter.  The way we treat one another, the way we love one another and the way build each other up are all there own kinds of exorcism.  But they are exorcisms we are all capable of, though sometimes it requires a priest or a pastor to pull us back onto the right path.

Gas Pump Quandary

So I am stuck. The gas prices have sky rocketed and I am angry when I read articles in the NY Times that oil companies are making record profits. I am even more upset that our President is an oil mogul and oil companies are making record profits. Especially during the present crisis.

Not to let the President or anyone else off the hook but maybe it is not such an awful thing. Sure it may mean that we have to change the way we live, but Americana have been getting by on the cheap compared to other country's oil prices.

On top of that it is harmful to the environment. Oil companies have been of little help looking for alternate fuels. Toyota seems to be leading the way in Hybrids and BP has an interesting ad campaign going on right now about their research into alternative fuels, but I believe we have had the technology for efficient electric cars for years. But when oil companies flex their muscles what can we do?

I believe this to be a Christian issue as well. Evangelical Americans, many who claim Republican status, need more movement when it comes to the environment. God has given to us specifically a mandate to take care of this gift called earth and we have done little compared to all our hollering about women in office and politics. Grant there are Christians doing a lot of good for the environment and many Christian groups lead the way. But the sad reality seems to be that they are but a small minority of people who claim to be followers of Christ.

Gas prices hurt. But maybe that is a wake up call.

America in Crises: Katrina and misplaced priorities

During this whole crisis in New Orleans and the rest of the southeast, I have finally come to understand why blogging and other forms of the new media are so important. "Army Corps of engineers shot at by police, several dead due to mistaken identity." That is what they said. Fifteen minutes later the truth finally came. Police who were escorting the Army Corps of Engineer Contractors had to help some fellow police officers, left the Army Corps and several of the shooters (civilians gone mad) were killed in the shootout.

But it is this type of reporting that has caused so much confusion among the rescue efforts. Politicians using the media to blame other politicians. The media using angry people for the high drama, though their reasons for anger are usually misdirected and supported by false information.

It is not that the anger is not legitimate. I am angry. I know people are in rage because of the entire ordeal. The problem is, there is nobody to be angry at. It was a natural disaster not an attack by Osama bin Laden. So we attack one another, the politicians and government, the entire system that led to this and more often than not we become angry at God for not stepping in.

But maybe this is more of a case of misplaced priorities than some sinister plan for God to teach us a lesson (though that may be a secondary benefit of this cruel life lesson). Maybe God is not to blame.

For years, civilian engineers lobbied their politicians to put more money in the maintenance and strengthening of the levee system in New Orleans. For year there were more important things to spend money on. A war in Iraq diverted much of the money to the international project of securing a country built on the oil industry.

Nobody listened. They new the big one would eventually hit. And yes, from a category 5 hurricane, the damage would still be immense. But if the levees would have held, thousands of lives would have been saved and New Orleans would be rebuilding as we speak.

We ignored warnings and denied the necessary funds to secure a city because we had more important things to do. More important than the lives of thousands of people. We may not have said it, but that is how we acted and thousands of people have paid our adolescent self-centeredness with their lives.