Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Getting it wrong?

I watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other day. His interview was with an atheist talking about moral values. According to this atheists, religion calls people to be moral for bad reasons. Science can call people to be moral for good reasons. His book is The Moral Landscape which deals with this subject.
In the interview, the author states how Catholicism is more interested in birth control than genocide. He also sees the God of Abraham as one who was immoral because he got the slavery issue wrong. Of course, I disagree with him on these points. He seems to be ready to condemn on some bad points but does not look at the good the Catholic Church has also done nor does he look at the year of Jubilee which seems to undo our understanding of slavery.
Despite his tunnel vision to discredit religion, he did raise an interesting point. His interpretation that the Church is focused on certain issues while neglecting other moral issues stopped me in my seat of judgment.
He is getting the message wrong--perhaps partially because he doesn't want to see life any other way than how he sees it. But how are we helping him get it wrong? Are we drumming the abortion issue, the homosexual issue, the sexual issue so much that we are drowning out the Grace of God?
I saw a t-shirt the other day---"God hates us." It seems we are not getting the Gospel out. How do we reclaim the Good News from ourselves?

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