A musing Beam

Shortly after the events of 9/11/2001, there was an excellent episode of The West Wing ("Isaac and Ishmael") talking about the events and how to think about them.  It was written hastily, and discussing the events directly was pretty gutsy, that short after the event. Josh Lyman, talking to high school juniors and seniors, makes an SAT-style question: "'Islamic extremist' is to 'Islamic' as [blank] is to 'Christianity.'"  There are a few guesses -- religious fundamentalists, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.  Josh dismisses them (quite rightly), saying that, while the kids might disagree with what they do, those groups don't blow stuff up.  (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VatPKqTgzh4 .) The correct answer is the Ku Klux Klan.  The Klan is a Christian terrorist group that has been operating since the middle of the 19th century (with a few decade hiatus at the turn of the 20th century).  It is widely known for killing people that disa...

I often find disconcerting the amount of time and energy certain Christians spend decrying specific, rarely (if ever) scripturally mentioned failings/sins, yet spending little if any time focusing on what seemed to Jesus (by weight of vehemence and sheer times mentioned in Scripture) the most important matters.  The discussion here takes as an assumption that the "normal" Bible is true and an accurate depiction of what Jesus says. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! When you read the Bible, many have noted the change in tone from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  While the Father is prone to bouts of anger (think the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.), Jesus is much more often overtly nice, or, when not nice, he is often aimed at changing the minds of his audience instead of punishing them. One group, though, gets his full-throated ire:  The Pharisees. Why?  Because they were hypocrites.  It was not that they didn't know the law -- it was ...