Gregory Scott

3 Clarifications About 9/11

Today there will be much talk about 9/11, its causes and the people involved. Because Truth is a virtue, it is incumbent upon citizens of the kingdom of God to speak accurately about 9/11. With that I offer 3 thoughts with the intent of bringing some clarification to the conversation of 9/11.

1. The Terrorists Were Not Cowards. It has become popular to call the 9/11 terrorists cowards. However, a coward is one who succumbs to fear and self-preservation. The terrorists of 9/11 all voluntarily gave their lives for what they perceived as a higher calling or principal. They were, of course, wrong. There was no higher calling or principal, which makes these men fools, misguided and wicked, but they were not cowards.

2. The Victims Were Not Necessarily Heroes. A hero is someone who sacrifices his/her desires, needs or life for others or a higher calling. Being killed may make one a victim, but not necessarily a hero. There were heroes on 9/11. The firefighters and police who entered burning buildings to save others, as well as the people in the buildings who risked their lives to help those around them, are all heroes. But to call everyone who died in 9/11 a hero is to cheapen the word for those to whom it truly applies. We should honor those who died, but let’s do so honestly. Honest honor is better than false praise.

3. The Opportunity Will Always Be Clearer Than The Cause. We can speculate forever about the causes of 9/11. I’m not talking about the direct causes, i.e. that terrorists flew planes into buildings, but the more fundamental causes, whether they be political or divine. What is clear is the opportunity 9/11 created for the kingdom of God. 9/11 shook a nation out of its secular slumber and opened people to the Gospel. It also incited hatred, which gave Kingdom citizens the opportunity to model the love of Christ to Muslims. In short, it was a tremendous opportunity for the advance of the kingdom of God. Only time will tell how well Christians seized that opportunity.

So, if you find yourself in a conversation regarding 9/11 today, speak Truth, give honor where honor is due and seize the opportunity for the kingdom of God. GS

Lessons From Threatened Book Burning

church and mosque — 2010 (c)iStockphoto/wildcat78

Pastor Terry Jones’s 15 minutes of fame has stretched into a reality tv mini-series. If you haven’t heard the latest, Pastor Jones met with an imam who, Jones insists, promised him the planned Islamic center near ground zero would relocate if Jones would call off the book burning. Jones says he agreed and announced he was canceling, but not long after the meeting, the imam claimed he had made no such promise. Jones responded by saying the imam had lied and that the book burning was no longer cancelled but suspended.

I blogged on Jones’s inflammatory intentions recently and suggested he may have had more in common with Islamic terrorists than he realized. I also blogged on the proposed Islamic center near ground zero, contending the most popular arguments against are missing the point. But I think there is something more significant here than either individual incident.

In response to his plan to burn a Quran, Jones claims he and his people have received over 100 death threats, and there is concern around the world of bloody repercussions by Muslims against Christians, and even the American military. So serious were these threats, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called Jones and encouraged him to call off the book burning. And all of because Jones threatened to burn a book.

But I don’t recall hearing of death threats against Muslims in response to plans to build an Islamic center near ground zero. Many Christians disagreed for sure, but they tried to reason and persuade. They didn’t threaten to kill people.

Or look at the response of the Christian community to Jones. Christians from every conceivable denomination called on Jones not to go ahead with the book burning, and they did so publicly. They went on the record to make it clear what Jones proposed to do was not representative of Christianity or its Founder.

But in response to plans to build an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero, Muslim leaders have been silent. I didn’t hear them calling on their fellow Muslims to build at a different place or suggesting love or respect for the feelings of others is required of them by their Islamic beliefs. If they have spoken publicly its been to claim victim status or first amendment rights.

Obviously, there are exceptions on both sides, but my point is there has been a substantive difference between the response of Christendom and Muslims which reveals more about both than the underlying controversies that spawned them.

What do you think? Do you see moral equivalency here or a difference in the responses? GS

My Conversion

It all started about a year and a half ago, when I began to notice some of the people I knew and really respected had iPhones. Their love of Apple irritated me a bit at first. They seemed almost arrogant, like they thought they were better than me; later I realized they didn’t think they were better than me because I had PCs, they just really loved Apple. I also noticed they shared an affinity with other Apple-lovers that seemed based on a knowledge, like they all knew something PC people didn’t know that drew them together.

When it came time to buy a new phone, I debated between a Blackberry and an iPhone. The Blackberry seemed safe; the iPhone a risk. I wasn’t sure I was ready to depart from the security of being like most of my lawyer friends with their Blackberry’s and PCs. How could they all be wrong? Finally I decided, “What the heck?” I took the leap.

Almost immediately I knew I’d made the right decision. I never knew a simple piece of technology could meet so many different needs in my life, and I wondered how I could have been so stupid to wait this long to make this decision. I also began noticing more Apple people. I wondered how I never noticed them before. I began to notice every iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac, like they had suddenly appeared in people’s hands, laps and on their desks.

It wasn’t long before I began to tell others about the iPhone. I told them how it had changed my life, how it had made me more organized, productive and creative. I told them they needed to get an iPhone. I had to avoid the tendency of thinking them stupid and close-minded for continuing to use an obviously inferior phone, but it helped when I remembered that not long ago I was like them.

When the iPad came out, I bought one, the 64 Gig model with 3G capability. When it came time to buy a new laptop for my wife I bought her a Macbook Pro. A few months later I bought one for myself.

I held on to our two old PC laptops, thinking I might need them in the future if I needed to run software that was PC based. And I still had my new laptop PC on my desk in my study functioning almost like a desktop computer, but as the time passed, I found I didn’t even want to use it.

Then, in church last Sunday, I had an epiphany. My brother and his family were in town and my niece and nephew needed laptops for school. It occurred to me I could give them my two PC laptops and buy an iMac for the desk in my study. My wife and I could then network our Macbook Pros with the iMac and be completely Macified at home. After church, I purchased the iMac and I’m writing this post on it right now.

I still have to go in to work every day and use PCs, but I think my love of Apple is strong enough now that I won’t be persuaded to ever switch back. GS

Kingdom Politics

I’ve purposively avoided political issues here because I believe them to be unnecessarily divisive and often a distraction from more important issues of the kingdom of God. But on August 26, 2010, I blogged on the proposed Islamic center and mosque near ground zero, and that began a stream of conscious of posts on political issues that ended on September 1, 2010, with a post asking whether an abortion advocate could be a Christian.

If there is a common thread in the my recent posts on political issues it is in the attempt to think through these issues outside the left/right political box, more specifically, from the perspective of seeking first the kingdom of God. Continue reading “Kingdom Politics”

Smart Dude Sayings

Here are some quotes from G.K. Chesterton, one smart dude and a fabulous writer:

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”

“The Christian idea has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

“One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

“In truth, there are only two kinds of people: those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don’t know it.”

“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.”

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

“You can only find Truth with logic if you have already found Truth without it.”