Chris Broussard

I've thought for sometime that there needed to be a "Christian" reality show. Think "American CCM Idol". Can you imagine the backstabbing and bitchiness? Well, check out http://megsoapbox.blogspot.com/2005/03/intern.html , for a great reality show pitch.

Since the Supreme Court decision on Roe vs. Wade in January of 1973, a large percentage of U.S. citizens have been enmeshed in a conflict over whether the rights of the mother or the rights of the unborn child take precedence in abortion decisions. Women who seek the right to choose to have an abortion have been derided and attacked, labeled selfish and promiscuous and condemned to Hell for their attitudes. Politicians have won or lost elections based on their own views of the issue, and the abortion question has been used as a litmus test for federal court appointees under more than one president. Pro-life advocates are demanding federal intervention to end abortions immediately, while pro-choice proponents oppose any legislation whatsoever. Beneath all of the rancor, however, rest contradictions that pro-life forces refuse to recognize. When fingers are pointed at women on the pro-choice side, devaluing their morals and standards, males are suspiciously left out of the arguments. W...

I was raised in an ultra-conservative Christian environment and was taught from my earliest memories the tenets of the Christian faith as truth. At the same time, as I progressed through my school years I was taught the history of America as truth. Security was to be had in both of these belief systems and I repeatedly met people in my early twenties who disbelieved one or both of my fundamental yardsticks of truth, only to leave me shaking my head and wondering why they were so confused. Time has changed my willingness to accept truth at face value. While the foundation of my beliefs has progressively been compromised in adult years by the termites of reason, the subjectivity of truth began to consume my thinking during the presidential election of 2004. It was during this time that I was told that to be a Christian meant that you were a Republican, and that to be pro-life you had to be pro-death penalty. Things that seemed to be obvious lies were coming from the current administratio...

And if your brother becomes poor , and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God ; that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest , nor give him your food for profit . I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan , and to be your God. ( Leviticus 25:35-38)

I get letters. Boy, do I get letters. My favorites lately are from self-described Christians who assail my recent columns on peace, informing me of my naiveté and explaining in a frankly un-Christian-like way that Jesus’ teachings on peace can be ignored because, while great in theory, they are impractical. I find this incredibly ironic. The Christian faith is, in and of itself, impractical, but that does not exclude us from living it out. Let’s examine the practicalities of Christianity. We believe in and worship a God we cannot see, touch, taste, smell or hear (audibly). We believe that an unmarried teenage virgin was selected to give birth to the son of this invisible and infinite being. We know nothing of His life between the ages of 12 and 30 years old, yet we accept that Jesus Christ never committed a sin, because the Bible, a book filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, says so. We believe that Jesus was killed and then rose from the dead, visited and dined with...

Military recruitors are free to solicit your kids, but not pacifists . A Tennessee high school has forbidden Veterans for Peace to return to its school, saying that the group's materials (mostly of a Quaker persuasion) are anti-American and anti-military. Welcome to the machine that is the United States of Capitalism and Empire.

I have had it up to here with this daisy chain talk of a mandate. For the first few weeks after the election, I gritted my teeth as the word repeatedly dripped off the lips of the cable news shills, believing that good sense would soon set in and everyone would see how ridiculous it was. Unfortunately, things here in Wonderland are still upside down, as I heard the Mad Hatter use the term again just last week. Friends have spent the past couple of months in a daze, shell-shocked really, and now I feel that the inauguration has brought us a semi-closure, with the realization setting in that, yes, he really is going to be president for four more years. In the meantime, Democrats in Washington have cowered back to their local watering holes while Republicans have issued calls for unity and harmony (an aquiescent unity and harmony, mind you). See, we’re all one big happy family now. Right? Wrong. The American people are not in agreement with this whole mendacity. George W. B...

When I was five-years-old, my favorite toy was a G.I. Joe, and I had all of the accoutrements that went along with it—the Jeep with anti-aircraft gun attached, the helicopter with missiles that fired and a candy-store assortment of guns and grenades. My mother and father had both served in the military, as had my grandfathers, uncles and cousins. As a child, I was taught to admire these men and women who had given their all to protect the United States from its murderous foes. When my older brother turned 18, he was encouraged to join the military to learn character and discipline. As I approached my 18th birthday, I was likewise courted by the different branches of the armed forces. I chose, instead, to seek peace. I have yet to meet someone who likes war. I have family members and friends who are currently in the military and they tell me that they are as much against war as I am, and see their mission as peacekeeping. When forced to fight, they will, but their goal is to wield mi...

A "religion" is a highly acceptable thing. Once it is firmly established in a fixed form, people can do anything they want. They can go to church and take communion, while all the while carrying on with their stealing and cheating. God could say, "Did I ever tell you to build churches, or to celebrate divine worship and communion so as to be saved?" If we think we have something mechanical that will save us, we are heathen. If our Christianity is a matter of forms and rituals, it will be dark around us. What was the worst thing at the time of Jesus? I will tell you plainly: religion! People stagnated in religiosity instead of expecting something from above. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt Religion is the opium of the people.

Men pray to the Almighty to relieve poverty. But poverty comes not from God’s laws—it is blasphemy of the worst kind to say that. Poverty comes from man’s injustice to his fellow man. - Leo Tolstoy

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve been brooding for the past month over the election results. Given the state of our economy, the casualty rates in a war of choice, the erosion of basic civil rights and a series of lies that make the Clinton administration look like a Billy Graham Crusade, it really seemed like a slam dunk for the Democrats. Yet 51% of the voters who showed up on Election Day chose to stay the course. The Christian Right, as expected, displayed its usual lack of humility, gloating and pontificating on the sorry state of Democrats and their evil ways. Several writers on this page even publicly thanked God for the re-election of George W. Bush. This left me in the aforementioned mood, convinced that America had lost its collective mind. Ever since it appeared on the wall of the “War Room” in the 1992 Clinton campaign, “It’s the economy, Stupid!” has been the clarion call for the Democratic Party. Yet increasingly, millions of lower and middle class Americans have voted ag...

Long periods of well-being and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. Yet it is a fact that difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul. I know there is a widespread feeling that if we highly value suffering this is masochism. On the contrary, it is a significant bravery when we respect suffering and understand what burdens it places on our soul. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If your neighbor sins, then you also sin. For if you had kept yourself as the Word demands, your neighbor would have been so ashamed on seeing how you live that he would not have sinned. -- Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 AD)

Europeans are thrilled with our presidential selection:   "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" the UK-based Daily Mirror asked in a Page One headline. Inside, several pages of coverage were headed "U.S. election disaster." The Independent bore the front-page headline "Four more years" on a black page with grim pictures including a hooded Iraqi prisoner and an orange-clad detainee at Guantanamo Bay. The Guardian led its features section with a black page bearing the tiny words, "Oh, God." Inside a story described how Bush's victory "catapaulted liberal Britain into collective depression." Across Europe, many newspapers expressed dismay at the prospect of another term for Bush, a president often regarded as inflexible and unilateralist. "Oops — they did it again," Germany's left-leaning Tageszeitung newspaper said in a front-page English headline. The cover of the Swiss newsmagazine Facts called Bush's ...

History Lessons for the Next Term Johann Christoph Arnold The long awaited presidential election is over. The American people have spoken and given our president another four years to govern the country. Unlike the last election, he won the popular vote and now has a clear mandate. And although we have just been through the most polarizing campaign in recent memory, Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing—that our nation now needs to be united. In a recent CNN poll a majority of Americans were hopeful that President Bush would do more to unite our country than to divide it. To do this, he must lead the country in truly seeking God’s will, not his human will. This will require bipartisan action, openness, and even more importantly, humility, prayer, and sacrifice. Although he won the election, there are still millions who disagree strongly with him on many points. Their views must be listened to with respect. Blindly forging ahead with policies that barely half the nation ...

"We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet." - Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist.

For Jodi, from the Daily Dig : The radical is that unique person who actually believes what he says. He is that person to whom the common good is the greatest personal value. He is that person who genuinely and completely believes in humankind. The radical is so completely identified with humankind that he personally shares the pain, the injustices, and the sufferings of all his fellow humans. For the radical the bell tolls unceasingly, and every man’s struggle is his fight. Thoughts on the radicalism of the wholly committed life.

"This should be the rallying cry of every church, synagogue, and mosque in America: God have mercy on us and our nation and help us out of our need! But he will do this only if we become active. Even if we vote for the wrong party, may every vote this November be seen as a prayer to God for his intervention and his will to be done. If we see our vote in this way, then we will be united as a nation as never before." - Johann Christoph Arnold, author, social critic, and senior pastor of the Bruderhof - an international communal movement dedicated to a life of simplicity, service, sharing, and nonviolence.

From the Bruderhof Peacemaker's Guide : Once upon a time there was a boy named Opherus. He was strong, so strong that he didn't know what to do with all his strength. His father often had trouble finding work for him because, in spite of his good will, he did more harm than his work was worth. All his father’s tools were too weak for his massive arms. By the time he was a young man, Opherus looked like a giant. Exasperated, his father said to him, “Opherus, I cannot be your master anymore. You must find a greater and stronger master to serve, one who will use your strength in a right and proper way.” Opherus left home and went to the king of the land and offered his service. The king was at war and was happy to have such a strong soldier. Opherus served his king faithfully for several years. One day a visitor mentioned the devil to Opherus. When Opherus told the king about the conversation, the king looked terrified. He had to admit to Opherus that he was afraid of the...

Sobering. A look at the faces of fallen U.S. soldiers in Iraq: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/casualties/facesofthefallen.htm Also, a new study puts the number of Iraqi dead at approximately 100,000. It's not a perfect model, but even if it's off by half, that's still 50,000 men, women and children who were shocked and awed. I suspect the number is more accurate than we want to believe.