Chris Broussard

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry From SojoMail

So, my posts have petered out to almost nothing lately. If you've noticed, God bless you. The fact is, I've been so self-absorbed for the past few months that I haven't had the energy to share my neuroses with you, or anybody else for that matter. I hope to change that in the days ahead, but don't hold your breath. My sister died recently, moving death closer to me. My father died when I was young, so young that I have no memory of him. I remember my mother getting a phone call in the middle of the night and then getting my brother and me out of bed to tell us. My brother (seven years older) sobbed while I sat still as a stone, confused as to how I should feel. My mother and father had divorced a few years earlier and he'd remarried, so I really had no knowledge of him. It was out of this subsequent marriage that my sister, Stormy, was born. My grandmother died about six years ago, but I really had no feelings for her. She'd been a bitch to me all my life and I ...

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. As a rule, I'm a pretty lousy friend. Abusive betrayal as a child, and continued betrayal as an adult, has left me scarred and generally untrusting of others and, thus, unwilling to risk any additional trauma. Let me give you an example. A few years back, when my depression was heavier than it had ever been and I felt that I couldn't continue feeling the way I did, I became suicidal. All my thoughts were focused on ways to do the deed while minimizing the trauma to my family. During this period, a "friend" of mine from church (he was one of the pastors) found out about my situation and called me to see how I was doing. I was already at rock bottom, so I figured, "What the hell?" and opened up to him, explaining in as much detail as I could how and why I was feeling the way I was. He, being a card-carrying Christian and all, said he'd pray for me. But then came the kicker. He added that he was going t...

Normally I don't post long essays unless I wrote them, but this is so powerful, I had to post it in its entirety. It's from Bruderhof and their Daily Dig . Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Days later he counseled an airman who had flown a low-level reconnaissance flight over the city of Nagasaki shortly after the detonation of “Fat Man.” The man described how thousands of scorched, twisted bodies writhed on the ground in the final throes of death, while those still on their feet wandered aimlessly in shock—flesh seared, melted, and falling off. The crewman’s description raised a stifled cry from the depths of Zabelka’s soul: “My God, what have we done?” Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral a...

Continuing on the theme below, this picture comes from Real Live Preacher : As RLP points out: "First, you don't just chance upon a flag like that at Walmart. Someone at this church had to decide to get the really, REALLY big flag from wherever it is that people buy real big flags. So this was an intentional move, not some accident or some misunderstanding on the part of some committee. This is the message they want to send. Second, don't you wonder if there is a cross, or some stained glass, or some kind of sacred symbol behind that flag? Third, is it possible that no one in leadership at this congregation had any second thoughts about this? What if a Christian from another country, say Iraq, happened by and wanted to attend worship. Would they feel welcome in this place? Would they feel a kinship with their brothers and sisters in Christ? Finally, whatever happened to the first commandment - Thou shalt have no other gods before Me? Covering your church with a flag creat...

Lest you have any doubts that Christendom laid down with the whore of imperialism and came up with a bad case of crabs, I present the U.S. Christian Flag : If I need to detail the many ways this is wrong, then you're probably reading the wrong blog and nothing I can say will change your mind, but allow me to make a few comments. First, let me encourage you to go to their site , and make sure you let the page load, which will bring up a song, "American Christian", by one Michael Combs . Make no mistake, the song is horrible by all standards of songwriting, and is exceeded in audacity only by the amateur production quality. Regardless, it will no doubt find itself among the frontrunners for the new national anthem when all the lower-case-christians take over, waving their newly adopted flag. Dig further into the site, of course, and you can order your very own copy of the American Christian Flag, for only $50 (US currency only, please). Folks, lower-case-christians need to ...

"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes, be posted anywhere." - Kurt Vonnegut

"Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ."— Dallas Willard from "The Spirit of the Disciplines"

This has been circulated for a couple of weeks now, and I've meant to post it. Forgive me if you've seen it elsewhere. Former Republican Senator John Danforth on Christianity and Politics .

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...