I was really becoming concerned that CNN had tightened its filters to avoid the possibility of ridiculous headlines making their way onto T-Shirts via their inexplicable new merchandising technique: CNN Shirts. Not sure exactly why you might want to wear a headline? Perhaps it’s something that touched your heart. Or made you think. Or was the cause for your spit-take.
Interesting that this article should appear on the front page of CNN.com today, considering my pastor spoke at length yesterday concerning this very issue.
When I heard my pastor mention that one of the goals of City Church of East Nashville was to reconcile the diversity of East Nashville to each other and to Jesus Christ, my anti-affirmative action, knee-jerk response was, “Why is that so important?”
We were talking about it before the sermon because the church is searching for both an assistant pastor and a worship leader. Our church leadership feels strongly that the assistant pastor should probably be black, and it might not hurt if the worship leader was bringing a different cultural experience as well.
As I sat listening, the reasoning sunk in. First of all, I reminded myself, there’s nothing unbiblical about the desire to reconcile and break down barriers. In fact, the message of the Gospel levels the playing field, breaking down all barriers.
Then I read the article on segregation in the church. I never used to think of it as a problem. You know, they enjoy their services, we’ll just do ours a differently over here. But that is precisely why it’s a problem. The “us” and “them” mindset. If it’s that pervasive in the Church, how do we expect it won’t invade our lives elsewhere? It will.
The article does a great job of showing the breakdown of fellowship between Christians from all angles, speaking to the detriments from a religious standpoint. It was the end of the article that really got me, though. And keep in mind that this was on the front page of a major news outlet:
When Pryor sees his friend on Sunday, he says he no longer sees a “they” or a “them” trying to invade his world.
He sees his brother in Christ.
“We come to love each other,” he says. “When I look into his eyes, I can see the love of Jesus Christ. He and I have become friends.”
Shouldn’t that be a strong enough reason for racial healing to take place beginning in the Church? Remember, once the truth of the Gospel reaches a person’s heart and they really understand the Fall and their depravity, is it not true that we begin to realize just how much this whole thing isn’t about us and our preferences?
The Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan group, released a study recently detailing the costs of all major US wars in 2008 dollars. Surprisingly, Iraq isn’t first. Or second. It comes in third at $648 billion behind World War II and the Vietnam War. In fact, we’ve still got $3466 billion to go in Iraq to catch up to the cost of WWII! At the current rate, it’ll take another 4,813 10,152 days (almost 28 years) in Iraq to even match the costs of WWII.
I’m not saying it’s totally awesome how much we’re spending in Iraq, but studies like this do help put it into perspective. When the average person hears, “We’re spending over $720 $341.4 million a day in Iraq!” we’re shocked, but that’s because most of us think $500 is a lot. (And for a person, it is, but not for a government the size of the United States.) So $720 $341.4 sounds huge. This study really helps put war costs into perspective.
In terms of Gross Domestic Product, the Iraqi war is clearly not breaking us. It comes in at a quaint 1%, whereas WWII weighed in at 35.8%. In fact, there were only two major wars the US has been involved in that consumed less of a percentage of our GDP: the Persian Gulf War and the War in Afghanistan, both at 0.3% GDP.
Take a look, it’s interactive!
UPDATE: According to the National Priorities Project, the daily cost of the Iraqi war is $341.4 million, not $720 million. Heh, I guess that’s what quickly Googling something will get you.