The battle over the Ten Commandments plaque in our local County Commission office is apparently heating up. Back in August, The Clay County Communicator wrote about the controversy.

The issue has slowly built up steam, and is finally starting to escalate. Today’s Clay County Free Press (which doesn’t seem to have a website) says:

The Clay County Commission room was full this week with citizens who gathered to hear what the ACLU had charged the County Commission with this time.

In order of the agenda, the Commission handled the rest of the business before discussing the ACLU topic.

…

After all other business had been takenc are of, the Commission took up discussion about the ACLU threatening the County Commission with a lawsuit for having the Ten Commandments displayed in the Commission room.

The threat came in an envelope on October 14th. The letter from Ms. Terri S. Baur, Staff Attorney for the ACLU of West Virginia, stated that an anonymous citizen that was non-Christian feels “unwelcome in a governmental environment that endorses a particular religion.” … [T]he Commission has never been formally informed that a citizen wanted to attend the meeting but could now, even though hundresds of people who disagree with the display keep coming back to the meetings.

(The article also goes on to dispute the claim that the plaque has cost the county money.)

Commissioner Sams, who had made an election year promise that he would hang the Ten Commandments if elected, said that he wouldn’t take the plaque down if the display were ruled unconstitutional (two cases are pending before the Supreme Court), but someone else may. Commissioner Triplett volunteered that he would do so if it became obvious that the plaque was considered unconstitutional. Commissioner Bragg remained silent, as he apparently wasn’t there (He’s misssed several months of meetings, according to the Communicator) [EDIT: ...was apparently at the meeting (though the report said he was silent through everything except the Ten Commandments discussion, and I saw nothing of any interest that he contributed.]

Honestly, I find it hard to get worked up about this issue one way or the other. I find it interesting, after the big hullabaloo with Judge Moore in Alabama(?), that the Commission decided to put up the plaque, especially without even adding other displays to constitute a true “historical” display.

While I think it’s a nice touch, I, as a Christian, don’t really feel a strong need to have the Ten Commandments displayed. On the other hand, I have serious doubts that displaying the Ten Commandments constitutes establishment of a “state” religion, and like the article says, it’s not like we’re saying non-Christians can’t come to meetings. Someone complained that he was uncomfortable — being comfortable isn’t a Constitutional right. I think some real wrongdoing would have to be shown before there was a problem.

There are a lot of things about this Commission that makes me uncomfortable, and the Ten Commandments display would have to be considerably more intrusive before it would even come close to appearing on the list.

La Shawn is back, and she’s got an interesting post up titled: “A Christian or a Liberal?“. It’s a response to Doug Giles’ article A Christian Can Be a Christian or a Liberal, But He Can’t Be Both.

Mr. Giles’ article seems to focus mainly on the idea that the Left is waging a war on Christianity, slowly relegating our faith to a “behind closed doors” type of thing. It seems funny to me that, while the Left would have us believe that homosexuality is something that’s neither sinful nor private (Witness Gay Pride parades and the like), they believe that Faith is something that we should hide, as though we’re ashamed of it.

La Shawn’s response is fairly short, but the comments section seems to be worried less about the liberal tendency to support “religious tolerance except for Christians” and more about the ethical dilemmas faced by a Christian who supports a party that advocates sin. When an openly gay feminist calls you out for assaulting our culture and our values, something is wrong.

I think both criticisms of the obvious discordance involved in being a “Liberal Christian” are valid. Because of the current interpretation of the word “liberal,” I can’t see a way to be a liberal and be true to your faith.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe a Christian can never register or vote Democrat. Both parties have their issues, and there are going to be situations where both candidates are the wrong choice (many people think that’s the case this year, in fact), and we, as citizens of the United States, must do the best we can with the choices we’re given.

If you’re reading this and you identify as both are a Christian and a Liberal, please take a few minutes to think about your faith and what it means in your life. Sit down with a Bible, study God’s Word, and pray about it. Consider what God would think about abortion, barring those instances where the mother’s life is in danger. Consider what God says about homosexuality, and what He says about, well, everything.

The world tells us that Tolerance is key to everything, and in fact, the Christian faith does demand that we love our fellow man. But, exortations to give to the needy don’t mean that we should steal from the rich to do so — we should give freely from our own pockets. Similarly, commandments to love our brethren don’t extend to walking along side them as they brag about their sins. As long as their sexual choices don’t interfere in the job (as they would, in my opinion, in the case of a Boy Scout Troop Leader), I see no problem with guaranteeing that we don’t discriminate against someone based on that choice. I do see a problem with trying to force society as a whole to embrace their choices.

There are things in my life that I struggle with daily. As much as I would love to be perfect, as much as I try to be perfect, I know that I’m not. I can’t be. If I leaned on the Holy Spirit all the time, I could be, but even with him right beside me, I sometimes get sidetracked. I know I’m not perfect, and I wouldn’t dare condemn someone else for their mistakes. However, as a Christian, I’m obligated not to help them wallow in their sins, but to encourage them to look to Christ for guidance and strength as they try to lead a godly life.

The Liberal agenda centers around moral relativism, and as Christians, we need to see relativism for the sinful belief that it is. As I sometimes fall into that trap myself, thanks to the bombardment that our culture gives us to accept people for their own beliefs and their choices, I ask that you pray for me, and I’ll do the same for you.

[Note: The good thing about having no readers is that I could've made the changes above without showing them, but I prefer to be honest about it. I realize that, whether you're liberal or conservative, you should be praying about your beliefs, and changed the text to match that.]

Last Wednesday, La Shawn Barber announced she was taking a few days off from her blog to Retreat and Evaluate how her blog fit in with her Christian life. It’s something that I think every Christian blogger should consider. She wrote:

I want that peace, but right now I don’t have it as far as the blog is concerned. I’m not tired of it. I’ve just had doubts lately about why I’m doing this. Am I glorifying God or myself?

I can’t speak for all bloggers. My experience with blogging may or may not be typical. I may or may not be typical. I can only speak for myself. I know that I worry far too much about who’s reading, whether they comment, and any number of other things.

Before Church started this evening, I was asked if I was going to stand up and sing. I love to sing, though I’m usually reluctant to do so when anyone can hear me beyond my immediate family. I told her that I’d think about it, but in the end, I chose not to stand. I just didn’t have a song that seemed right.

I’ve stood to sing in Church before. Though I don’t think much of my singing voice, other people at our church seem to. This means one of two things. Either (a) most of the people at our church are losing their hearing (most of them are older people) or (b) they’re reacting more to what I’m singing than to how I’m singing it. I prefer to think it’s the latter, honestly.

Either way, I usually get a few compliments when I stand to sing during our service, and I won’t deny that the compliments are a good feeling. Still, it’s nothing compared to the joy that washes over me while I’m singing His praise. Ultimately, tonight, when I thought about singing, it felt more like I was thinking about it because I wanted the compliments than because I had a song that I felt He wanted me to sing in His name. It would’ve been selfish and sinful for me to sing under those circumstances, so I chose not to sing. It was that simple.

Christian bloggers need to make that same distinction. When we write a post, whether it’s on politics, or movies, or our faith, are we writing because we need to say what we’re saying, or are we writing for the possibility of getting trackbacks and comments?

This post was originally much better, but I saved it on a disk to post when the time came, and I’m at my Mom’s this weekend. I didn’t realize until it was too late that the computer I loaned her doesn’t have a disk drive. Curses.

Because of Joss Whedon’s recent show of support for John Kerry, The Truth Laid Bear has organized a blogburst with the title “Heroes for Bush.” Many of Joss’s heroic characters (and other heroes in various fiction universes) would support George W. Bush, in my opinion. Here are a few.

1.) Angel

No, the War on Terror can never be truly won, at least not until Christ’s second coming, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t fight it with everything we have. As Angel said after his epiphany in Season 2, when he realized that he couldn’t ever truly win the battle against evil, “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”

2.) Captain Mackenzie Calhoun (Star Trek: New Frontier)

Like Captain Reynolds of Firefly, who I’m sure has been covered elsewhere, Calhoun seems to be a strong believer in personal freedoms, and he’s not afraid to buck the system when the right thing calls for it.

3.) Batman

Putting aside the fact he’s rich (and Bush is “for the rich,” as any Left-wing Loony can tell you), Batman’s a strong believer in doing what it takes to protect people. I could certainly see him supporting the president in this campaign.

I could go on, but instead, I’m just going to provide some links to my favorite examples from the blogburst.

• Mister Pterodactyl: Spider-Man and Yoda
• Patio Pundit: Neo
• The Spoons Experience: Buffy
• What is Flig?: The Tick
• Coffee with CrankyBeach: Captain Malcolm Reynolds

An American Werewolf Republican in Paris

American University of Paris student Jennifer Locke is in a very underrepresented minority in Paris. She describes the experience she had while wearing a pin a friend had brought her that read “Proud to be a Republican”:

“A waiter,” she wrote, “looked as if he was going to spit in my pizza. A man in the dining hall asked me what the pin said, twice, and then walked away. I felt like dirt. I felt worse than dirt.”

While I don’t quite understand why any self-respecting Republican would want to go to school in France in the first place, I sympathize with Ms. Locke. I have trouble keeping my cool around the rabid Bush-haters around here, and they’re nowhere near as numerous as the article makes them sound in France.

(Via Trying to Grok)