“Kansas board looks at class on religion” (Kansas City Star) Reg. Req.

The state already has science standards, and the board is expected to begin a review of them soon. But it has no such standards for teaching religion, a subject most public schools in the nation shy away from.

Public schools have been uncomfortable about teaching religion, Wagnon said, because of the restrictions imposed by the First Amendment. But schools might be interested in offering a class on the history of religion, for example, if the state provided them with guidelines on how to go about doing so, he said.

I think this is actually a good idea. It would do children a lot of good to understand belief systems other than the secular humanism that so many of them seem to pick up in schools today, if for no other reason than to help make those of other faiths seem less alien.
Teachers would have to be very careful, though, to teach Christianity without letting the anti-Christian bias that seems to seep into so much in today’s society affect the way that the history and culture of Christianity is presented. Teaching more people to believe the lie that Christians are evil warmongerers equivalent to those who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the pentagon would be a travesty. Especially if it’s taught in an official capacity.

A trial under way in U.S. District Court in Atlanta is weighing a lawsuit that challenges a decision in Cobb County, Ga., to place stickers that say evolution is “a theory, not a fact” in science books.

School officials decided to include the stickers two years ago after parents complained the books presented evolution as a fact without mentioning rival ideas about the origin of life, namely creationism.

A group of parents and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit challenging the stickers as a violation of the First Amendment. The trial, to be decided by a judge, is expected to last several days.

Evolution, on the micro scale, is a fact. Evolution as an origin of species, however, is a theory that has no more evidence than Creationism as an origin of species. I understand why a teacher explaining creationism could be construed as a violation of the Establishment Clause (though I disagree — especially if it’s just listed as an alternate belief). I don’t understand why teaching the theory of evolution should be taught as fact when it’s a theory!

I was raised in a Christian home. I have believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that he made the ultimate sacrifice by coming to Earth and dying for my sins for a very long time. I had a crisis of faith for a brief time while I was in college, but in the end, I came back to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ was.

However, knowing that Christ was the Son of God, knowing that He’d died for me, and asking Him to clean my record so that I could be eternally saved didn’t mean I was living a Christian life. Whether it was the pursuit of carnal pleasures or my geekdom, I let other things come between me and the Lord.

I don’t even remember, now, what made me realize exactly how off course I was. A couple of months ago, though, I realized that, while I knew Jesus Christ, I was treating him like an extended family member, someone to visit on Sunday mornings and to put on the back of my mind for the rest of the week.

When I realized exactly how I was living, I fell down and begged Him to forgive me. I asked that he would use me, use the single-mindedness that I’ve always used for enjoying various science fiction or fantasy universes, and let me serve Him. I praise Him that, while I still enjoy those things, He is no longer on the back of my mind all the time; He is in the forefront of my mind.

Obviously, I’m not perfect. While I’m keeping my heart and mind on Christ much more than I ever have before, I still occasionally find myself struggling with other things. I am learning, though, to be a “Geek for God,” and I thank Him for all the patience He has shown for me in my life.

I pray that he will continue to help me learn to focus all of the passion that I’ve had for all of my geek-ish pursuits on serving Him. Anyone who’s gotten me started on any of my geekish interests knows that once I start, you can’t shut me up. I need to be like that for Christ, and I need prayers to get there.

Finally, I plan to add a new category of posts soon, on my Bible readings. I usually read one or two chapters a night in a regular Bible reading (moving linearly through the Bible), and I supplement that most nights with a short passage from elsewhere in the Bible on a topic that I feel a need to read about (passages found using the references in the back of my Bible). As I read and find things I’d like to comment on, I’ll probably post the passages and my thoughts.

The Bible’s truth doesn’t really need commentary, and it definitely deserves better than any commentary that I can provide. I’m not a Bible scholar, and though I’ve believed in Christ for several years, I’ve never given the Bible nearly as much study as I should have. I encourage anyone who has more insight into these passages to leave a comment, and hopefully, this will help me (and possibly others, if they stumble across my little blog) in finding a closer walk with Jesus Christ.

I was told the other night that my belief in Christianity was like a thirsty man wandering through the desert, that I saw what I believed was water in the distance, but that I was following nothing but a mirage.

It struck a note with me. Not because I agreed, but because too many people think that the Christian reward is in the future, in the afterlife. I can’t even begin to tell you the blessings that God has given me in the here and now. The idea that the blessings of Heaven are so much greater that the human heart cannot even imagine them awes me, and I look forward to it, but I praise God daily for the blessings He’s given me here.

In John 7, verses 37 and 38, the Bible tells us:

In the last day, that great day, Jesus stood and cried, saying If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

That Living Water is not the kind of water where you take a drink now and then and satisfy your thirst for a little while. As long as I choose to partake of it, my cup will run over and I will never be thirsty again. As long as I remember where the source of that water is, as long as I stay close to Jesus Christ and follow him, I don’t need to walk toward a mirage to find my water, because I already have it! It will satisfy my thirst now and forever! PRAISE GOD!

The fact of the matter is, I’m not a thirsty man, and thanks to the incomprehensibly wonderful sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for me, I will never be thirsty again!

Those who are still in the desert looking may have canteens full of substances they think will help satisfy their thirst. But like canteens full of salt water or alcohol, those drinks will end up leaving them thirstier than when they first lifted the canteen to their lips. I praise God to thank him that He allowed me to find this oasis, and I pray that He will work His will in my life, so that I may go out into the desert and guide others back to His Living Water.