It seems to me when the Christian community, when the evangelical community, takes a strong pro-life stand, the rest of the world says, “Okay, we understand where you’re coming from.  We understand why your religious values and beliefs motivate you to take such positions.”  They understand that.  What they don’t understand is how people who call themselves evangelical Christians can support capital punishment in face of a Jesus who says, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”  Who calls upon us to return good for evil.  Who presents a philosophy of restitution and reconciliation rather than retribution.  They don’t understand that.  They also don’t understand the very pro-war mind-set of the evangelical community.  They’re stunned when they see the evangelical church drape the American flag over the cross, as I have seen on the front of three churches lately.  They’re saying, ”It seems strange to us that people who follow the greatest peacemaker of all time should be so pro-war, so militaristic.”  This leads to labeling people who have questions about the war as not only “unpatriotic,” which would be bad enough, but “unchristian.”  - Tony Campolo (taken from Lord Save Us From Your Followers, By: Dan Merchant)

I would love to elaborate on this quote, but what else is there to say?  The reality is that we aren’t following Jesus.  We are following our own interpretations of scripture.  Ghandi once said, “Everybody in the world understands what Jesus was teaching, except for Christians.”  Ouch!  I think he may be on to something.  We use the Bible as a buffet and we pick and choose what we like and we cling to it.  The the other parts we don’t like, we ignore.  How sinful!  I am wrestling with what it means to follow Jesus.  I am looking at the sermon on the mount and wondering what it means to be a peacemaker.  Does it mean that we take soldiers overseas and kill the people that we don’t like?  Does it mean that we can justify the idea of just-war?  Isn’t that an oxymoron?  What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? 

I want to see God and I want to be a Christ follower.  I strive to follow Jesus and the red letters, His love letter, to us!