Boom Town

Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Trucking and Wal-Mart are big national companies with one thing in common: they're based in the Bentonville area of Arkansas. New York journalist Marjorie Rosen traveled there and wrote a book, Boom Town, about it. Her less than objective goal was to record the "cold stark fear - at least among a segment of the white Christian majority, which sees its comfortable all-white way of life fading." Putting the cart before the horse, her conclusion preceded fact collection.

Boom Town was reviewed by Jay P. Greene in The Wall Street Journal. It turns out Ms. Rosen's notion is unsupported by her own writing. Greene notes that "we learn about African-American, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu groups blending rather smoothly into business and social life."

He goes on to write, "Ms. Rosen seems to expect that there should be especially severe problems with the acceptance of diverse newcomers in a geographical area that is, as she repeatedly puts it, 'emphatically Christian.' Instead, she finds that people of faith have an easy time understanding and accepting one another, including people who belong to different religious traditions, because they share a respect for religious belief. This type of tolerance is common in semi-rural northwest Arkansas but is not so common, one suspects, in the media and political centers that dot the coast."

The book displays biased thinking "but it is often Ms. Rosen's own." For example, she tells "how she was pulled over by the Bentonville police for driving slowly through a construction zone at midnight. The police obviously suspected she was drunk and subjected her to a sobriety test. In Ms. Rosen's mind the particular policeman who confronted her 'regards me as an alien...just arrived from an alternative universe called New York City.' She continues: 'My heart races as the boy-cop looks through my pocketbook, perhaps for a kilo of marijuana or a fifth of moonshine.' Moonshine? The irony of associating Arkansans with moonshine in a book (supposedly) condemning stereotypes appears to be lost on the author."

Leaving aside the fact that New York City is an alternative universe, Ms. Rosen's own misguided stereotypes against reputedly unenlightened provincial citizens tell more about her than her subjects. The policeman was probably a young officer working the graveyard shift who justifiably stopped her and treated her with the same professionalism as any other citizen. But she sees him as a "boy-cop" looking for "moonshine." Her attitude drips with unjustifiable condescension.

Condescending bias against Christians ironically comes from those who profess to be fair-minded. They're careful about what they say about minorities, non-Christian religions or other politically correct groups, but it's been open season on Christians for decades. These manufactured stereotypes have been built up because they're not challenged among those who perpetrate them. If people like Ms. Rosen ever walked into a church and met the people there they'd find them to be far more tolerant, accepting and loving than their narrow minded stereotypes. But this apparently doesn't happen much, if at all.

Unfortunately, the distorted view of Christianity discourages unbelievers from opening their minds to it and unfairly creates a high hurdle for Christians who wish to share their faith.


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Duck on a Rock

The stone rested atop a base outside the blacksmith shop at Bennie's Corners during the early 1870's. In a game called "duck on a rock" players would take turns chucking fist-sized stones at it. If you hit it, you'd go back to the end of the line to await another turn. But if you missed, you'd have to race the "guard" watching the target to the stone you just threw. Get there last and you'd become the next guard.

They figured out a fastball would carom away and increase the odds of being beaten to it. A high, lofting toss turned out to be more controllable and more likely to stay close enough to let you outrace the guard. This simple childhood game provided a key inspiration decades later for one of the young players.

Always athletic, the player had a fondness for contact sports like lacrosse (sometimes called "legalized murder") and rugby, which was considered to be a "tool of the devil." They were seemingly paradoxical avocations for a McGill University theological student who took his Christian faith seriously.

He eventually found his way to the Young Men's Christian Association's International Training School for Christian Workers, where he developed a safe indoor activity where running was allowed but tackling and rough play near the goals was discouraged. This last feature was accomplished by raising the goals overhead where they were too high to guard.

One vexing problem: how to score. The answer came from the game he played as a boy. The controlled arcing lobs used in "duck on a rock" were perfect for tossing a soccer ball into a peach basket. And so James Naismith invented the game of basketball at what is now Springfield College.

Naismith intended his new game to embody the Christian spirit. According to John A. Murray writing in The Wall Street Journal, the issue was addressed in 1897: "The game must be kept clean. It is a perfect outrage for an institution that stands for Christian work in the community to tolerate not merely ungentlemanly treatment of guests, but slugging and that which violates the elementary principles of morals....Excuse for the rest of the year any player who is not clean in his play."

He never capitalized on his invention and even refused fees for speaking about it. When others called for the game to be called "Naismith Ball" he insisted on "Basket Ball," and he remained a modest, dedicated Christian throughout his life.

The sport was "an important evangelical tool for many during its first 50 years," but the Christian aspect has been diluted since. Dr. Naismith couldn't have imagined gargantuan grown men racing down the court, bellowing at each other, trading blows and slamming the ball through the basket from high above.

Decades after Dr. Naismith was laid to rest, players like Charles Barkley (aka "Sir Charles" and "The Round Mound of Rebound") burst upon the scene. Sheer physical prowess transformed the dignified nature of the game and secularism overwhelmed its spirituality.

In 1891, who could've guessed this would be the game's future?


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The Green Prince

Mossab Hassan Yousef worked alongside his father Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founders and leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. Among other activities, he joined in rock throwing uprisings and became privy to Hamas's inner workings. In time, an internecine rivalry arose with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The groups accused each other of collaboration with Israel, resulting in the murder and torture of each other's members. Enemies abounded: Israel on the one hand and adversarial Palestinians on the other.

Yousef was arrested on weapons charges by the Israelis, who beat and tortured him. According to Mathew Kaminski in The Wall Street Journal, he was sent to the Megiddo prison. Here, he found Hamas operatives brutalizing their own people. "Every day, there was screaming; every night, torture. Hamas was torturing its own people!" The Muslims he met in jail "were mean and petty...bigots and hypocrites."

Disillusioned, he was recruited to become an agent for Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency. He was released from prison, put on Shin Bet's payroll and "encouraged...to study and be a model son for several years. His code name was the Green Prince: green as in the color of the Islamist Hamas flag, and prince as the offspring to Hamas royalty."

During this period he met a cabdriver who gave him a copy of the New Testament and invited him to a bible study. Yousef "found that (he) was really drawn to the grace, love and humility that Jesus talked about."

In 2000, Yasser Arafat refused an offer of Palestinian statehood from Israel. Yousef was called into action by Shin Bet and found that "Arafat decided he needed another uprising to win back international attention." A pretext arose and the uprising was fomented. Yousef "was horrified by the pointless violence unleashed by politicians willing to climb 'on the shoulders of poor, religious people' who 'were going like a cow to the slaughterhouse, and they thought they were going to heaven."

He "converted to Christianity because (he) was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love." "It's a beautiful thing to see my God exist in my life and see the change in my life. I see that when he does exist in other Middle Easterners there will be a change."

"I'm not trying to convert the entire nation of Israel and the entire nation of Palestine to Christianity. But at least...you can educate them about the ideology of love, the ideology of forgiveness, the ideology of grace. Those principles are great...and...we can't deny they came from Christianity."

These are inflammatory ideas and Yousef has received death threats. He is resigned to it. "Palestinians have reason to kill me. Some Israelis may want to kill me. My goal is not to defeat my enemy. It is to win over my enemy."

And so a faith that isn't even a central player in the conflict provides hope in the face of hopelessness.


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Jesus Guns

Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald wrote a political column about a company that makes night vision sights. Pitts writes that "there was this fellow named Glyn Bindon, who used weapons of war to speak for his faith." He explained that Bindon's company has been outfitting the U.S. military with gunsights containing a "secret code" referencing Bible verses.

Pitts notes that the scripture references provide a recruiting tool for Islamists, who tell followers the U.S. is shooting at them with "Jesus guns." He says there's a "jarring cognitive disconnect involved in seeing weapons of war used to lionize the prince of peace."

He asks, "is this not one of the cheesiest expressions of religious faith you've ever seen? Not that that would make it unique. On the contrary, we specialize in cheesy expressions of faith here in God's favorite country. Indeed, you could build a tower unto heaven itself out of all the roadside Jesuses, prayer cloths, Ten Commandments rocks, and other trinkets of a cheap, disposable faith that says nothing, costs nothing, does nothing, "risks" nothing, that speaks not of God, external and eternal, but only of the grubby, temporal perspectives and fears of ground-bound women and men."

Wow. It's not unusual for the media to beat up Christianity, but this piece was particularly venomous, misguided and factually misrepresentative. Let's look at it.

First, Mr. Pitts gives the impression that Mr. Bindon (who died in a plane crash in 2003) was simply an unthinking, over-the-top Christian zealot. Actually, he was an accomplished engineer who solved difficult aeronautical, automotive and missile problems; his work helped Apollo 13 return. Later, he designed optics for his own company, Trijicon, Inc. It's said that throughout his life, he "developed things that shouldn't work," according to Trijicon's website.

Second, the "secret code" looked like this: "2COR4:6" or, as Mr. Pitts translates for us, "2 Corinthians 4:6." Just a guess, but most people probably could have decoded it without Leonard's help. It certainly wasn't much of a secret.

Third, it's possible that guns with Bible verses could be used to impute a religious element into America's missions. The impression given is that they were put on the sights foolishly, given the nature of our current wars. But they've been there for almost thirty years, long before we even knew who al-Qaida and the Taliban were.

Pitts never mentions Mr. Bindon's purpose: providing spiritual support to individual soldiers in dangerous situations. The verses were uplifting, like the aforementioned 2COR4:6, which reads "God said, 'let light shine out of darkness." This has nothing to do with fighting a modern crusade.

Finally, Mr. Pitts's dismissal of expressions of faith he deems "cheesy" and indicative of "grubby, temporal perspectives and fears" assumes he knows what's in everyone's hearts. Maybe he's psychic: after all, he was able to decipher the secret code.

It's truly amazing that a well-meaning gesture can be distorted and exploded into a condescending, ill-tempered diatribe. The attitude behind this is common but it's usually more subtle. Unfortunately, it creates barriers to faith for those who don't understand Christianity and don't check the facts.


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Crippled by Voodoo

The drummers pounded out a rhythm while others danced and chanted. As the intensity of the drums increased the dancing became more frenetic. A woman dropped to the ground, was helped up and resumed dancing - but differently. She continued on for hours, possessed by a spirit called a Loa. There are many Loa. Some are responsible for facets of nature; others are spirits of deceased relatives.

Haitians feed the Loa through animal sacrifices. The sacrifice is cooked, left so the Loa can consume its "soul," and then eaten by the participants. It's hard to underestimate the importance of the Loa in Haitian culture. People believe all of life is controlled by them and that a properly cared for Loa will provide benefits, while a Loa who is ignored will bring illness and even death. They're practically tangible and believers readily perceive their presence.

It's said that Haiti is "70% Catholic, 30% Protestant and 100% Voodoo." This may be an exaggeration, but you get the point. Voodoo's roots are in West Africa and it was carried to the West Indies by slaves brought to work on plantations. It was seen as a threat to the colonial system and banned. Catholicism was imposed, slaves were baptized, and they attended mass. But despite punishment by whipping, imprisonment or hanging they continued to practice voodoo and even managed to weave it into the Catholic belief system.

The faiths have similarities. Each believes in spiritual entities, an afterlife and rituals of sacrifice. Christian saints can be seen as Loa; an elderly Loa named Legba opens the gates to the world of the Loa just as St. Peter mans the gates of heaven.

But there are big differences, including free will and self-determination. Voodoo teaches that everyone's life is governed by the Loa and, consequently, they're focused on their ancestors, a pantheon of spirits and the afterlife. According to Lawrence Harrison in The Wall Street Journal, "a Haitian child is made to understand that everything that happens is due to the spirits."

Christianity offers a free will that gives Christians the belief that he can direct his own life and affect his world. The passivity of voodoo is in stark contrast to the Christian can-do attitude.

It's not a racial thing. Haitians overthrew the French in 1804 and established a culture dominated by voodoo and memories of the slave experience. Voodoo was central as poverty became a way of life. But slaves were also imported to the Caribbean Island of Barbados that today is stable and enjoys considerable prosperity. The difference is that it remained a British colony for centuries during which voodoo was diminished. Barbadans adopted Christianity and benefited from it.

Forget about voodoo dolls, zombies, sorcery, witch doctors and black magic. A culture based on the belief that you are not in control of your life does the real damage. In a very real way, the power of voodoo has crippled an entire nation.


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