by Dallas Erickson, Stevensville
Marty Essen responded to my letter to the editor that stated concerns about his opinion piece supporting so called “banned book week.”
He writes with a mistaken thought claiming I “…believe that the moment a Christian does something evil he/she ceases to be a Christian.” I didn’t say that at all. In fact, if that were true there would be no one that could be considered Christian since no one is perfect. The question he needs to ask himself is, did Christ teach and support such things or encourage such acts? He referred to murder such as happened in the “crusades and Salem Witch hangings” and the “murder and torture of thousands of indigenous children in Canada” and when Trump supporters “attempted to overthrow the U.S. Government.”
If Christ didn’t teach anyone to do such acts and did not do such acts Himself, then it wasn’t done in His name and so were not “Christian” acts. I don’t care what they called themselves. Saying that those acts were done by people who claimed to be Christian does not mean their acts were Christian or supported by Christ. No more than if I claimed to be a follower of Marty Essen and I committed a heinous crime and claimed I did the deed in Marty Essen’s name would mean he asked me to do it or he caused it. Nor would it mean I did it in his name as an Essen (unless he supported the crime).
In case he doesn’t know, and I know he isn’t a believer in Christ, Christian refers to Jesus Christ. If you look up “Christian” you will find things like this: “Christians are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.”
I notice that Marty didn’t answer any of my concerns about his support of Banned Books Week, which includes many books that have been banned by law like child pornography and his statement that people should show a student (I guess from K-12) a banned book. In a day when some teachers and schools are grooming our children for sexual exploitation and supporting efforts to confuse them about God’s intention for them in life (apparent by how they look in the mirror) that should be troubling to all of us.
Courageous parents are standing up all over the country and reading to school boards some of the material that they want banned from their schools. Material the children are sometimes required to read! The words from these books (many pushing homosexuality) are so bad they cut off the microphones and the words cannot be mentioned on TV or radio. Groomers are all around us and many libraries and schools are supporting drag queen (queer) shows for our children which is a slap in the face to women and to parents. Is it any wonder why so many of our children are confused about their sexuality and are being castrated and surgically operated on and given horrible drugs at younger and younger ages?
Marty apparently doesn’t support protecting our children from such material and that is the issue, not the things he said in his response.
Gomez says
Two points;
One. We are not a theocracy. If you want to live in a country that is ruled by religious law, then move to Iran or Afghanistan.
Two, The Bible, the only possible way that you could know you’re god’s nature, specifically condones slavery, the murder of homosexuals and the subjugation of women. I mean, if you want to throw those out because they’re from the Old Testament, fine. But that means you have to throw out the Ten Commandments and the creation story too, as they’re also from the OT.. Unless, of course, you’re just picking and choosing which part of your god’s laws to either obey or ignore.
Please keep your ancient mythology out of our schools, laws and public policy.