Stuff for the Spirit

     An Islamic friend of mine recently asked me if I’d read “The Arrogance of Faith”, which is a book about how Christianity has been used to oppress African Americans
and Native Americans from the very beginning of this country.

 I told him that I had purchased the book, and had began reading it, but after the first couple of chapters, I got this overwhelming feeling that said, Okay so what…..
 I remember when I started reading it,  thinking in the first few chapters,
“yeah, okay, but what is after that. 

For example:

Using a Belt as the Christianity and remembering that from the time you were a child you were whipped with a belt….. and that was what the belt was used for. You saw it hanging on the wall, you knew what it was for, and you began to dreaded “The belt”.

Over the years you decided that you wanted nothing to do with that dreadful belt,
so you devised ways of holding up your pants, by putting pretty little shoe strings
in the loops.

Then one day you grew up, and you realized that the belt was used in a way that
made you dislike it, but the belt really had a significant use….it was to hold
your pants up.  So, do you continue to use the shoe string to hold up your pants?

I suppose it was my way of saying yes to “The Arrogance of Faith”, because it can not be refuted that europeans tarnished Christianity, aka….”The Good Ship Jesus”.  But, does that say that Christianity is bad?

That was kind of my feeling.

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