Treasure In Clay Jars

Is it me or does the following recent news headline seem fairly predictable and very much “on message”: Clinton Hires Evangelical Consultant for Presidential Campaign An “evangelical consultant” has been hired by Hillary Clinton to help attract Christian conservatives in her likely 2008 presidential campaign. – Anne Thomas ChristianToday.com website . Just one question to you the reader: are you a true believer in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior over your life? If yes, do you feel the need to have your Christianity neatly packaged so others will truly believe that you believe ? Jesus could save Mrs. Clinton the extravagant cost of an "evangelical consultant" with His beautiful simplicity: “If you love me, obey my commandments… (John 14:15 NLT). But then again…this is America, where political marketing strategies work among Christians even as the actual behavior of the politicians are in direct contradiction to our own Bibles. God bless America indeed.

I know I may be beating a dead horse (unfortunate pun not intended), but as I read the following headline this morning, the incredible absurdity of a world in denial and ignorance was too powerful to gloss over. The headline read: "Blair Urges Vatican to Face Reality on Condoms" . This wonderful piece of “pragmatic” philosophy was spoken by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, regarding the discussion of “effective” ways at fighting the spread of AIDS. The headline’s article goes on to say incredulously: In a television interview on World AIDS Day Friday, Mr. Blair criticized the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the use of condoms, as he argued that preaching abstinence was not enough… Speaking to MTV, Mr. Blair, Anglican, said: "The danger is if we have a sort of blanket ban from religious hierarchy saying it's wrong to do it (using condoms), then you discourage people from doing it in circumstances where they need to protect their lives." – Christian Today.

I did something today that I normally don’t do: I ventured into a place I consider hostile territory – I went to the movies. Those who know me well (admittedly a crowd of one – my wife) know that I abhor the environment of the modern movie theater. If it wasn’t for the movie that we were going to see, the $3.50 bottle of water would have surely tipped me into another soapbox on the absurdity of the modern theater environment. However, I was anticipating the pleasure of the movie “The Nativity Story”, so being a grump about having to endure the movie theater seemed at odds with the message of Jesus. After viewing “The Nativity Story”, I can clearly see why the City of Chicago was so quick to ban public excerpts of the film from being shown at a street festival in the city a few weeks ago. This movie is all about JESUS! We really can’t have that going on freely in the American public square now can we? This movie is a wonderful reminder of why Christians should love Christmas. This was n