Friday, June 02, 2006

Take Me Out To The Ball Park (For Faith Night)


...buy me some peanuts, cracker jacks and God... at the old ball game.
So now we are going to see going to see the merge of faith/religion, politics and sports. "This summer, the religious promotions will hit Major League Baseball. The Atlanta Braves are planning three Faith Days this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks one. The Florida Marlins have tentatively scheduled a Faith Night for September."

4 comments:

Heidi said...

What is your problem with religious people going to Baseball games? What is your problem with a Faith Night? Are you that insecure?

This is the kind of stuff that gives liberal minded people a bad name.

Religion is not synonymous with with Wacko/Extremist/or Narrow Minded.

Green said...

Heidi,
I will write more about this later, but I'll refer you to Kevin Phillips' new book: American Theocracy. He does a wonderful job of explaining how the "right neo-conservatives have engulfed the church. There is a counter movement called the "crunchy-cons" who share values common to the left.

More later on this but I got to run.

Anonymous said...

I have read this post several times and caannot understand its point. People who believe in God should not be allowed to go to baseball games?

Perhaps if more Democrats respected those with different opinions, such as Christians, then you would be labeled as the anti-Christian and God-hating bigots that posts like this one make you appear to be.

Practice what you preach and stop being such a hypocrite.

From a swing voter who has just been pushed further the "other" way.

Green said...

Unfortunately there is an effort in this country to merge Christian faith to the Republican Party. The is a counter movement, they call themselves "crunchy-con" which draws on the analogy of granola being something that "hippies" use to eat. These people share some of the conservative values and liberal values. They want a clean environment, and care about promoting renewable sources of energy, but they also want a responsible government that works effeciently.

The Christians on the left are beginning to realize that they can no longer let the movement to move the Church into the arms of the Republian Party. They are starting to speak out about the Christian values that are not represented by the current political regime.

Jesus said that people are like Sheep and said that he was the "good shepard." The leaders in the conservative churches are leading their flock into the arms of the Republican Party and many times these well meaning people vote against what is often not in their own best interest.

Before you shoot me, please understand that I was married to a man that studied to be a minister and spent a great deal of my early life involved in the church. One of the things I became disillusioned about was the attempt to try to put Christians in a box and define for members how they should think, look and act.

I don't see a lot of independent thought happening, it's more about following what someone else tells you and I saw a lot of "spoon fed" Christians. A lot of people never bothered to read the Bible, they simply read small parts of it and depended on what the preacher told them the Bible said.

I have studied the Bible and I know what it said. I knew what I heard in the pulpit was a very narriow interpreation of what was written; a very controlling interperation.

My concern about "faith nights" is that there is a political agenda behind this movement. Just like the majority of NASCAR fans vote Republican, there is now an effort to web sports fans to the Republican Party.

Hey, let's hope I'm wrong! I'm not Anti-Christian. Most of my friends are wonderful decent people and are Christians. I have a problem with the Republican party using them to further their political agenda though.

And for the person that said I pushed them the other way, my concerns for them is that they are not rooted in the issues, but are making emotional decisions. I am flattered that something that I write mattered, but I assure you that I am one small voice and I hope they will take another look and listen to a lot of voices, read a lot of things, before they make up their mind.