Only Bible's OK in OK. Why? Christianity Never Killed Anyone.

I don't have an end-all solution, but the answer to mitigating the gap dividing hearts and minds is not to return to the Crusades mentality.

In 2003, Lt. General Jerry Boykin, then-undersecretary of defense for U.S. intelligence, said this about a Muslim fighter in Somalia who'd said on television the Americans would never "get him" because his God, Allah, would protect him: "I knew my God was bigger than his...I knew that my God was a real god.... and his was an idol...The battle that we're in is a spiritual battle....and [Satan] wants to destroy us as a Christian army."

I agree with something Bono said in the book Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (Riverhead Books):

"Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship."

It's time for Elvis God to leave the building in Oklahoma. They can't handle the enormity of God, and God cannot risk being misrepresented by the politically small-minded.

I'm a Christian and an American citizen who is sick of bigotry and ignorance in a world that requires us to love if we are to survive as one. How about you? Look at the story below about some Oklahoma legislators that are rejecting the Quaran while selectively forgetting that grave wrongs have been done in the name of the tome they call the Good Book. I've added some hand-picked illustrations.

- Jude

"Most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology," Rep. Rex Duncan said.


- From AP/Raw Story Oklahoma lawmakers return copies of Quran, say it 'condones' killing innocent people

Oklahoma lawmakers also received a copy of the Bible earlier this year from The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

"It's one of the nicest things I've received in my three years in the Legislature," Duncan said of the Bible.

Photos: Crusades(top), Inquisition (left), Salem witch trials (right)

_____________________

I'm angry to see governments using the name of God to divide us. I'll admit to you that my own life is Christ-centered. To me, a government pandering to Christians is a component of Godless and cold motives; more capable of bringing wars than establishing the peace for which the faith aims.

Not to have you believe I am mocking a faith that provides the opportunity to be worthy of the grace that lights our all-too-dark world, here's a video of a regular yet exemplary citizen named Tom Wheeler who was touched by God in a way that has served to heal his fellow man rather than to wield division. I am overcome by the amazing effects of this one simple act of love for which Tom Wheeler sacrificed what many of us would call the easy life.