Archive — November, 2007

"It seems to me that those three models are really competing for ascendancy all over the world. In its extreme form, you have the sort of theocratic model like the Iranians where all women have to wear Muslim head coverings. Then you have the French model which is sort of the extreme on the other side that says you cannot wear Muslim head coverings and go to public school. It is sort of the supreme value of the French state (they have actually said this) is secularism. Whereas, in America in Muskogee, Oklahoma, (in about as deep in red state country as you can get) they have concluded that Muslim girls may or may not wear their head scarves to school depending on the Muslim girls and their parents’ preference. **That** is pluralism..."

"I think when we say that America is a Christian nation, as a Baptist, I find that phrase problematic because, for me, a Christian is someone who is in a regenerate state, someone who has had a born-again experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. So the idea of a Christian nation, it seems to me, is at odds with my understanding of what a Christian is. Now, a nation that is being guided and directed by Judeo-Christian values is another thing..."

"...it is giving the American people the impression that the country is more divided than it is. Now the country is divided, but I don't think it is as divided as you would assume by watching all of cable news shows with their 24/7 shouting matches. Americans are being lead to believe by the media that they are more divided than they actually are and I think a lot of people when they listen to these shouting matches, after a while they say, "Eh, a pox on both your houses! Nothing is ever going to change!" and they pull out of the process..."