EthixBytes

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
C. S. Lewis.

“If the God you believe in hates all the same people you do, then you know you’ve created God in your own image.”
Ann Lamount in beliefnet.com .

“The slow response to Katrina and poor federal leadership is a replay of the mishandling of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The government wasn’t prepared, scrimped on storm spending, and shifted its attention from natural disasters to terrorism.”
Former FEMA Chief of Staff Jane Bullock, a 22-year veteran of the agency.

“Would somebody show me in the Bible where it says we have to get our guy elected to the office before we can advance the kingdom of God? I may have missed it, but I don’t remember one single instance where the church ran a candidate for the Roman Senate.”
Charlie Johnson, pastor of Trinity BC in San Antonio at a Religious Liberty luncheon July 1.

“The biggest mistake progressives [Democrats] have made is to cede the entire territory of moral values to the political right. . . . I don’t think Jesus’ top two priorities were a capital-gains tax cut and the occupation of Iraq.”
Jim Wallis, author of “God’s Politics.”

“I deeply believe that if we as evangelicals remain silent and do not speak up in defense of the poor, we lose our credibility and our right to witness about God’s love for the world.”
Rick Warren, author and pastor, in an open letter campaign sent to President Bush and 150,000 evangelicals.

“In the long run, we will defeat the terrorists through the spread of freedom and democracy.”
President Bush explaining the new strategy of the United States, which does not appear in the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism published two years ago.

“There’s no articulation of how we are going to apply this principle [spreading democracy] in practice—and that’s where the rub is.”
Clark Murdock, strategic planner at the Pentagon, CIA, and White House in Republican and Democratic administrations.

“I attended the Dove awards recently and was broken-hearted . . . in stead of saying, ‘Look, fashion doesn’t matter, hip doesn’t matter,’ Christians were saying, ‘World, please accept  us, we can be just as hip as you, just as fashionable, only in a religious way.”
Don Miller, in Leadership, Summer, 2005.

“The broader goal is a federal judiciary and Supreme Court that will reverse 40 years of ‘anti-religion’ rulings and regard the Constitution with the same reverence that a fundamentalist church holds for the Bible.”
Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals at the “Justice Sunday II” rally August 14, 2005.

“Any effort to explain Iraq as ‘we are on track and making progress’ is nonsense.”
Newt Gingrich, former House Republican speaker.

“The president has turned the volume up on his megaphone about as high as it could go to try to tie the war in Iraq to the war on terrorism . . . . I don’t think it washes after all these years.”
Richard Viguerie, conservative direct mail consultant.

“What is it with you people? Do you think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth?”
Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor.”

“If we want to win the war against terror, we must win the war against poverty.”
Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell.

“It is wrong for us to take the money of Southern Baptists and then tell them it’s none of your information what these salaries are. It is wrong. It is ethically immoral to do this.”
Rev. Nichols, pastor of FBC, Kenai, AK, who studied the salary structure of SBC entity employees and learned of difficult access requirements, including a pledge of confidentiality.

“A corporate entity can choose to disclose salaries in any manner it wishes to do.”
Rev. Gary Smith, SBC Exec. Comm. member and pastor of Fielder Road BC, Arlington, TX.

“I was deeply troubled to learn that my client’s access to counsel was conditioned on his willingness to plead guilty.”
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Navy JAG lawyer appointed to represent a GuantanamoBay detainee, to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The detention of terror suspects at the GuantanamoBay naval base is an embarrassment and has given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.”
President Jimmy Carter at the Baptist World Alliance centenary conference in England.

“Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week [since mid-2003], the nation’s prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents . . . [due to] laws and practices that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime.”
Associated Press and Malcolm Young, director of the Sentencing Project.

“Capital punishment means them without the capital gets the punishment.”
Sister Helen Prejean noting that those subjected to the death penalty are disproportionately poor and black.

“Melting ice and warming waters have raised average sea levels worldwide by more than an inch since 1995. If the current rate continues . . . the world’s seas will rise at least a foot by the end of this century, causing widespread flooding and erosion of islands and coastal areas.”
Robert S. Boyd, Knight Ridder Newspapers, July, 2005.

“After the Rapture, I hope our books [the Left Behind series] will become even more popular than they are right now.”
Tim LaHaye, in Sojourners, August, 2005.

“Your Best Life Now [TV Pastor Joel Olsteen] is another entry in the long list of American contributions to the prosperity gospel: just improve your attitude, keep your chin up, and God’s blessings will rain down on you.”
Jason Byassee, The Christian Century, July, 2005.

“About 11% of women and 21% of men cheat on their spouse each year, and 90% of Americans believe adultery is wrong.”
Helen Fisher, anthropologist on ABC News.

“The number of unmarried opposite sex couples living together has climbed from 439,000 in 1960 to over 5 million now. And the marriage rate has fallen from 77 of every 1000 women in 1976 to 40 per 1000 last year.”
National Marriage Project, RutgersUniv.

“A casino-rich tribe [Coushatta Indians] wrote checks for at least $55,000 to House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s political groups, but the donations were never publicly disclosed, and the tribe was directed to divert the money to more obscure groups [including] Christian voter outreach.”
Adam Nossiter, Associated Press.

“Fewer than one-half of 1 percent of Americans in an April Gallup Poll said they would advise a young man to enter the ministry as a career, and just 1 percent said they would suggest a young woman aspire to be a stay-at-home wife and mother.”
EthicsDaily.com.

“I tell (female students) to toughen up and understand that their call is from God and not from human beings, and that they have to follow what God has told them to do.”
Dr. Carolyn Ratcliffe, Assistant Professor of Religion, WaylandBaptistUniversity.

“George W. Bush is not Lord. The Declaration of Independence is not an infallible guide to Christian faith and practice. Nor is the U. S. Constitution, nor the U. N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The American flag is not the Cross. The Pledge of Allegiance is not the Creed. “God Bless America” is not the Doxology.”
Christianity Today editorial, July 23, 2005.

“After seven years of marriage, I’m sure of two things—first, never wallpaper together, and second, you’ll need two bathrooms, both for her. The rest is a mystery, but a mystery I love to be involved in.”
Comedian Dennis Miller.

Updated Sunday, October 23, 2005