Dear editor:
Response to Steven Bank:
"I just read Larry Bauer's letter, Sept. 10, 2014, about only Christians helping victims of Katrina or the Ebola outbreak. I would like to let him know that I am not, nor will I ever be, a Christian." Spoken like Saul of Tarshish.
"I have regularly contributed to the Red Cross for Katrina and the tornado victims of Arkansas. I have contributed to Doctors without Borders, Jackson House, Paws and Claws, and am an officer and volunteer for Hot Springs Pet Therapy." These things are good, and quite fulfilling!
"I resent the notion that only Christians are philanthropic." Should you resent ignorance? Many speak in ignorance; resentment only hurts you. So many who claim to be spokespersons for Christianity give Christianity a bad reputation; that is one of the best ways to gain advocates against Christianity: claim to be one, and then behave as a non-Christian. So many television and radio evangelists practice this with great success (monetarily, too)!
Biblical Christianity is quite rare, and in proportion to the population, it is continuing to become rarer at a high rate. It isn't that it is so hard; rather, it is that so few desire that deity, liking homemade ones instead. (Most like a deity that says that a Christian sins daily, and just needs forgiveness to be right again.) Certainly, few like a deity that makes Israel central in his plans, and who sets up a standard of Godly perfection that is only reasonable. (Biblically, "perfection" is "being and doing as one is designed to be and assigned to do, with the aid of the power of the creator or designer.")
"How biased and uncaring you seem to be." When a person claiming faith dismisses the good that others do on the basis of not holding the same faith, that person agrees with the mindset of ISIS/ISIL (which curiously holds the same mindset as the murdering crusaders that they claim to hate so much). The deity of the Bible never dismisses the good that one outside of biblical faith does. Even Moses hearkened to his idolatrous priest father-in-law who told Moses how to better lead the Israelis (beginning at Exodus 18:13).
"If spewing hateful rhetoric and unfounded misstatements are your examples of how a Christian should behave, then I'm glad not to be one." Perhaps it would be wise to recognize that the majority of folks claiming Christianity are about as Christian as the majority that shop at supermarkets. Few have ever looked into the Bible to see what a person of faith would be. (No one in the Bible who is Godly is also religious; being religious takes up too much time.) Even the Bible describes what pure religion is: "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit the orphans and widows in their humiliation, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27). I suspect that you wouldn't mind Christians who live by such simple principles, Mr. Bank.
James Wilson
Hot Springs
Editorial on 09/18/2014