Priorities

Prayer for the Dying?

I would never knock someone's religious beliefs. Freedom of religion is one of the great things about our country. It is one of the things international terrorists seek to take from us.

However, I will choose to knock some of our priorities in the grand scheme of things. While religious groups can and do provide a great service to many in the community all too often there are needs left far too unattended.

Growing up in a religious setting myself, I know firsthand how sometimes priorities can get out of line, even from what the belief system originally intended.

I will never forget hearing about our church spending over ten thousand dollars on new carpeting. While wondering why there was no women's shelter in town. No place for abused women and their children to seek shelter from the hands of a domestic predator.

Out of curiosity I ran some Google searches using some key words to see just how out of line some of the religious community's priorities seem to be.

Here are just some of the results:

Searching under "____ is a sin"

Results : about 156,000 for "homosexuality is a sin"
Results : about 883 for "child molestation is a sin".
Results : about 9,130 for "gambling is a sin".
Results : about 248 for "gossiping is a sin".
Results : about 110 for "pedophilia is a sin"
Your search - "gang activity is a sin" - did not match any documents.

Searching under "Ministry to_____"

Results : about 36,000 for "ministry to homosexuals"

Results : about 111 for "ministry to gang members".


Outreach:

Results : about 4,980 for "homosexual outreach".
Results : about 882 for "gang outreach".
Results : about 4 for "abused children outreach".


Again...you have the right to believe however you choose. But if you serve a religious belief that is supposed to "help" to "reach out" to those in need, to "help" the suffering then why isn't there more focus on child abuse or gang involved youth? Why is there as much focus on gambling or nearly as much on gossiping or on sexual behavior than on rescuing those who are dying in the street?

And we wonder why a judge would give a child molester a simple 60 days in jail while the child victim must suffer a life sentence.

Maybe it is because we are "outraged" at things that should be much further down on the priorities list...if at all.

It is easy to make a protest sign complaining about an objectionable movie or music CD. It is difficult for us though to get out there and fight for the lives of our children.

Maybe that is why there is gang graffiti across the street from many of our local houses of worship...