Worshipping Violence

[Link]

I discovered the link above at our good friend Auguste's MalkinWatch blog. It is about a sort of Nuremburg Rally propaganda show for the US military that took place at a Baptist church in Lexington, Kentucky on January 28.

Take the time to read the page and look at the pictures.

The author clearly found the event disturbing. The juxtaposition of men in uniforms, weapons and Jesus together on stage didn't sit well with him at all. That the event was used for actual military recruiting inside the church he felt was an abomination evoking Jesus' dustup with the moneychangers in the temple.

I showed the page to a conservative friend and was surprised by his reaction:

The guy is a kook. He should find a new church. It sounds like he is looking for attention to me.

I told him that I thought that he was missing the point. Is he not always complaining about muslim "savages" misusing mosques as places to recruit young men for jihad to fight against the American infidels? Is this not quite similar?

No, it is not. This is not part of the service while jihad is an essemtial part of what they are preaching. Besides, why do you hate America?

He went on to explain that the "terrorists" were far more dangerous. I told him that I couldn't imagine a more dangerous group of people than the US military.

We have a good mix of people reading this blog - men and women of faith and men and women who are both for and against the war (mostly against). What does this event mean to you? What parallels can be drawn from it? What does it say about the state of recruiting affairs in our country?

What would Jesus think?

[Update: Bumped for the sake of keeping the comment thread alive.]

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