Last week a similar story popped up in the news as a judge blocked a graduation prayer at a Kentucky high school. What caught my attention in this story is not the fact that it happened, but how the students of the school choose to deal with it. As the principal of the school rose to give his opening remarks, about 200 students (almost all of the graduating seniors) rose and began reciting the Lords Prayer to "thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the crowd." The students of the school didn't boycott graduation, or take the case back to court. They simply stood up for their freedom of expression and stood up as a class against the court ruling. As usual, I learn a lot from the youth of this nation. Probably the answer to the steady beat down of Christian expression in communities is people taking action on their own to express their faith. There is power in numbers and all it takes is somebody willing to stand up for what they believe for others to follow. In my opinion, the students of Russell County High School handled the situation amazingly well, and in the end, the prayer meant so much more then it would have before.
I wish I had the answers and solutions to more of the issues facing Christians today, but sometimes I don't even know if I am asking the right questions. I have just recently finished reading Blue Like Jazz. One of the quotes has given me a lot of thought over the past few weeks. The short version of the quote, found of the back cover states
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve....But sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself...I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened." - Donald Miller
I agree with this quote to an extent for two main reasons, one of which is the aforementioned fact that I sometimes wished God would give me the answers to the issues Christians face today. (The second reason is in the inference that we come to Christ most often by seeing others love him and model this love in their actions, but this is a completely different post in itself). The Bible and other resources have been given to us as a guide, but in the end we are responsible for doing the study, and work to come up with what we think the correct resolutions are to these problems/issues we face in society. In the end though, God does resolve. He resolves by his saving Grace, and Christ's death on the cross. Donald does indicate a shift in his thinking in the last sentence, but I don't know if he makes the connection that God does indeed "resolve" in the end.