Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Religious Leaders?

Bill Maher was on the Tonight Show last night and I happened to catch a bit of it. I know most people hate Bill Maher but I like him. I think he's incredibly intelligent. He has a slight problem presenting his message because he's overly sarcastic and people don't like him for it, so I think he and I would probably get along.

Anyway, he was on last night and I got there just as he was talking about how the Pope was a big Catholic celebrity. Yeah, offensive and a little overboard, but the point he was trying to make had some validity. He was saying how over in the Muslim countries if a religious leader says something, the people do it. If a religious leader in the Middle East says to kill someone for adultery, the people take that person out and kill them. Yet over here, if a religious leader says to do something, we give blank stares and do nothing. His example was the Pope saying no sex before marriage. How many people who say they are Christians uphold that one?

Obviously we have a level of cynicism being that we have many religious leaders who don't agree and have had a few nuts our in left field who have claimed "God told me" but in the grand scheme of things do we listen to our leaders and try to learn from them, try to live as we should, or are they celebrities, faces we watch but not voices we listen to?

And you who are younger must follow your leaders. But all of you, leaders and followers alike, are to be down to earth with each other. ~ I Peter 5.5a

T

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