EthixBytes

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EthixBytes
A Collection of Quotes, Comments, Statistics, and News Items
“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is the right thing to do.”
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.

“He was literally one of a kind-and a real Baptist. He could see the ironies and the contradictions (in political or religious life) so clearly and then reduce them to just a few strokes in a cartoon.”
James Dunn, in response to the death of cartoonist Doug Marlette. Dunn and another Baptist preacher, Will Campbell were the inspiration for preacher Will B. Dunn in Marlette’s Kudzu cartoon.

“[Jesus] isn’t talking about just going or not going to Hell after you die. He’s talking about a radically different way of living. He’s talking about changing the world and living in a subversive and radical way in this world. That’s what . . . the ‘kingdom of God’ involves.”
Brian McClaren interview in TheWittenburgDoor (July/August, 2007).

“America never belonged to God. We were never a godly nation. . . . There are no good old days where we were truly operating by kingdom principles. Nothing is to compete with God . . . God is the beginning and the end.”
Greg Boyd, responding to ‘Take America Back to God’ in The Myth of a Christian Nation.

“Paying for sex, in whatever form, is both illegal and repulsive. It reveals a view of women as commodities that is relevant to lawmakers’ public responsibilities.”
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post columnist outraged by Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La) link to a prostitution ring in D.C.

“The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has settled for $660 million a lawsuit brought by over 500 victims of clergy sexual abuse over the last 70 years, dwarfing the $85 million paid for 552 claims by the Archdiocese of Boston.”
NBC News, 7/15/07.

“I am Shiite. My uncles and cousins were murdered by Saddam’s regime. I wanted desperately to get rid of him. But today, if Saddam’s feet appeared in front of me, I would fall to my knees and kiss them.”
“Ali,” a Baghdad resident (International Herald Tribune)

“If you believe Jesus is coming soon, why do you need body guards, a house in the most expensive, exclusive gated community in San Antonio, a ranch, $1 million a year tax-free income and three Mercedes?”
Robert Flynn (TheWittenburgDoor, July/August 2007) in an imaginary interview with John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church San Antonio.

“You don’t get it. . . this will be a political document, or it will not be released.”
A senior Bush administration official to Dr. Richard Carmona, Surgeon General from 2002-2006, to prevent release of a report linking poverty and poor health (The Washington Post, 7/29/2007).

“Texas has executed 402 people since capital punishment was reinstated 21 years ago (four times the number of the second state Virginia) and 374 people are now waiting on death row, five of them scheduled to die in September.
Dallas Morning News Editorial (9/2/07), calling for a moratorium on this “greatest moral challenge facing lawmakers in Texas.”

“We must repent concerning the more than 2 million Iraqi refugees (among whom over 400,000 are Christians) in Syria and Jordan who are living in desperate conditions . . . We must repent for being active agents of war, rather than being true children of our God of peace . . . We must repent for indulging, actively or passively, in playing God; or for encouraging and voting for politicians who consider the world to be a chessboard and a stage for their political whit.”
Martin Accad, Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut, Lebanon, when asked about the state of the Baptist world six years after 9/11 in Soundings.

“Consumerism has become the American world view-the framework through which we interpret everything else, including God, the gospel, and church.”
Skye Jathani (Leadership, Summer, 2006).

“We are called to be fools for Christ, not ‘damned fools’.”
William Sloane Coffin.

“Nearly a half million unwanted pregnancies, including 200,000 that would end in abortion, could be prevented if Medicaid coverage were expanded to include contraception for low-income women.”
Guttmacher Institute, guttmacher.org, 2006).

“Tell me how this ends.”
Question asked by Gen. David Petraeus in 2003, when he led the Army’s 101st Airborne Division into Iraq.

“Make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.”
Ruth Bell Graham’s advice to her daughter Anne (The Christian Century, 7/10/2007).