In defense of an Icon

The judge in Slidell, along with the mayor, are sticking to their guns about the icon of Jesus in their courthouse.

Oddly enough, evangelicals of all colors are coming out of the woodwork to offer legal and moral defense to display an icon which they would not theologically defend to appear and be fully utilized as intended in a church.

I still would like to know how it got there in the first place.

Check this article out.

Keep in mind, we're talking about a very familiar (for us Orthodox) icon of our Lord.

The ACLU says the book is the New Testament.

Ah yes, the ACLU has an iconography expert on staff.

The ACLU is representing an anonymous complainant who said he has come into "direct and unwelcome contact" with the display, and he expects to do so again to fulfill legal obligations at the court. The display hangs in the court's lobby, which has only one main entrance for visitors, according to the lawsuit.

Legal issues aside, don't you find it intriguing that this anonymous person seems almost scared of the icon? I guess it is understandable, sometimes those icons can be haunting and to some degree make us all a little uncomfortable from time to time. But seriously, at what point are we going to quite babying complainers? Hell, when do they ever listen to Christians complain? I mean really, it must be torture for this poor person to have to consider having to see this icon again...how awful it must be.

The display has been in place since the courthouse opened in 1997 and has been maintained with taxpayer money,

As we all know, maintaining icons is an expensive proposition. Once in a great while we actually even dust them. But you should see the ones that actually get utilized! THOSE actually do require maintenance.

The display endorses the Christian faith, or specifically the Eastern Orthodox sect of Christianity, to the detriment of all other Christian denominations, including the Catholic, Baptist and Methodist faiths, and all non-Christian religions, according to the suit.

Divide and conquer! Nice try ACLU, but clearly the "other Christian denominations" are having none of it. And further demonstrating that the ACLU knows nothing about religions, catholics are quite fond of icons, thank you very much.

The ACLU doesn't like being called the Taliban...because, after all, they don't shove religion down anyones throat. But, at what point does secularism become a religion and we are allowed to argue that the government and the ACLU are working for the establishment of THAT religion?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ten bucks says the anonymous concerned citizen was not from Slidell, and five more bucks says he/she works for the ACLU. My dad used to do some work for the Rutherford Institute back in his lawyerin' days, which is when they were at the ACLU's throat constantly. That put him on the ACLU's official hit list, apparently, because when he became a judge in a tiny rural community, they sent "watchdogs" from over an hour away (the nearest ACLU members, I guess) to sit in his courtroom and wait for him to do or say something they could sue over. This went on forever. They had meetings about him. So here's my dad, going about his life, while the ACLU follows him like paparazzi waiting for him to slip up because he ruffled their feathers 20 years ago.

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