Coxes Quarterly

posted by Ted on Sep 30

This staggers me and at the same time, it doesn’t surprise me at all.

rawstory.com reports:

One of Germany’s leading opera houses, Deutsche Oper Berlin, announced Monday that it was cancelling a controversial production because of the likelihood that it might offend Muslims. The original opera, Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, makes no reference to Islam, but director Hans Neuenfels introduced a scene to his production that depicts the decapitated heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, the Buddha and the Greek god Poseidon.

It caused outrage at the premiere in 2003. The opera company said it was cancelling plans to revive the show next month after advice from security authorities in Berlin that the performances posed an “incalculable” security risk.

(HT: Sugiero)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to see an Opera not run that pictures the decapitated head of Christ for no better reason than to mock religion. I further completely agree with a private business opting not to endanger it’s patrons. However, I must confess to immense frustration that my Lord can be so mocked and there is no out cry at all. Admittedly, in Europe greater than 20% of the population is now Muslim and less than 1% has a personal relationship with Christ, so it’s no surprise that Muslim’s have a greater voice but what about here in the United States?

Sometime back, Instapundit noted the following quote from the creators of the cartoon South Park:

“That’s where we kind of agree with some of the people who’ve criticized our show,” Stone says. “Because it really is open season on Jesus. We can do whatever we want to Jesus, and we have. We’ve had him say bad words. We’ve had him shoot a gun. We’ve had him kill people. We can do whatever we want. But Mohammed, we couldn’t just show a simple image.”

During the part of the show where Mohammed was to be depicted — benignly, Stone and Parker say — the show ran a black screen that read: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.”

Other networks took a similar course, refusing to air images of Mohammed — even when reporting on the Denmark cartoon riots — claiming they were refraining because they’re religiously tolerant, the South Park creators say.

“No you’re not,” Stone retorts. “You’re afraid of getting blown up. That’s what you’re afraid of. Comedy Central copped to that, you know: ‘We’re afraid of getting blown up.’”

I don’t think we need to start blowing people up, but I do think maybe we ought to insist people start treating our God with the same respect they would show to other religions.

posted by Ted on Sep 4

We had a strange experience today, driving through Denver on the way to visit some friends, we saw a man hanging from the highway overpass. He was dangling by his arms, feet kicking directly over the fast moving traffic. Over him, stood another man, holding his arms, and grinning wickedly at the passing drivers. It sounds almost like something out of a movie, but it was real life.

My suspicion is that it was some very foolish young people playing a very dangerous joke, but we have no way to know for sure. After a moment of shock, we called 911, only to experience another shock. For years, Brandy has had a reoccurring nightmare where something horrible happens, and she calls 911 only to be put on hold. I’ve always told her that 911 doesn’t put people on hold, because that would defeat their purpose. You can imagine my shock when I heard “You’ve reached Denver 911, all of our agents are busy right now, please hold the line…”

It was such an apt metaphor for so much of our life right now. Here we are at 52% seeing our support creep in over the past few months. It feels like God has called us urgently to Europe and then put us on hold when we ask Him to get us there. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t feel that way everyday. God has been moving powerfully to bring us to this point. He has done so many things, in so many ways to show us his amazing power and timing. But in our fickle human nature, we forget, and we feel abandoned.

In the end, it took less than 2 minutes for me to speak to a person at 911. They were swift and efficient at getting the necessary information and they dispatched emergency people to the scene. I don’t know what happened, but I see no disaster reports at the Denver Post online, so I presume the situation was resolved positively. Regardless of the fidelity of Denver 911, I know that my God is faithful. He will get us to Europe when He is good and ready, and when it happens, it will be at the perfect moment. I can’t always see it here, it feels like I’m sitting on hold while someone is dangling over oncomming traffic, but the truth is, I’m only frustrated because God has a better plan and I don’t know what it is.