Nathan Clark George will be in the Chattanooga area this week, performing first at Chattanooga Christian School on Thursday and then on Sunday evening at our church. The following is from Nathan’s website.

Nathan Clark George is a singer/songwriter meshing acoustic music with an honest view of life and eternity, thereby creating a rich blend of hopeful realism that transforms the mundane into the meaningful. He has been touring now for over four years and is continually building a stong base of fans who love his authenticity, musicianship and engaging performances. Nathan’s concerts provide a mixture of many original compositions and time-honored hymns, and presents them in a relaxed and inviting manner in concert and/or worship.

Nathan will be performing during our usual Sunday night Berean Group at Chattanooga Valley Presbyterian Church (map) on March 5th at 6:00 PM. The youth (Kingdom Kids, Middle School and High School) will be joining the adults for the concert, but child care will also be provided. A dessert social will be held afterwards. Please join us for an edifying and entertaining evening.

This is wrong on so many levels. I am practically speechless. The link takes you to an AP photo on Yahoo with the following caption.

Elizabeth Phelps protests Saturday, Feb 25, 2006, across the street from the funeral for Army 1st Lt. Garrison Avery in Lincoln, Neb. Avery and two other soldiers were killed in Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee on Feb. 1. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, picket funerals and memorial services for fallen soldiers, contending that American troops are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God because the United States abides homosexuals.

I do not follow celebrity news too closely, but as a cycling fan I am somewhat familiar with the reports of Lance Armstrong’s personal life. In 2003 the then five-time Tour de France champion divorced his wife Kristin, who he met in 1997 shortly after finishing chemo treatments for testicular cancer. He then dated and got engaged to singer Sheryl Crow. A few weeks ago the celebrity couple broke it off. Now Crow’s publicist has announced that the singer has undergone surgery for breast cancer. What a strange twist of events to add to the Tour de Life of Lance Armstrong.

I borrowed Hotel Rwanda from Chris. My in-laws are getting in late, so at 10:00 PM I fired up the DVD player. I got to the part where Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is trying to buy the lives of his Tutsi neighbors from some Hutu soldiers. Pause. Go surf the Internet. The last time I had to stop a movie like that was when I watched Schindler’s List. I think I am ready to go back now.

In Christian circles we talk about Islam being a works based religion, versus a religion of grace like Christianity. It is about what I can do by following strict guidelines in order to find enough favor to get into heaven. This is often cited as an explanation for why some people are willing to blow themselves up in the name of Allah (the other being that they are savages).

I was talking with a friend several months ago, before the cartoon controversy, and he pointed out that Islamic extremists have a very different view of who God is than we do in the West–a shaking in your boots kind of fear. While I am certainly not trying to justify violence in the name of religion, it is interesting to note that Americans often have the exact opposite view of God (if we believe He exists at all).