But the story doesn’t end there.

A decade later, he winds up in Damascus as a bloody massacre is underway. This man, who once devoted his life to repelling Christians in his homeland, now stood in defense of them. He faced down bloodythirsty mobs of Kurds, Druze and Arabs,  and, ultimately, delivered roughly 10,000 Syrian Christians to safety. It was an effort so bold, that the French awarded him the Legion of Honor, among other accolades from nations around the globe.

Check it out here, and stay tuned for the surprise ending.

Speaks my mind on a lot of things as of late.

Favorite part has to be this:

In the book of Job and by the cross of Christ, the vision set forth of virtue and vice, of prosperity and calamity, is not that which is so frequently proffered today by many in response to the Haitian tragedy. Rather, what this story and this Person reveal is that prosperity is neither a reward nor symptom of virtue anymore than calamity is a reward or symptom of vice.6 Following Jesus’ own commentary on the provisions of God, “[The Father] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). That God is not a respecter of persons is the greatest hope of the human. Her hope rests in knowing that she will receive exactly what she does not and could not deserve – the grace of Almighty God. “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place?” asks God of Job (Job 38:12). In other words, the human has not the ability by her action or knowledge to determine the generosity or wrath of God. In a world created by the right arm of Almighty God the human is but to lay her hand on her mouth in silence (Job 40:4).

Read the whole thing.

…large numbers of America’s faithful do not neatly conform to the expectations or beliefs of their prescribed religions, but instead freely borrow principles of Eastern religions or endorse common supernatural beliefs.

More…

Among the findings of the survey, by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:

• Almost 1 in 4 American adults say they sometimes attend religious services of a faith different from their own.
• Twenty-four percent of the public say they believe in reincarnation, and 23 percent believe in yoga as a spiritual practice.
• Twenty-five percent of the overall public (and 23 percent of Christians) believe in astrology.
• Fifteen percent of the public acknowledges having consulted a psychic or a fortuneteller.

I can attest to that. The meditation techniques I picked up while flirting with Zen have helped me tremendously during Quaker silent worship. And though I still adhere to some Zen beliefs (particularly that of impermanence), I would definitely consider myself Christian (then again, there are some beliefs that are common to both).

That said, there were a couple of things from the article that stood out to me.

Others, though, argue that religious purity is a non sequitur.

“The thing that is forgotten in these discussions is that any single religious tradition is itself already a composite,” says Harvey Cox, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School whose 1965 book, “The Secular City,” is considered a theology classic. He considers the idea of isolated religious traditions to be “a big myth.”

“What we have are streams that have been fed by other streams and have fed other streams all along,” he says. “Even what is advertised by clerical leaders as the kind of ‘pure package’ is already the result of the collage.”

A large component of any religion is the stories told within it. The Jews’ journey to the Promised Land, Buddha confronting the demon Mara and Inanna’s journey to the underworld, not to mention countless creation and end-time myths. And these stories didn’t just come from anywhere; they were already present in local tales and legends. You could argue that religion is the ultimate mashup.

Also:

Some Roman Catholic leaders say their followers do not need to look outside the church to find what they’re looking for.

“A lot of young adults who are attracted to the beauty of meditation techniques are very unaware of the contemplative and mystical tradition of their own faith,” says the Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Indeed. Quakers are often lumped in with the mystical side of Christianity with their reliance on silent worship and belief in the Inner Light. There was also Quietism, a movement within the Catholic Church that had its heyday during the 17th century, before it was condemned by Pope Innocent XI.

Obviously, these articles are nothing new. But what is alluded to, if not said outright in these articles is a sense that believers are just cherry-picking beliefs from a broad spectrum of religious backgrounds. A deep rootedness in one’s original or preferred faith not only means you get where you’re going more quickly, but that you miss out on seeing some of those same characteristics in your faith. If anything, one should be looking deeply within one’s own faith before looking out across the vast landscape of spirtuality systems.