Thanks for the kind words. Evangelical Christians have always been strong supporters of Israel's right to exist and human rights for everyone, despite being misrepresented by others who don't understand their point of view.

Human beings are all flawed and fall short of God's commands - I'm for freedom of religion. Freedom to choose and change one's religion, not have someone tell me what to believe.

America has the most freedom of any country on earth in this regard - may it ever be so!

No disrespect towards Jews was intended. Most early Christians were Jews who were saved by grace from their rebellion against God, just like Old Testament Jewish believers in God were saved by grace. Plenty of non-Christians also believe in God.

There was and is no difference between Jew and Gentile. All of us fall short of the glory of God and need rescue from our rebellion.

I agree that people should stop coercing and killing each other over religion. Christians haven’t done this for several hundred years. (The Nazis were not Christians.)

Most “religious wars” were defensive or were not really about religion, but about one group of people trying to control another group of people. The number of people killed by atheist regimes (the least peaceful religion with the possible exception of Islam) in the last century is far greater.

People should have the freedom to choose and change their religion.

Dale, you continue to make the broad unsubstantiated claim that"The Nazis were not Christians". However, authoritative sources indicate German Christian churches' complicity with Nazis and support of them and their anti-Semitic beliefs. For example http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005206. Even German evangelicals were divided regarding Nazism. You can't claim that groups you do not personally agree with, like Nazis or the KKK, were not supported by Christians or that Christians did not comprised much of their membership.

Dale's statements about atheism are also unsubstantiated illogical false dichotomies, based on sweeping generalizations. I assume he is refering to communist/stalinists regimes. This is a preposterous hasty generalization (law of small numbers) and another irrational rhetorical technique Dale uses to change the subject from something he doesn't want to adress, and attack some group he finds threatening. To assert that Stalinists shared the same "religion" with anyone else who doesn't believe in a supreme being is ridiculous (also a straw man argument, yet another illogical argument). Almost as ridiculous as saying not believing in religion is a religion. Thats sort of like saying being barefoot is a kind of a shoe.

John David, I drew my conclusions on this complex subject from Eric Metaxas’ 500+ page biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. No Nazi leader was a Christian.

Catholic priests, Poles and Slavs were also systematically persecuted by the Nazis. The state-controlled “German Christians” were either co-opted or coerced by the Nazis. Some evangelicals stood by or were afraid to speak up. Others like Bonhoeffer actively resisted and paid for it with their lives.

Perhaps some genuine Christians were in error like Luther and have since repented of their sin, either on earth or when they got to heaven.

Not everyone who calls himself a Christian is one. KKK members may have used Christian symbols, but few if any were actually Christians.

I’ll make a deal with you. Read Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer biography, Dennis Prager’s Still the Best Hope: Why the World needs American Values to Triumph, or Mark Levin’s Ameritopia (both authors are Jewish). Tell everyone what you think of them in a blog post and then I’ll read and comment on your “authoritative source.”

http://www.ericmetaxas.com/

http://stores.dennisprager.com/PROD/DPBK6a.html

http://www.marklevinshow.com/home.asp

We should focus our efforts on blocking countries that want to wipe Israel off the map and criticizing current leaders who make anti-Semitic remarks.

The Nazi swastika is a twisted cross.

Sorry, Dale, but I don't buy you or anyone else making 100% categorical remarks (no true Christians were in the KKK or Nazi Party, among others). You make blanket statements that involve millions of individuals and large organizations which cannot possibly be true, particularly if it involves Christianity or appears to bring shame to Christianity. When it involves Christianity, you say things like " Christians haven't done bad things in hundreds of years", "Christians could never be members of a racist organization", "Christians could never have been members of a fascist organization". Yet in the case particularly of the KKK, millions of Protestant Christians joined the organization, taking part in actions against blacks, Jews, Catholics, and any group they felt threatened "true" Americans and "their" way of life. Your own home state in the 1920s had the largest KKK membership in the country. You deny that this can be true, because you personally believe no "true" Christian could ever be in such a group, whatever a "true" Christian really is (yes, we all know you know with specific certainty who and who are not "true" Christians). Your 100% categorical denial that Christians were not in those groups comes off as willful blindness. The only credit I can give you is that you agree that the churches were complicit by not opposing Nazism, although their leaders and congregations were more involved than having "just stood by".

Like most of your examples (I’m not familiar enough with some of them to comment), the Troubles in Ireland were far more about politics than theology. Big Ants controlling the Little Ants. When one group of people is carefully taught to hate another group of people you have violent actions that should be blocked or punished.

I condone no violence, except in self-defense or in extreme cases like Dietrich Bonhoeffer: prevention of a greater crime like the mass murders in Nazi Germany. He compared taking part in the assassination plot against Hitler to shooting a drunk driver who was mowing down people on a pedestrian-only street to prevent more pedestrian deaths.

The problem is, once the bullets start flying, you have the Hatfields and the McCoys on a national scale – that’s what we have in the Middle East (people taught to hate each other, then revenge for family members killed). The solution there will be thorny if it is ever found.

No one should be forced to believe in a religion or attend a school against their will. Some in America's urban schools are trapped in dangerous, low performing schools by economic circumstances.

Efforts to "free the hostages" with options like more charter schools that empower parents and students are being blocked by the MEA, which recently called in sick en masse so its members could protest for its union rights in Lansing. Meanwhile, 26,000 students sat home.

Dale,

The while some of the violence in Northern Ireland has been political, religious bigotry, discrimination, violence and killing has been real problem. Political and religious institutions of the dominant protestant majority have long oppressed the Catholic minority, including annual provocative Protestant marches through Catholic neighborhoods and actions against Catholics by Protestant dominated and controlled police and paramilitary groups. Ian Paisley, an outspoken Protestant preacher exemplifies the Protestant bigotry and discrimination towards Catholics because of their religion. I won't be like you and say categorically that only Protestants engage in violence, provocation or hate in Northern Ireland, or that there is no political side to the troubles, but it is religious hatred abd bigotry that is the root of the problems in Northern Ireland, not politics.

Religious bigotry IS political, not theologians arguing fine points of doctrine. That can and has been done peacefully. That’s my point. People are carefully taught to hate another group of people.

I oppose all forms of religious bigotry – which is condemned throughout the Bible, by the way. Professing Christians throughout history who hated another group of people for their religious views were not following the Bible. They were in error and will be corrected for their sin when they get to heaven.

Typical. You are utterly biased. By the way, your "Big Ants controlling Little Ants" is very unfeeling and unsympathetic towards the thousands killed and maimed in Northern Ireland because of their beliefs, as well as the denial of human and civil rights, including jobs, housing, education and other rights by the Bible believing Protestants against the Catholics. You praise Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce, but in reality you don't understand either of them nor would you ever be capable of emulating them. You are unbelievable.

"People are carefully taught to hate another group of people." I agree entirely, suc as when a blogger writes that a socially marginalized group of people aren't "normal".

I also suggest looking up the No True Scotsman fallacy because you are up to your elbows in illogical hypocrisy as usual.