It’s morning on Easter Sunday, and I’m trying to finish this column in time to make noon Mass at Baltimore’s St. Peter Claver Roman Catholic church. I was baptized the first week of 1952 in this parish named for the Spanish priest who opposed the slave trade and became the champion and advocate for slaves in the New World.
Once Mass is over, I’ll probably head home on this holiest of Christian holidays to ponder something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time:
Are Christians, and Christianity, on thin ice in this country? Probably not, but devout Christians face many more challenges than they used to. A couple of examples come immediately to mind.
In February, we had the case of 15-year-old Joel Northrup, a home-schooled lad living in Iowa who wrestled for Linn-Marr High School.
Northrup hails from a deeply religious family; his religious principles won’t allow him to do certain things, like, for instance, wrestle members of the opposite sex. When he had to do so in the Iowa state tournament, he refused to wrestle and took a default loss instead.
After he cited religious reasons for making his decision, some of his critics sneered with derision. Usually, the sport of wrestling, either in high school or college, gets little to no coverage in the mainstream media.
But the Northrup story went not only national, but also international as even The Guardian of London had an article about it.
And make no mistake about it: this controversy was about Northrup’s religion, not his refusal to wrestle a girl. I’ve read all kinds of nonsense about Northrup, ranging from the allegation of his being a sexist to the silly notion that nowhere in the Bible does it say a guy wrestling against guys is OK either.
Isn’t it a shame that many in this nation have become so nonreligious — and downright anti-religious — that they don’t know the story of how Jacob wrestled an angle of God? Wrestling is the one sport that all but has biblical approval.
It’s the same sort of ignorance about the Holy Scriptures that allows so-called pro-choice folks to claim — and yes, one of them actually said this, and there are probably many who agree with her — that there is nothing in the Bible that prohibits abortion.
It occurs to me the Fifth Commandment clearly says, “Thou shalt not kill.” If abortion isn’t killing, then nothing is killing.
There’s an appropriate parallel to what I wrote above and the Northrup situation. One of the kid’s supporters — and he has many, thank heavens — defended Northrup based on his decision being his choice.
“Choice” is a sacred word to pro-choicers, unless, of course, you’re making a choice of which they don’t approve.
Had Northrup’s choice involved a fetus being sucked down a tube and shredded, most of his critics couldn’t rush quickly enough to defend him.
Down in South Carolina, at Furman University, we had the spectacle of a conservative, Christian campus group being dissed when they wanted to bring in a minister who was set to preach on the topic “Why God Loves Gays.” Students like Northrup won’t be welcome at Furman University, and, I suspect, most college campuses in America.
One notable exception is the University of Maryland Baltimore County, whose president, Freeman Hrabowski, told me in an interview that he has a special place in his heart, and on his campus, for home-schooled students.
Home-schooled students, Hrabowski said, tend to be smarter. They also tend to be more religious. Probably because they weren’t educated in an environment where God and religion are considered the enemy.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
