Your Turn Letters to the Editor

First Fridays

I want to compliment you on your coverage of this most recent First Fridays Artwalk. However, you did not note that the “gallery” above Art6 is technically referred to as Studio6, aka Todd’s place.

You should consider devoting more coverage to upcoming First Fridays in The Commonwealth Times, maybe with more pictures and interviews of artists and attendees.

– Michael Sfiligoj

Focusing on more important issues

I was disappointed to see that the battle over intelligent design and evolution raged on in latest issue of The Commonwealth Times. I think that both sides of the debate should step back and ask themselves what this is really about: how the world began or winning an argument?

The truth is that we are all going on faith in this situation. You could read every book in the world and still you would be left with a lot of questions when it comes to the origin of life. The truth is that evolution and creation are both theories; propositions that are not proven right yet not proven wrong.

For creationists, whether they believe in theist evolution or six-day creationism, they have a belief in faith that the universe has an intelligent designer behind it. After all, the Bible that I believe to be the final and complete revelation of God defines faith as a hope in what you cannot see (Hebrews 11:1).

For evolutionists, their theory is not proven either. In fact, if you can, there is a man named Dr. Kent Hovind who will give $250,000 to anyone who can prove that evolution is a fact. No matter what you feel about Hovind as an individual (many don’t like him and will point out his legal troubles with the IRS), the fact remains that evolution is still a theory. If not, go collect your money.

Since we are all arguing facts that are ultimately underlined by faith, the argument will do nothing but go around in circles. I think that we should all check our pride at the door and focus on things that are more important. While we battle over who gets to take home the Scientific Intellectual Trophy, people are dying all over the world of disease and poverty.

There are 3 billion people – half of the world – who are living on less than $2 each day. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished. One American dollar could give one African water for a year, yet we spend that dollar on an iTune (http://www.bloodwatermission.org). Right here in Richmond, 45 percent of renters cannot even afford to make rent based on the money that they make. That is not even including their electric bills, insurance and food – just rent.

I don’t write these things just to make you feel guilty. Instead, I write them to say that we should swallow our intellectual pride and reassert our passions to what is proven – the majority of our world is in an intense need of a helping hand, no matter how it came to be.

To speak specifically to the Christian for a moment, since I am a Christian and a youth pastor, we should especially be more focused on the important issues at hand. The prophets of Israel, like Amos, Micah and Hosea to Jesus himself, stressed that those who turn a blind eye to the poor are asking for the wrath of God.

I speak apologetically to anyone who thinks that Christians just want to be more right, based on what they have read in this paper or seen on the streets of our university. That is not the follower that Jesus asked for. The true evangelical nature should not be to win arguments but to put food in the mouths of the hungry and tell them of a kingdom coming where hunger will not exist; to put clothes on the backs of the cold and tell them that a kingdom is coming in which temperature will not rock the bones; to put water in the mouths of thirsty and tell them that soon they will not thirst. We are to speak and execute justice into the lives of the oppressed and tell them that oppression soon will pass. This is the real Jesus. It is much better than winning an argument.

– Michael Howard Jr.