Interesting

[Guest guest]

I like this message because it shows how KC can be easily broadcast when its

activities fit into secular principles.

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------

NNA (News - North America) <nna (AT) pamho (DOT) net>

Arianna Huffington in Salon Condones Krishna Relief Work

 

It's not about church and state

Two words for the Bible-thumpers and lefties who are trashing Bush's

faith-based initiative: Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Arianna Huffington

 

March 13, 2001 | The uproar over President Bush's faith-based initiative has

been so intense that the White House has decided to pull it back for

retooling. That makes this the perfect moment for a national debate.

 

Yet the debate we should be having is not on the hoary hot-button issue of

the separation of church and state, but on two critically important

questions at the heart of the initiative: How do you turn around troubled

lives when so many of our social problems involve human behavior --

especially addiction and violence? And what is the proper role for

government to play?

 

 

The evidence is overwhelming that it's infinitely harder to rebuild

shattered lives without acknowledging the spiritual dimension of human

nature. No, this doesn't mean accepting Jesus as your personal savior. It

simply means that, as Alcoholics Anonymous and its many offshoots --

including Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous,

etc. -- have shown, acknowledgment of a higher power is central to recovery.

 

In fact, Bill Wilson, who co-founded AA, traced its guiding principle to

Carl Jung's conviction that since "man is something more than intellect,

emotion and two dollars' worth of chemicals," recovery too must be more than

physical.

 

....Leading the nitwit parade on this issue are two very strange bedfellows:

Barry Lynn, who has made a career out of warning people of imaginary threats

to the separation of church and state, and Pat Robertson, who is worried

about "opening the floodgates ... of the federal treasury to aberrant

groups" like the Church of Scientology, the Unification Church and the Hare

Krishnas.

 

I guess Rev. Pat doesn't know that the Hare Krishnas have provided help to

homeless veterans, recovering addicts and prison parolees with the help of

government money for close to 20 years.

 

Personally, I'd much rather have "aberrant groups" distributing food,

shelter and comfort to those in need than Robertson and company distributing

voter guides along with their Sunday sermons.

 

About the writer

Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of eight

books. Her latest, "How to Overthrow the Government," was published in 2000

by Regan Books (HarperCollins).

 

------ End of forwarded message -------