An American Jesus?

I just read this on a post and had to share it with you. The site was recommended to me by a friend and I have found myself happy that there are even more good ol' progressive Christians in Oklahoma than I imagined. The blogger is talking about a conversation he had with a charasmatic who is questioning his faith based on his own explanation of a soteriological discussion. I am quoting from in the middle of the post, I'll put a link to it at the end of my post. It said,

"Are you even a Christian?"

There it was. The big question. I had just given what I thought was a pretty reasonable confession of faith in Jesus' death on the cross as beneficial somehow for humanity and still I get the question. I wasn't even offended by it. Something has happened to my anger. Yesterday a friend calls to tell me that the First Baptist Church of Tuttle has this on their marquee:

Two people are willing to die for you: Jesus and the American G.I.

I guess I'm less angry because I realize that any church who can put that on their sign isn't really practicing the same faith I am. And I guess that's okay too. I think people realize that. All this to say, I think I'm a Christian, but maybe not in any way other, more conservative denominations would understand the word.

***
I am putting this post here because I cannot even fathom how someone can think that our soldiers are actually "dying for us" when it was us who invaded another country based on lies. The country had no weapons of mass destruction and our government knew that AND Saddam, as evil a dictator as he was, had nothing to do with Osama ben Laden (heck, WE had more to do with Osama than Saddam did). And here is a sign at a church in Oklahoma that said American G.I.'s are akin to Jesus because both are willing to die for us.

Is that sacriledge or what?

Here is the link to the post.