Page 10 Thursday, October 1, 2004
THE PENDULUM
The Pendulum
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p. 11
Let's talk politics
Covering both sides of the
political fence, presidential
candidates and the
environment,
p. 12
Thh weekly column will feature confessions of a Southern religious
studies major. Each week, Jonathan will offer a light-hearted look at
the little things in life that can make a big difference.
IT'S THE^^THINGS...
My letter to the world
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to
religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a
ruler whom they comider god-fearing and pious. On the other
hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has
the gods on his side."
- Aristotle
lonathan Chapman
Jonathan
Chapman
Columnist
I’m a religious studies major. Assuming
you read the cute little introduction to this col
umn, you prt)bably already knew that. 1 sup
pose that means that by default 1 would be less
amccmed about such worldly things as politics
and the election. However,
friends, I am afraid that
being human, I am but
innately imperfect, and thus
extremely concerned with
the currcnt political spectrum
and events.
Beyond my wordy
attempt at anything hardly
rejwcsentative of my theolo
gy, I have realized that as
much iis I crave the division
between religion and politics to be forever
focusetl and crisp, there is hardly such a reality
present in this world.
This ever-present gray area is why it scarce
ly surprises me that we, as humans, have now
assigned God a political party Perhaps I missed
the memo, but apparently God has spoken and
thrown his support behind the Republican Party
and its candidate for president, Geoi^e W. Bush.
Clearly the God that we worship here in
America is politically bia.sed to the right. He has
chosen to support the one true country
(Amcrica), citing our supreme presence
throughout Iraq and the world as reason enough
to make us the only country worthy of his sup
port and worics. The key to making God proud
is military power—like Jesus said, ‘Wamors are
fo earth what saints are to heaven.’ What? No. Of
course not. So where do we find tlie confidence
to claim we arc .so very connected to God
through war when other conflicts in the world
might be condemned?
Where exactly docs God (taking'this from a
Judeo-Christian standpoint) say, "Hey, war is
gotxl. Go kill one another”? I’m not sure.
We often sec bumper stickers exclaiming
“God Bless Amcrica!” Yes, God, please do bless
America, but I should hope that anyone believ
ing in this God wouldn’t limit his glory to a sin
gle group of people, to a single country. How
dare we be so bold?
It’s at times like these that 1 am reminded of
a past trend. It is a simple bracelet with four let
ters: WWJD?. They used to be all tlie rage. 1
think that now, however, it is more critical than
ever for me to ask my Christian peers that ques
tion. What would Jesus do?
God is neither a Republican nor a
Dem(x:rat, black nor white, male nor female,
straight nor gay, American nor French nor Iraqi.
God is all of these together and more.
By claiming that God is on the side of one
party or the other, we cla.ssify him in humiin
terms. Is that our place? By defining morality
through the eyes of God in our government, are
we not limiting him to hivial boundaries? God
is God. Any further classification is an insult to
His veiy existence.
We are coming to a crucial time in our his
tory. Whatever the future holds may be uncer
tain.
My request is simple. God bless the whole
world.
Contact Jonathan Chapman at pendu-
lum@elon.edu or 278-7247.
Athletes have no time for work,
they need some source of inconte
Jeremy White
Columnist
n
Jeremy
White
For a while now, it has been debated on
whether college athletes should be paid for
their sport. Some would
say they are being paid
through a means of schol
arship.
Well, let’s look at the
scholarship issue for a
moment Some come in
with full scholarships,
others partial, and yet
some come in because
they walk on the team.
Not everyone is
being "paid" the same amount of
money in these cases. It seems
like the people who get the
scholarships really need it.
Granted, there are some
people whose parents could
pay for college without get
ting a full ride, but in some
cases, parents or students
cannot. For those students,
how will they be able to get extra money for
miscellaneous items such as detergent, tooth-
pa.ste, or even going out to get something tb
eat once in a while? Even though some have
a full ride they barely have time for a job.
Where is their "pocket change" coming from
if they do not have the means to get it?
It seems to me like the NCAA is greedy.
The NCAA makes so much money year after
year from television contracts, the actual ath
letic games, and not to mention the video
games. According to The Kansas City Star,
the NCAA’s money making has gone up
8,000 percent in the last 23 years! Also
adding to this, it has a $1.7 billion television
contract. If the NCAA Ts making all this
money, how come the athletes cannot get a
piece of it? I’m not asking for millions of do
lars, I just feel that they should get at the very
least $700 a semester for pocket change-
Also, all athletes should be paid the san^»
on a talent basis, because even if
are benched during ®
games, you do most o
the same work ^ ^
starters in practice. ‘
that kind of budget e
NCAA could easily aftoro
this. The university is P^'
ing for some of the
ships, but I feel the NCAA
could contribute to the a
letes. At the very least give them
more incentives than just money-
If you work hard, and you have no time to
do anything other than school, work an
your sport, wouldn’t you want a bit of com
pensation?
Contact jeremy White at
opinions@elon.edu or 278-7247.
what do
think?
Should college athletes be paid?
□ All college atliletes should be paid whether or not their sport genei^teJ
revenue.
□ Only athlete.s who play revenue-generating sports should be paid-
n No college athletes should be paid.
results will be published in next week's issue.