John Armstrong just blogged about the three Christians who were arrested for interrupting the first Hindu prayer in the Senate.See the video. He raises several interesting questions:

Are these three Christians in the Senate chamber acting courageously? Are they right in what they actually pray? Should they have been there taking these actions in this place? What do their actions say about who we all are as Christians today. How should we appropriately respond to the presence of numerous non-Christian religions that now share the public religious platform with us in modern America? What should a genuinely missional Christian do in the face of modern pluralism and the various false teachings that confront the one true faith as it is revealed in Jesus Christ alone?

Of course, the way this is going to break down is that the fundamentalist evangelicals will argue that the protesters were completely justified (the same way that Operation Rescue workers were in the 1980s and 90s); the younger, emerging crowd will say the protesters got everything wrong--Christians must be humble and loving to woo the new pluralistic world.

I don't see an easy answer. But I can see warnings to each side. First, we can't be afraid of giving offense, if that offense is the gospel. There's no doubt that the protesters were completely right on substance. They believed they were following the example of John the Baptist or Elijah. But the other question that remains, then, is whether it is the time to be Elijah or the time to be Obadiah. The Christian protesters, as true and noble as they were, come across as shrill, to say the least. It's one thing to call down fire from heaven to consume the Baalites. It's another to act like an embittered ex who can't believe that her former boyfriend has run away with that slut. In effect, that's what we're doing. We've loved and nurtured and fed the ego of America for so long, that we feel a sense of entitlement -- regardless of the fact that our nation was founded on the principles of Enlightenment pluralism. We get angry that George Bush won't declare holy war back on the Islamists, instead playing patsy -- but our second president, John Adams, did the same thing. Our ex has been cheating on us from the beginning, and we're just starting to wake up to the fact.

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. -- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797