News you can use
News you can use
Fundamentalist and evangelical preachers of the last century used the advent of radio and television to skew Christianity in ways never before possible.
Social media and the Christian Nationalists have taken that Christian world, atilt on its axis by the turn of this century, to a complete reversal of its poles.
His disciples and other early Christians, who followed His teachings, were willing to die for their faith, as was He.
Today’s Christian Nationalists appear ready to kill for the lack of theirs.
Show me in the Bible where Jesus raised a sword or an AR-15 rifle against another human being.
Christians of late have said they want to put Christ back into Christmas.
I suggest it’s time for these CHRINOS to put Christ back into Christianity. And for that, they need to revisit their Bibles, but not just any books in the Bible.
The place to begin and end are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the only four books in the 66-book library to deal directly with the life of the religion’s namesake. What better place to begin than with the Sermon on the Mount, contained in its entirety in Chapters 5 through 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. I would suggest we all read it, learn it and live it.
Beyond the sermon, Jesus leveled several barbs at the Pharisees who had subverted the Jewish Torah and Talmud to enhance their wealth and power. (Sound familiar?) In defiance, He threw the moneylenders from the temple steps.
Jesus also advocated for the separation of church and state when He said, “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and give unto God that which is God’s.”
As for sin, He said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” That would seem to mean, to me at least, that people should manage their own lives as well as they can and let others manage theirs. According to an old saw, you can only truly know another person by walking a mile in his shoes, something many of us seem reluctant to do. Righteousness, as Jesus intimated, cannot exist in a person who is self-righteous.
When He said, “He who believeth in me ... ,” He was saying, literally, that He was, in that regard, the Word. Believing in Him meant doing as He preached and as He would do.
The God of my youth was omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. So, to those Christians who think it is their calling to help God save souls, all I can say is, “Oh, ye of little faith.”
I fear that if the dark-skinned Christ were to appear on Earth today, particularly in the United States of America, He would once again be nailed to the old rugged cross. And once again He would utter that famous refrain: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
It is past time for the Christian charade of the Far Right of Fox and Friends, other radical media, and fear-mongering and money-grubbing evangelists to end.
Godspeed, my friends, with faith, hope and charity.
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Alan Sorensen is a former editor of Blaine County Journal-News-Opinion and Havre Daily News.
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