I Want My Jesus Back

[truedelphi]

I Want My Jesus back


First of all, I am not even a church goer. I pretty much left the idea of church having value when a once-admired male relative tried to molest me when I was eleven. (I ran fast - no real damage done - except for a vast increase in my cycnicism.) But the relative had been a deacon in the Episcopalean Church...

Still I miss Jesus. It scares and depresses me that for the past small eternity the right wing ministers have gobbled up the ol' Jesus and re-manufactured him with a new list of teachings.

Ol' Jesus was about Love, and Understanding, Faith Hope and Charity (with the greatest of these to be Charity) He may or may not have approved of war, but at least in my book, he would not approve of a war based on a lie and whose only good was profits for Halliburton. He would mourn those whose lives have been in upheaval because of the Iraqi war regardless of which nation those poor souls were from. If he was not religion-blind then he would also be upset that so many Christians living in Iraq are now dead, homeless or living in poverty and with civil war.

New Jesus, he be hate and intolerance, 'specially for those damned gays.
He hand-picked President Bush to be our Leader and COmmander in Chief. Should you disagree with this New Jesus, it is because you have demons possessing you. As far as the three virtues, they have become Faith Hope and Victory!

Ol' Jesus he say no one should hide their talents beneath a barrel - but use your intelligence and abilities to shine light in the world.

New Jesus say, if your talents are related to prosletizing the world of New Jesus then go for it. With His many blessings.

But should your talents lie in the path of science or intellectual analysis of any sort, then you be possessed by demons. Take the New Jesus on faith, and cast out your intellectual pride! Sinners! Denounce Darwin, and while you are at it, trash those scientists whose years of research prove that flooding a fetus with estrogen while in utero will lead to such changes in anatomy that a gay orientation will be the only orientation possible for that individual. (This last bit of scientific research has to be denounced by the New Jesus fans - otherwise the Large Corporations, many of which are owned by the Religous Right, are responsible through their pollution, of creating the very lifestyle that they abhor.)

On Ol' Jesus you could build an entire civiliazation. It took time but after 2000 years we saw equality at least being preached as desirable. The black and brown skinned are equal to the white skinned; the female equal to the male; and religious tolerance was an accepted standard in American culture. It was far from perfect, but it was a belief promoted within the culture.

Bury all that. There is a paternalistic hierachy that has rule here now.
If you are a minister in charge of a wayward congregation - you are of the Lord and the nobility that comes from such approval.

If you are not even a church congregant you are among those possessed by demons. Far worse if you should ascribe to any Muslim beliefs.

Democracy is dead. The New Jesus doesn't believe in it except as a slogan for some new war against some new threat; never mind that the new threat was only months or years ago, chumming it up with Cheney or Rummy and getting weapons from them.

And if New Jesus preaching allows for the complete death grip of the Corporate Rule- far better. Globalization is the new law of the land, under the New God.

[demosincebirth]

1. Jesus and his teachings have never changed

[upi402]

2. Buddha is a pretty cool savior guy

i think he figures there are many paths up the mountain. pick one no problem.
then again, jesus was a socialist with great hair. gotta love that!

[xchrom]

3. i know how you feel.

[OnionPatch]

4. I hear ya.

I've never been an orthodox Christian, but I've always considered myself Christian because I was raised that way and Jesus was the one spiritual teacher that I had the most familiarity with. I basically think most religions teach the same basic principles, anyway. I never bought into the part where Christians are the only ones who get to "go to Heaven" I think that was a big distortion of his teachings. I guess I'd have to write a book to explain all the ways my beliefs and interpretations about Jesus differ from the conservatives. My Jesus is a very tolerant and totally forgiving person. That rules out any correlation with the rightwingers of contemporary America, as you point out so well. But no matter what the right says, his message remains the same as ever; Love One Another. Theirs seems very much the opposite to me.