Letter to the editor...

I have a ton of reading to do for tomorrow's class, some friends want me to meet for dinner, and I'm hard up for material. So you get this, a letter to the editor I wrote around the last election when there was a memorandum to ban same-sex marriage in my state:

Folks, I never want to hear that Jesus was a republican or a democrat. My intelligent guess, if forced to make one, is that he would be neither. My reading of the important books of the new testament tell me that he didn't care so much about the governmental policy and the enforcement of that policy, as he did about the people he served-- perhaps politicians should take note.

WWJD?

Would Jesus go out and attempt to convince voters that abortion should not be legal? I think he would strive to love and care for all God's children, even those actually born, hungry and needy.

Would Jesus concern himself with which countries should be allowed to possess atomic weapons? I think he would not only preach, but practice peace for all people and countries, despite religious belief.

Would Jesus lobby and beg for mercy from the government for food and shelter for the homeless? I think he would go and build shelter and create bread and fish for them all.

Would Jesus judge and condemn homosexuals, labeling them the greatest evil of all the world? I think he would love them, and at worst, call it a sin along with all other sins.

A sin, is a sin, is a sin. And he without sin, cast the first stone.

Jesus' social message at the time was unorthodox due to his place as one of the original feminists. He fought and stood for the repressed, he did so without judgment and without hate. Our shaping of his message today for our own privilege is disturbing. The majority of us fail to teach what he said, but what we want him to have said so that it will fit neatly to justify our fears.

It makes me sad when I read and hear someone say, "And this is why I'm against religion," when referencing a Christian-conservative agenda. Christians are failing to realize, that while they push their views into politics to save the masses, they actually pull the lost farther from God. It is as if Satan has mastered the use of the Godly to inflict his cancer.

Folks, Jesus was not concerned with improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of government, so why is America so insistent in involving him in it today? Jesus was concerned with improving people and getting them to heaven to be with him for eternity. He was smart enough to know that governmental control was not a means to accomplish his objective, but rather used love and compassion to touch us all. I think we'd be a lot better off, a lot more successful as Christians, if we took Jesus' lead.

Love and compassion. I'll say it again, love and compassion.