Sad and Angry

[Donna Rose]

hey everyone :'(

i usually try to stay out of political things, but i have come across something that i simply must share, that is not only offensive but blasphemous and depressing because my Latin FRIENDS at NYU (who mostly proclaim themselves as liberal) sent this out on the Newman Club emails we have going around throughout the summer...forgive me for exposing you guys to this, but i hafta show some people who will sympathize with me, that this is NOT cool, NOT funny, and NOT right.

i think my friend who sent this out said it came from a site called jibjab.com, but im too depressed to even go check it out.

...

A   M E S S A G E   F R O M P A T   R O B E R T S O N   A N D T H E   "V O T E  N O
O N   J E S U S"   C A M P A I G N

June 25, 2004

Fellow Christians,

The Second-Coming of Jesus Christ was a magnificent and joyous day for all.
Interrupting a brand-new holiday episode of 7th Heaven with his divine
electronic prowess, Jesus informed the world on the first night of Hanukkah
that he would return on December 25, 2003, somewhere in Washington D.C.
Cynics dismissed the announcement as a hoax, while the faithful flocked to
churches everywhere in anticipation of Christ's reappearance. Doubts of His
authenticity vanished on Christmas Day as He walked across the Potomac
River and quietly addressed a breathless crowd gathering for the annual
Anti-Kwanzaa rally at Christian Coalition headquarters. He connected with
the masses as only Jesus can, mesmerizing on-lookers with profound messages
of peace and hope. He outlined the steps necessary to steer the world
toward a path of deliverance, stressing tolerance and compassion. With such
virtuous ideals in mind, Jesus announced His intention to run for President
of the United States. As President, Jesus insisted, He could rid the world
of evil, unite humankind, end world hunger, and achieve eternal
peacen++shaping God's Land in the glorious image of Heaven.

And so it is with great sadness that I write this letter urging you to vote
against Jesus Christ for President.

Just six months after His re-rebirth, it has become startlingly clear that
Jesus has lost touch with America. Far from being a prudent Savior, Jesus
has proven to be no more than a foolhardy liberal. Aligning Himself with
the far-left minority, Jesus has adopted the lofty and politically correct
delusions that have come to define the liberal elite. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in Jesus' irresponsible welfare proposals and pleas for
universal healthcare.

"Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to
borrow from you," he blathered at a recent Senate hearing on Social
Security, simplifying a complex issue as only a liberal would. Indeed,
Jesus' socialistic remarks have enraged many would-be contributors to his
campaign. After I informed him of the hundreds-of-millions of dollars I
have raised in the name of the Lord through my televangelism and holy
African diamond-mine interests, he had the audacity to respond: "It is
easier for a camel to fit through the head of a pin than for a rich man to
enter heaven." Well, the Christian Broadcasting Network will not waste its
time and money supporting a candidate unwilling to recognize the blessed
virtue of free enterprise. Our hard-working, god-fearing supporters
regularly pay tax and tithe and are unable to continue supporting the freeloaders that Jesus would have us aimlessly throw our money at.
"Tax-And-Spend Jesus" wants us to believe that our hard-earned money should
be pumped into godless public schools and the sinful homes of single-mother
welfare queens.

The reckless liberalism of Jesus Christ cannot be allowed to take hold of
the Christian values this great country has fought so hard to preserve.
Jesus' immorality becomes more heinous by the day, and what kind of example
is He setting for our children by openly associating with prostitutes?
Jesus' environmental advocacy resembles that of your common, everyday
hippy: He has criticized our reliance on fossil fuels and insists that
businesses adopt unfair and impractical pollution prevention measures. He
also goes barefoot to public events and has yet to shower or shave as far
as I can tell. Messiah or not, there is no room for grungy tree-huggers in
the White House.

Today's America should not cater to the bleeding-heart politics of men like
Howard Dean and Jesus. Frankly, the policies advocated by Christ have not
only been Un-American, but, dare I say, Un-Christian. Jesus has refused to
condemn homosexuals, abortion doctors, Muslims, feminists, atheists,
communists, convicted murderers, or even the ACLU. His moral relativism
knows no bounds: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to
throw a stone," He whines, His words as empty and non-committal as those of
a typical do-nothing democrat. Worst of all, He has gone so far as to
challenge the virtue of Operation: Iraqi Freedom. As our brave men and
women fight in the trenches for the liberation of the Iraqi people, Jesus
has repeatedly denounced our efforts and naively pleaded for a non-violent
solution. Instead of inspiring our courageous troops with the truth of
God's Word, He has instead chosen to spew the same empty rhetoric of
Blame-America-First liberals: "Put up again thy sword into its place: for
all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword." "First remove the
plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck
from your brother's eye," He drones. Must I direct Jesus to the Book of
Exodus? How about "an eye for an eye" n++ did He miss that one? Grow up,
Jesus. Welcome to the real world.

Jesus' foreign policy misjudgments extend well beyond Iraq, and His
peacenik position on Israel's on-going war with Muslim extremists is
baffling. I have, for some time now, regaled my devotees with the
prophecies of Luke and Zechariah that prove the necessity of a powerful
Israel to Christ's Second-Coming. Jesus knows full well that he wasn't
supposed to return until an uncontested Jewish State had been established
and the Palestinian menace eradicated, and His defiance of His own
revelations is dishonest and reprehensible. Now, true worshippers of the
Lord might hesitate to criticize the Son of our Lord. They certainly
should, if this is in fact the Jesus the New Testament has told us about.
But this cannot be the Christ we've all been waiting for. No, faithful
believers, this must be the wrong Jesus. My colleague, Jerry Falwell, has
whispered that this might not be Jesus at all, but a sneaky demon
incognito. Personally, I think God just needs another do-over. It may take
a re-re-rebirth, but when The Right Jesus finally arrives, I'm confident
that any doubts of the righteousness of our positions will be quickly
erased (read more about my vision of The Right Jesus in my new book, The
Right Jesusn++available now at 700Club.com for a donation of $24.95).

...

i wish i knew some way to, well, help my friends get closer to the REAL Jesus Christ...politics aside. this was sent out in response to the fact that the Vatican has apparently issued some sort of declaration that feminism contributes to the number of broken families and blurs the gender roles and so discourages the traditional family - all of which is TRUE but try telling that to my Latin friends at NYU. they don't understand that if they are a part of a church they believe to be THE Church, it is their calling to OBEY that Church and all that she says...instead they complain that the church is "outdated." i mean, i have always known people like this existed ("Catholics" in name only really), but it just hurts me to see that so many people i have grown to care about since i got to NYU feel this way.

please pray for them, and the person who wrote this horrible piece of "political humor" as my friend called it...i know i will be.

[Augustine]

Most RC's now have no consciousness that their communion represents the "true Church", thus the mindset of your friends is not surprising.  Of course it doesn't help at all that their attitude does (rather back handedly) confirm reality - the RCC is the descendent of a body which once was a part of the true Church, but in successive waves alienated itself from this Church to the point of not simply being a schism, but increasingly heterodox.  The last forty years of Vatican Council II's "new springtime" is only the latest, and most brutal manifestation of this.  It's like a branch that is cut off from a tree - while it may have some of the original sap in it for a time, this will eventually dry out - and then the limb will become brittle and begin corrupting.  Eventually, it will become dust, or worse yet will be devoured by the earth and become fertilizer for another organism.

I do not presume to say that the Holy Spirit cannot save outside of the normal, visible, canonical boundaries of the Holy Orthodox Church - I do not determine what is or is not "possible."  But I do say that there is no salvation outside of the Church in an essential sense, in the sense of no salvation apart from Her (apart from Her as a real, visible body existing in time.)  Of course, such (extraordinary) things are hidden in God, and speculation on them is never evidence or food for concocting "alternative" ecclessiologies (such as the  so called "baptismal ecclessiology" of the ecumenists.)

However, the Orthodox Church (being the Body of Christ) is that life giving "tree" - and the Latin schism (and historically multiplied heterodoxies) have rendered the institutions and historical peoples that followed after it "a broken branch."  I hope by some miracle, this branch can be mended to the Tree by the gardener and restored before there is nothing left of it whatsoever.  Maybe this will never happen.  This doesn't mean we shouldn't pray for it.

[spartacus]

Unfortunately for your friends being a Roman Catholic is a cultural thing for them.

They want the Church to be there for their weddings, confirmation parties, first communiions and funerals for their grandparets....but they want to have God come to them on their terms. It does not work that way.

I even bet they complain about going to mass and have said "I don't get anything out of it" The emphasis is all on them, me and I....where is God in all this?

Unfortunately this is the state of most younger people in the Roman Catholic Church and the RCC seems afraid to correct them for fear they will ose even more donations.

DO you really want to be spending your time with such people? Sometimes the only way we can make a point is to break away from people and let them know why. Perhaps they won't understand right away...but one day some probably will.

[ania]

Did anyone detect a hint of sarcasm in the article?  

[Donna Rose]

Did anyone detect a hint of sarcasm in the article?

yes i know it is sarcastic, but all the same it is the type of thing my very liberal Latin friends will read and say: wow, man, Jesus is on our side! I'm gonna go vote for baby-killers because clearly Jesus would!

i dont mean to make it political or to expose my bias, but i know my friends and i KNOW that they loved that article because they think it "exposes" the fallacies of christian conservatives...

i know both sides have their faults, and neither can claim to be 100% christian in all its issues (which is why on the whole i dislike and avoid politics altogether), but my real problem with the article is what i feel is exploitation of the Living God, his Name, and his status in our lives, to make a political point. THAT'S what offended me most...i dont care how "in jest" or "in the name of art" something claims to be, there are some Things you don't play with, and Jesus Christ is one of them.

sorry, rant done, and certainly not directed at you, but the article.

[Fr. David]

Two good points, Donna.

i know both sides have their faults, and neither can claim to be 100% christian in all its issues...

Yep...as I read the article, I found myself personally agreeing with "Jesus" on the need for universal health care and better pro-environment laws and the comments against both the War In Iraq and unilateral support of Israel -- but that's just me.  I hate the fact that these issues are inextricably wed to the pro-choice and gay-rights agenda; apart from a few, small organizations within the Democratic party, there is no middle ground.

...but my real problem with the article is what i feel is exploitation of the Living God, his Name, and his status in our lives, to make a political point.

Well, yeah, except that, as ania said, there was no small amount of sarcasm involved in the article.  It was total satire; I doubt very much if the people involved in the article were genuinely trying to say that God was on their side...more just saying that God isn't necessarily always on the Religious Right's side (which I agree with).  Definitely, though, they used our Lord very loosely and lightly, which shows their lack of reverence...but at least that wasn't the main point of the article, which I guess is something.

[Tags:]

OrthodoxChristianity.net > Moderated Forums > Free-For-All > Non-Religious Topics (Moderator: Pravoslavbob) > Topic: Sad and Angry