CONSERVATIVE BLASPHEMY | 2004-04-10
A WOL reader wrote me that the rise of religious bigotry frightened her. The two articles below were my reply to her.
Dear X,
Your question helps me formulate my writing. A lot of my articles come from questions like yours.
I would write you back in detail anyway. Readers who actually write me are very important to me. That's the whole point of WOL.
Speaking of religion, let me start with my own. What no preacher mentions is that many of Jesus' words that we hear the most about, were exactly what He was NOT talking about.
For example, we all hear "The poor we have always with us." But that was precisely the point Jesus was NOT making. He went on to say that what He was on earth about was not the perpetual problem of the poor, but the fact that Christ Himself was right there in front of the people trying to show them the path to salvation
"I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man goes to the Father but by me."
He was talking to Jews. He told them to their faces that their Jewish Law would not save them any more than pagan worship would.
But fashionable preachers use "The poor we have always with us" to show that Jesus was really on earth as a political revolutionary.
A United Methodist preacher wrote me that Jesus died on the Cross so there would be no caste system on earth.
No way.
Jesus never even mentioned slavery, which lay at the base of his society. The Book of Titus (the shortest book in the Bible) says if you are a master be a good master, if you are a slave, be a good slave.
Sean Hannity says that Jesus died on the Cross for interracial dating.
The wedding Jesus blessed, the marriage at Cana, was rigidly limited by Jewish Law to the marriage of two Jews ONLY. This violated what Hannity says Jesus was all about.
Jesus did not mention the restriction on the marriage at Cana. Why should He? This had nothing to do with His mission.
So Hannity commits good old fashioned blasphemy without the slightest hint of a conscience. After all, he is being Politically Correct, so who cares about Jesus?