That’s Right Nate

Some people believe that rather than being judgmental, God is all loving.  However, you have to believe that by now God had a love/ hate relationship with Oral Roberts who died yesterday at the age of 91.    Their contentious relationship began in 1977 when a 900 foot tall Jesus appeared to Oral and told him to build the City of Faith Medical Center and guaranteed it would be a success.   Roberts did what he was told and supposedly God was pleased.

God realized that Oral was a man who could get things done and Jesus appeared to him in person, not as a vision, to tell him to find a cure for cancer.  Unfortunately, 26 years later and Jesus must have gotten quite impatient.  In fact, God threatened to kill Roberts in 1987 if he didn’t raise an $8,000,000 ransom.   Fortunately, Roberts was able to raise the money, which he used to create scholarships for City of Faith.  Unfortunately, Roberts had to shut down City of Faith two years later.   To say God was peeved would be an understatement.

Also, in the late 1980s God was dragged into the whole Jim Bakker scandal when Roberts claimed that he had direct revelation from Jesus that Bakker was innocent.   This despite the fact that God has always preferred to avoid the limelight and work instead through intermediaries and burning plants.   With Roberts dead, he clearly has a lot to answer for.   He has left his ministries in the capable hands of his son, Richard “Anal” Roberts who will presumably carry on his father’s good works.   Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, Jesus could not be reached for comment.

When I was in church a couple Sundays ago, I was aghast at the left wing filth that the minister was spouting off.   I called him on it after services and he looked at me and just kind of shrugged his shoulders saying, “Well, it’s the Bible Nate, not much I can do about the word of God.”  Fortunately, the good people at Conservapedia are under no such compunction.   They have embarked on The Conservative Bible Project, which is designed to give us a more conservative Bible.

If you’re not familiar with Conservapedia, it is a heroic bunch of conservatives who recognized that many facts, by their nature have a liberal bias.   To counteract this bias they formed a conservative alternative to Wikipedia.   Now, they’re taking on the Bible and frankly it’s about time.  For example, their web page lists Luke 23:34 as a liberal corruption–Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Frankly, the Jesus in the current Bible version is a wimp.   I mean sure he’s got all sorts of cool superpowers like walking on water and turning water into wine, but mostly he just goes around curing people.  If this was a comic book, Jesus would hardly be Justice League material.  He’d probably find himself in the Doom Patrol or Guardians of the Galaxy with a bunch of other also rans.   The Conservative Jesus, has a lot more potential.  Check out his run in with the money changers at the temple:

¹²And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

¹³And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Now, see how conservative Jesus deals with the same problem:

¹²And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that protested in the temple and overthrew the tables of the trade unionists, and the seats of them that sold doves,

¹³And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of socialists.

The difference is certainly subtle, but now we have a Jesus that sticks up for capitalism, not just a savior, but a kick butt take no nonsense conservative.   Remember Matthew 5: 38 -44 where Jesus preaches to turn the other check–Not anymore.

5:38

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ^F23

5:39

But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

5:40

If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.

5:41

And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.

5:42

Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.

5:43

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor ^F24 and hate your enemy.’

5:44

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,

Now, here is the Conservative Bible version.  The differences are subtly, but even these changes seem to make the Bible stories come alive for me:

5:38

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ^F23

5:39

But I tell you if he pulls a knife, you pull a gun.  If he shall send one of yours to the hospital, then shall ye send one of his to the morgue.

5:40

If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, tie him up in litigation for so long that it is cheaper to just by his own cloak.

5:41

And whoever compels you to go one mile, make sure that he pays you.

5:42

Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. Instead loan to him with reasonable usury.  Then bundle his debt with the debt of others so that a derivative shall be made.

5:43

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor ^F24 and hate your enemy.’

5:44

That seems like pretty good advice to me.

Wow!  That’s a Jesus that I can respect and one that nobody is going to be taking advantage of either.  Just look how Jesus’ resurrection is handled in John 20: 26-29:

²⁶And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

²⁷Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

²⁸And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.

²⁹Jesus saith unto him, I am back Thomas and thou hast seen me, know that this time it is personal.   I am getting the disciples back together.  It is time we taught Pilate a lesson

I can’t wait for the release of this version of the Bible.   I hope that it isn’t only Jesus who is changed, but other Biblical figures as well.   Just the thought of Joshua proclaiming loudly for all to hear, “Mister Jericho, tear down this wall” gives me shivers.   The only way we can eliminate liberal bias from such important things as the word of God is to rewrite it.  I’m glad to have the good folks at Conservapedia to do it for me.

Easter is an amazing time of year that is often neglected for Christmas.  We all celebrate the holiday in our own way, but it would be nice for everybody in this world regardless of religion or denomination to get together and remember what unifies us–that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that his appointing Peter to lead the church in no way made him Pope, and that we can all be saved if we come to Jesus and ask him to change our sexual orientation, political affiliation, or religions denomination.

The Swedish celebrated Easter this year, the way they celebrate everything–with Legos.   Their giant 6 foot tall statue of Jesus took the parishioners of a church in Vasteras, Sweden one and a half years to build and over 30,000 pieces.   It is quite impressive to look at, but I would like to remind them that if they used a good old fashioned American erector set, they could have made a Jesus that walked and would have probably been more inspirational.

Halfway around the world in Australia, artist Mitch Mitchell has used his sculpting talents not to honor Jesus as those Lego sculptors in Sweden had, but to mock Christianity by creating a statue of a naked woman on a cross.   Needless to say, God sent his only son to save us, not his only daughter.   I’m not saying that a woman couldn’t have done the job so please don’t email me hate mail, but if a woman was capable of saving the world as Jesus did,  God probably would have had a daughter too.   Anybody who has seen Mel Gibson’s wonderful movie on the life of Jesus, knows that he was brutalized at the end of that movie.  It is ridiculous to think that a smaller and frailer woman would have been able to stand up to that kind of punishment.

Regardless of your family’s religion I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday.  I’ve been a bit slow with my posting this week, but I hope to be up to a fuller schedule for next week.

“John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross,” Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said at this week’s state GOP convention. “He never denounced God, either.”   I’m glad to know that I am not the only one who saw it.

Now this doesn’t include their stances on the issue.  Fron what we’ve read in the bible we can be pretty sure that Jesus would be in favor of the War in Iraq, McCain’s moral values, and the Bush tax cut.  I hope that all good Christians will turn out in November to give McCain their support.