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editing jesus for an american audience

editing jesus for an american audience

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This is too good … and all too true … not to reprint in full. You may see the original posting at The Sermon on the Mount, American Style.

The Sermon on the Mount is regarded by most Christians as the heart of Jesus’ teaching. Unfortunately, what Jesus has to say there has not been overwhelmingly embraced by much of the Christian community in America. Perhaps it is time to update the sermon so that it is more in line with American culture. Maybe something like this:

You have heard that you shall not kill. But sometimes you just have to. And don’t worry too much about anger or demeaning language. In order to win a war you must demonize your enemy, otherwise people won’t hate them.

You have heard it said you shall not commit adultery. But let’s face it, movies and television would be so dull without it. And forget about trying to suppress lust. You do that and no one will ever be able to sell a car or bar of soap anywhere.

And don’t get too worked up about divorce. Everyone knows that it is easier to end a marriage than it is to sustain one.

You have heard it said you shall not swear falsely, but common sense tells us if we are going to do business in the real world sometimes the truth must be ignored. If this gets too complicated, you may need to consult an attorney.

You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I don’t know how I can improve on that. The same for love your neighbors and hate your enemies. Some things just should not be changed.

Let me talk to you about prayer. What good is it if you go off and pray in secret where no one can see or hear you? Get out there in public, on television, at football games, during school days–pray out loud. What good is prayer if God is the only one who hears it?

And the same thing is true about charitable giving. Try to schedule a press conference so the media will see your good works. You might also think about printing an annual report of your good deeds so there will be a permanent record. After all, what good is charity if no one knows you’ve done anything?

Here is the bottom line: If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will. Dress for success. Eat only the best foods at the finest restaurants. Keep that body healthy. No one wants to look at your flabby thighs. I say unto you–no one with flabby thighs will enter the kingdom, or any of the finer clubs for that matter.

Set high standards and don’t let anyone off the hook. If you cut someone a break, all they will do is go out and make the same mistake again. You’ve got to watch people all the time. They cannot be trusted. If they get half a chance, they will get you and yours.

Always seek to be first in line. The last one in line is going to be the last one in. Strive to always associate with strong, wealthy people. Those are the people who help you get ahead. Don’t think about death or suffering. Thoughts like that are for losers.

And no matter what, do not give to people who beg from you. That only encourages more begging and less work. Remember the secret to life rests in this one golden principle: Do unto others before they do unto you.

After Jesus had finished these sayings, he got into his private jet and flew off for a relaxing week in the Bahamas where he could check on his offshore tax shelters while enjoying duty free shopping. And many people in American said, Amen.

the great moral issues of our time

the great moral issues of our time

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I quote below a portion of Jim Wallis’ response to James Dobson’s characterization of the “great moral issues of our time.” Dobson coauthored a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals objecting to their inclusion of climate change among the issues they have chosen to address as leaders of the evangelical Christian movement.

Dobson named the”great moral issues” as “the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.” … I believe the sanctity of life, the integrity and health of marriages, and the teaching of sexual morality to our children are, indeed, among the great moral issues of our time. But I believe they are not the only great moral issues. As many [other Christians] have been saying … the enormous challenges of global poverty, climate change, pandemics that wipe out generations and continents, the trafficking of human beings made in God’s image, and the grotesque violations of human rights, even to the point of genocide, are also among the great moral issues that people of faith must be – and already are – addressing.

What would you identify as the great moral issues of our time, the issues with which we, as people of faith, should be grappling?

a new look

a new look

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You may have noticed. My blog has a new look!

Actually the blog has several new looks, and you may choose which look you like the best. Find the heading “Themes” in the sidebar and click on any one of the theme names — “Falling Leaves” or “Island After Sunset” or Misty Look” to change the appearance of the blog. My current favorite is “Island After Sunset.”

a breath of fresh air in the abortion debate

a breath of fresh air in the abortion debate

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From a Christian Century editorial, A third way:

The Pregnant Women Support Act, introduced by Lincoln Davis (D., Tenn.) and Chris Smith (R., N.J.), and the Reducing the Need for Abortion Act, sponsored by Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) and Rose DeLauro (D., Conn.), are the most comprehensive bills yet formulated to address the social issues that lie behind the decision to have an abortion. The Ryan-DeLauro bill is notable for bringing together a member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus (Ryan) and a member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus (DeLauro). Ryan said the proposal is aimed at “broadening the stagnant debate that too often accompanies this issue.”

An organization calling itself, Third Way: A Strategy Center for Progressives, has published a summary of the bill on its website. Here is an excerpt:

Representatives Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), with the backing of both pro-life and pro-choice members, just introduced a new bill, The “Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act.” The legislation is an initiative that will work to reduce the number of abortions in America by both preventing unintended pregnancies and supporting pregnant women and new parents. This bill enables pro-life and pro-choice advocates to find common ground to reduce the number of abortions in America while protecting personal liberties. To measure its success, the legislation both provides grants to states to encourage effective collection and reporting of abortion surveillance data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with an explicit preclusion from reporting any individually identifiable information, and calls for the Institute of Medicine to study why women choose to have an abortion.

Read the rest of the summary here.

sharing the burden

sharing the burden

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Headline: Oil industry behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose to $10.49 billion, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.

I admit I know very little about the complex economic factors that produced such a record-breaking profit, and very little about the process and people that determine retail prices for oil products. I do understand that high profits are driven by high demand, that we pay more because we ask for more.

Nevertheless, I find the incongruity disturbing … that an oil company is making more money than ever, while its customers are struggling more than ever to find the money to pay the record-high prices for its products. Isn’t it true that in the end, that $10.49 billion comes out of our wallets? Exxon-Mobil makes more because it takes more … from us.

Energy is a common human need, and the increasing demand for energy coupled with a diminishing supply of non-renewable sources of energy is a common human problem. It seems to me that the burden of this problem should be shared, by consumer and producer alike.

So it would be interesting to know what Exxon-Mobil will do with its windfall profits. If the profits were to be invested in the research and production of new sources of energy, renewable sources of energy, that could be a way of sharing the burden …

nobel peace prize for micro-credit pioneer

nobel peace prize for micro-credit pioneer

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Britain’s Times calls it a truly inspiring choice.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus, a citizen of Bangladesh and a man with a dream to bring an end to poverty. His strategy has been to make small loans to people with little income, women in particular, people ineligible for conventional loans. These “micro-loans” help to raise people out of poverty by empowering their own entrepreneurial skills and enabling their own income-producing capacities.

It works. It works in Bangladesh. It works in Haiti. I have a special interest in Haiti, having spent nine days there in the summer of 1991, and have made personal contributions to Fonkoze, a micro-credit lender which calls itself, Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor.

Read the Times editorial below …

Comment: a truly inspiring choice for Nobel Peace Prize
By Gabriel Rozenberg, Economics Reporter for The Times

Never underestimate the power of an economist to change the world.

In 1974 Muhammad Yunus led his students at Chittagong University on a field trip to a poor Bangladeshi village. They met a woman who made bamboo stools, but whose profits were eaten up by the extortionate rates of local lenders. Yunus started lending money himself in the form of “micro-loans” and in 1976 the Grameen Bank Project was born.

The bank now covers nearly 70,000 villages and makes small loans to more than 6 million customers. It is remarkable in many ways: almost all of its borrowers are women, and the loan recovery rate is above 98 per cent, an astonishingly high number.

For its success in lifting the impoverished out of penury across Bangladesh, and for providing the model for a worldwide revolution of micro-credit, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were today awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the past, the Norwegian committee which hands out humanity’s greatest accolade have often struck a discordant note. Some people see Henry Kissinger (joint winner, 1973) as a warmonger; others see Yasser Arafat (joint winner, 1994) as a terrorist. There is almost no one who believes that the Nobel Committee got it right both of those times. Other choices are uncreative – the United Nations, the International Labour Organisation – or tediously predictable. This award was neither.

To award a Peace Prize for an anti-poverty inititative is striking enough, but that is only half the story.

In rich Western capitals like London there is today a thriving “international development community”: well-meaning, thoughtful people in charities, pressure groups and Whitehall who came together last year at Live 8 and led to the world’s wealthiest nations doubling their aid budgets.

But probe beneath the surface and you will find confusion. The charities praise aid in public; yet they quietly admit that simply handing over cash to often-corrupt governments has frequently failed miserably. They call for good governance, the latest buzzword, but any attempt to cut off cash to bad governments ties them in moral knots.

Grandiose schemes are the order of the day: the UN’s flagship anti-poverty Millennium Project has, as the economist William Easterly has pointed out, a bewildering 449 proposals to meet 54 different goals in a 3,800-page plan that leaves no one accountable for anything.

The Grameen Bank presents a totally different approach. It was not dreamt up by a faraway Western aid agency. It is tried and tested; it is a business solution which comes from the grassroots.

Grameen shows us the poor and the destitute not as pitiable charity cases condemned to their lot, but as thwarted entrepreneurs who just lack the means to improve their families’ lives. It is a profoundly optimistic view of human nature. With this inspired choice the Nobel Committee has lit a path that could lead to the eradication of poverty in our time.

a sensible ruling

a sensible ruling

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An excerpt from the decision handed down by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor declaring the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional:

“Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. … It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of … those liberties … which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”