chris the messiah

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:43 - 48 (NIV)

---

This cartoon was inspired by an article "Why Are So Many Christians Worshipping The American Sniper?" by Benjamin L. Corey. Read it here. HT to Jim Robertson for sharing it on FB.


Update: It seems my cartoon has inspired a HuffPo article. Not really, but wouldn't it be nice?
Read Clint Eastwood's Sniper, and the American Messiah.

And read Chris Hedge's article, "American Sniper": Killing Ragheads for Jesus to understand more of the connection between religion and hostility.

[america in three words]

I've been reading William Stringfellow's An Ethic for Christians & Other Aliens in a Strange Land, which I received as an early Christmas gift from my buddy Don. Not an easy read, and certainly challenging in terms of how one sees the world. Take this quote as an example:

The illusion has been that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, America succeeded British Imperialism and French Colonialism in the world, but the truth is that America succeeded Nazi Germany. That is to say, the ethos of Nazism, the mentality of Nazism, the social ethic of Nazism survives, prospers, and more and more prevails in specific American versions—not literally identical to the particulars of Nazism, but nonetheless having the same moral identity as Nazism—which can be symbolized and summarized in three words: war, racism, genocide.

Stringfellow, p. 125
Italics in original
Other formats by me.

War: Ongoing, in the Middle East. Other "skirmishes" in other parts of the world. And the legalized war against people of colour within the U.S. itself.
Racism: Systemic across the U.S.
Genocide: the American holocaust - killing the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (North America).

God help us.


p.s. Ironically, parts of the book read as if it was written post-Ferguson, though it was actually published in 1973. When Stringfellow talks about the principalities and powers of darkness, he is talking about systematic racism (among other things). Very timely.

[#MMIW]

Jonathan Labillois' tribute to 1183 murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

For more information, search Twitter for #MMIW.

Artist's website.

Source: @windspeakernews

[repay violence with violence]

Since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot to death by Darren Wilson, a police officer, in Ferguson Missouri this past summer (Aug 9, 2014),

since that time,

and more since since the grand jury decided not to indict Wilson (Nov 24, 2014),

I have occasionally had the following thought pop into my head:


On a happy sunny day, a sniper (a white sniper, to avoid increasing racial violence) should take out Wilson's teenage son as he's walking down the street on his way home from school.


And today, only today, after reading an article by Suzanne Ross (see below), I'm thinking,

"Did I seriously wish that?

How do I -- the guy with this blog about embracing people instead of excluding them -- wish that someone would kill Wilson's kid? And to take so long to realize what I'm wishing....


For starters, his son is as valuable as Michael Brown and also deserves to live a life free of violence. Of course, in a country with systemic racism, the opposite is the reality: Wilson's son is considered as worthy of having a life free of violence, and Michael Brown just doesn't matter....

so perhaps I'm reacting in an equal and opposite way.

But as a follower of Jesus, I should see all lives as being valued and equally deserving a life free of violence, regardless.

an apology from Cleveland Police Department Officer Michael Brelo

For Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, an unarmed couple shot 137 times by 13 Cleveland Police Department police officers at the end of a high speed chase, November 29, 2012. This apology is from Michael Brelo, one of those officers.

---

i just want to say

you had been speeding
in your nice car
speeding unarmed
with your love

I was afraid
shot 49 bullets into you
while standing on the hood
of your car

Forgive me
if I had spent more time on the firing range
I'd have done the job
with two bullets

poem by rob g

---

Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

Back-posted to November 29, 2014, to match the anniversary of their death.

love your enemies...

Here's a cartoon inspired by an evening spent with MT, Michael Hardin, Jim Robertson and others, discussing mimetic theory, non-violent atonement and other such things.

Does this fit with what you read and see of Jesus in the New Testament? If we are to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, wouldn't our heavenly Father do the same, but a zillion times more completely?

[ending the teaching of contempt against the church’s sexual minorities]

Dr. David P. Gushee, a leading evangelical ethicist, has just given an incredible talk at the Reformation Project's Regional Training Conference.

Entitled “Ending the Teaching of Contempt against the Church’s Sexual Minorities”, it is a must-read.


In the talk, he addresses the

unchristlike body of Christian tradition,

amounting to what can be fairly described as a teaching of contempt against one particular group, which was prevalent in the church for centuries until the mid 1900's, and then compares that to a similar teaching of contempt has been directed against another group in more recent years.

Read Dr. Gushee's talk. This is a must-read if you are a Christian serious about your faith.

---

Related:
My cartoon about Martin Luther
My cartoon about who is ostracized

[forsaken]

I don't generally get super-angry and riled up when I read about rebels in some other country killing school children, or large corporations avoiding labour laws and increasing profits by moving their operations to other countries. It's wrong, and something should be done about it. But I don't get super-angry, because "that's what you expect from rebels" and "that's what you expect corporations to be doing". (Perhaps my non-anger is a problem, but we'll leave that for another post).

But once in a while I read an article which makes me really angry, because I expect more of those who are doing wrong. 

Case in point:

A recent Rolling Stone article gives this disturbing finding from a recent study:

Highly religious parents are significantly more likely than their less-religious counterparts to reject their children for being gay – a finding that social-service workers believe goes a long way toward explaining why LGBT people make up roughly five percent of the youth population overall, but an estimated 40 percent of the homeless-youth population.

So much for "the least of these."

Read it for yourself if you want something to be angry about.

The next two cartoons were inspired by reading this article...

---

Believe Out Loud also has a shorter article about a recent video/audio recording which received broad exposure on the internet, of a set of Christian parents rejecting their gay son.

cruci-fix

Having problems with too many undesirable people coming to your church?

Here's a great solution:

If you haven't heard, there's been some controversy over "anti-homeless spikes" appearing in various places -- outside a record store in London England, in an apartment entry in Montreal, and more. While supposedly intended to stop loitering or to reduce anti-social behaviour, they result in reducing the places where homeless people can find "shelter" at night.

After some outcry, including the mayor of Montreal insisting they be removed as that is not the image he wants for Montreal, most spikes were removed. The bigger question, asked by Matthew Pearce of Montreal's Old Brewery Mission, is: what is really going to be done for the homeless? Do we just want to look like we're not mean to the homeless, or are we going to do something positive and effective?

But seriously, what I'm asking here is: in what ways are the behaviours and attitudes of Christians functioning like the spikes? Functioning in such a way that when people see a building with a cross on it, they feel unwelcome, unwanted, judged and rejected?

[wwjb?]

what would jesus bake? and who would jesus bake for?

Forcing a Christian to bake a cake for a gay wedding is like forcing an African-American to bake a cake for the KKK.

Richard Land, Evangelical Pastor

I’d rather go to jail than make a cake for a gay wedding.

Jack Phillips, Christian Baker

If someone compels you to bake a cake for them, bake them two cakes.

Jesus, servant to all

Matthew 5:38-42, paraphrased for our time and culture.

p.s.
And you'd better make sure they are good cakes too!

rob g

---

On a related note, Tony Campolo tells this story about throwing a birthday party for a prostitute:

Read Tony's story about the birthday party for a prostitute.

If video is not embedded, click here to watch it on YouTube.

who would jesus stone?

.... and we all know forever is a very long time.

Jesus stoning people? Rather an outrageous idea, don'tcha think?

What inspired this sick cartoon commentary on Jesus and the effects of playing Xbox, was the message which a church in New York City put on its sign this month (March, 2014), a message which is not funny in the slightest:

Jesus would stone homos, the sign says. It then quotes four verses and concludes with, "Stoning is still the law."

Would Jesus really stone gay and lesbian people? Let's use their four verses of choice to consider the answer:

Here's a breakdown of the verses, each with a summary and a comment by me:

Matthew 5:17-19

Jesus speaks about not abolishing the law but fulfilling it.

Jesus did not get rid of the Old Testament law about stoning... (fairly clear) but came to fulfill it (the meaning of this is up for discussion). Doesn't support their premise.

Leviticus 20:13

Putting to death men who have sex with men.

Fairly clear verse, but doesn't tell us what Jesus would do, especially considering that Jesus broke other Old Testament rules, like working on the Sabbath, associating with sinners, etc.

Deuteronomy 17:5-7

About stoning people who do evil things and worshiped the stars, sun and moon.

Strange choice of verse, as it does not mention same-sex relations, and there are other verses about stoning which could have been included. Again, does not tell us if Jesus would stone people who do evil things.

John 8:1-11

Ironically, this is the passage about the teachers of the law and the Pharisees bringing the woman caught in adultery to Jesus... and you might know the rest of the story (if not, read it here).

Perhaps they included this passage because Jesus did not object to stoning, but said that whoever is without sin should throw the first stone, thus supposedly legitimizing stoning and suggesting that he (being sinless) could have stoned her?

And that's what makes this choice of verse so ironic, because the Jesus who the pastor of ATLAH claims "would stone homos", the Jesus who is without sin, did not stone the woman! Claims like those made by ATLAH are projections of their own hatred and bias, in religious disguise and with false Biblical justification.

The idea of Jesus stoning anyone is simply inconsistent with his life. And if I have to choose between verses and the life of Jesus, I'll take the life of Jesus anytime.

jesus vermin

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me.’

 (Matt 25:40 NIV/robg)

---

Background, from Reuters:

Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh on Tuesday (Feb. 18, 2014) called homosexuals "vermin" and said his government would tackle them in the same way it fights malaria-causing mosquitoes.

The latest comments from Jammeh, who last year branded gays a threat to humanity, coincide with a renewed crackdown on same-sex relationships in Africa, where homosexuality is taboo and illegal in 37 countries.

In recent months, Nigeria has outlawed same-sex relationships and Uganda has voted for life imprisonment for some homosexual acts.

"We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively," Jammeh said in a speech on state television to mark the 49th anniversary of Gambia's independence from Britain.

....

Can you imagine Jesus saying such things? Or treating another person like that?

I can't. Not for one moment.

f bomb

As our priest said in the sermon this past Sunday, quoting C.S. Lewis:

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

equality for all

If you haven't been keeping up with all the news, here are some disturbing items from the past few weeks:

India:
In 1861, the British instated a law that made non-heterosexual sex illegal.
In 2009, a lower court determined that this law was unconstitutional and overturned it.
In December 2013, the Supreme Court reversed the 2009 judgement, saying that "only Parliament can change that law" and thus recriminalizing homosexuality. The fine for gay sex is once again 10 years in prison.

Uganda:
An anti-homosexuality bill was proposed which would make homosexuality a capital offense. There was much support for this bill both from Ugandan Christians and from evangelicals in the west. Due to protests, the death penalty has been removed from the bill, and it was passed with life imprisonment for "repeat offenders."

Russia:
Along with legislation prohibiting "gay propaganda", there has been an increase in anti-gay violence. And then there's people like Ivan Okhlobystin, a popular actor who is also an Orthodox priest, who was applauded for recently saying (during a "Spiritual Talks" tour), "I myself would shove all live gays into furnaces. This is Sodom and Gomorrah, I as a believer in God can not treat this indifferently, this is a live threat to my kids!... I do not want my kids to think that faggots are normal. This is lavender fascism. If a person can not choose someone of an opposite sex for procreation - this is a overt sign of mental abnormality, so they should be denied of voting rights."

Ethiopia:
Seyoum Antonius, president of United for Life, a "western Evangelical Christian organization that receives funding from the west", "has made clear that he won't quit anti-gay advocacy until Ethiopia adopts the death penalty. One of his rallying cries is, 'Africa will become a graveyard for homosexuality!'" (source). The irony of such statements from an organization of such a name does not seem apparent to everyone. This is one small example of what is happening in Ethiopia (read the whole Newsweek article).

United States of America:
While things are getting better, there is still much legalized discrimination and injustice against sexual minorities in the U.S. For example, there are still 29 states in which a person can be fired from their job simply for being gay (source). This is slowly changing for the better, but there are still citizens who would be happy to see the laws become harsher as they are in other parts of the world.


Increasingly, Christians in North America are speaking out against such discrimination and injustice. We are tired of the dominant view of Christians being those who are bigoted and hateful. We are speaking up to say, being silent isn't good enough. We're raising our voices to say that standing by while lgbt people are put down is not good enough. We are proclaiming the good news that God loves everyone and his arms are open wide to all.

ha #5

For those of you who don't read the Russian script, here's the Russian law spelled out in plain English:

Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors that 1) is aimed at the creating nontraditional sexual attitudes, 2) makes nontraditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations, or 4) creates an interest in nontraditional sexual relations.

This might seem innocuous to some persons who would like to restrict the amount of information about sexuality that is available to minors, but its lack of definition means that people can readily be charged or arrested under this law for all kinds of things. Not only that, but anti-gay violence has increased in Russia since the law was passed, making Russia a hostile place for those in sexual minorities.

Not only that, but some American evangelical pastors, feeling they've "lost the culture war" in their own country, are promoting oft-extreme anti-gay laws in other parts of the world. Google it and see....

lay your burdens down

Some days it's just a bit much. It's bad enough that we need to love people, but to forgive them? To work at being reconciled with them? To live in peace? To be hospitable to the stranger and the foreigner?

When it's all overwhelming, come to the cross and lay your burdens down....

Or for a better way, lay your fears down at the cross and ask Jesus to show you the way to love, to forgive, to embrace....

holocaust

The American what?

When we hear the word "holocaust", we typically think of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II. This is also how Wikipedia defines the term "The Holocaust".

But there were other holocausts and other genocides, not only in far away countries but also right here in North America where I live, yet these are hardly mentioned. I am specifically referring to the holocaust of aboriginal people across the North American continent.

In the U.S. there are 36 museums commemorating the Nazi Holocaust. There are none commemorating the American Holocaust which killed millions of First Nations people....

jesus prays for a homosexual

Is it true that anyone who has read the Gospels will know that this is not the real Jesus? Or are there some people who would like nothing better than having a Bible passage about Jesus rejecting a gay person? After all, that's only a small step further than Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery to "go and sin no more", isn't it?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have seen some of my previous "western jesus" cartoons.

This label is used for cartoons which show a Jesus who acts the way that many contemporary North American Christians tend to. This "western jesus" idea and theme came out of reading Richard Beck's book unclean, taking some of the concepts from it and applying them to Jesus. In other words, if Jesus was the way we who are North American Christians often tend to be, how would he have acted in the situations he found himself in?

This is the third of the new set of western jesus "jesus prays" cartoons...

[the cross in the closet]

"Timothy Kurek, raised within the confines of a strict, conservative Christian denomination in the Bible Belt, Nashville, Tennessee, was taught the gospel of separation from a young age. But it wasn't long before Timothy's path and the outside world converged when a friend came out as a lesbian, and revealed she had been excommunicated by her family. Distraught and overcome with questions and doubts about his religious upbringing, Timothy decided the only way to empathize and understand her pain was to walk in the shoes of very people he had been taught to shun. He decided to come out as a gay man to everyone in his life, and to see for himself how the label of gay would impact his life. In the tradition of Black Like Me, The Cross in the Closet is a story about people, a story about faith, and about one man's "abominable" quest to find Jesus in the margins."

(from the back cover)

This book was a fascinating read, and is enlightening in terms of how a person is able to not only gain a deeper understanding of others and to make a space in his or her heart for them, but to have love where before there was hatred and rejection. Definitely recommended.

Online preview available.
BlueHead Publishing (October 11, 2012)

p.s. Summer has given more opportunities to read, so I've been recommending books lately. In the next months, I plan to share quotes from Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited along with more new cartoons.

[jesus and the disinherited, by howard thurman]

"First published in 1949, Jesus and the Disinherited is a brilliant and compassionate look at God's work in our lives. As we struggle today with issues of poverty, racism, and spiritual disengagement, Howard Thurman's discerning reading of the message of renewal through self-love as exemplified in the life of Jesus resonates powerfully again.

Challenging our submersion into individual and social isolation, Thurman suggests a reading of the Gospel that recovers a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. He argues that within Jesus' life of suffering, pain, and overwhelming love is the solution that will prevent our descent into moral nihilism. For although scorned and forced to live outside society, Jesus advocated a love of self and others that defeats fear and the hatred that decays our souls and the world around us."

(from the back cover)

Howard Thurman was at college with Martin Luther King Sr., and it is said that Martin Luther King Jr. carried this book around with him. That along with the title is what caught my eye about this book. In a little over 100 pages, he says so much about this topic and discusses it in ways that I have not come across before. I will be reading it again, as soon as it is available from the library. Definitely recommended!

Jesus and the Disinherited
Howard Thurman
(Beacon Press, 1981).