That "Christian" spirit: Residents say no to men's homeless shelter

From: Kent Paul Dolan (xanthian_at_well.com)
Date: 02/17/05 

Date: 17 Feb 2005 04:02:38 -0800

Rob Duncan wrote:

> Jesus Christ redefined and improved "The Golden
> Rule". He pretty much improved all of judaism in
> creating Christianity.

By what metric? Surely not by "body count of those
slaughtered in the name of your new religion", he
didn't, unless you buy into those "bigger is better"
ads flooding your email.

Theism: just say "no".

xanthian.

And Jesus didn't "create Christianity"; that septic
mess came much later. What Jesus did was preach a
few nice sermons, convey a little wisdom about
better ways to live, and get beaten and killed for
his troubles, by urging of those embedded in the
existing power structure who felt threatened by his
teachings of a simple, less greed and Temple
oriented religion.

The Catholic Church got rid of _those_ concepts from
his teaching quickly enough, nor has Protestentism
been exactly a big fan of "wherever two or three are
gathered" being plenty good enough without adding a
fat, lazy, well-paid clergy and impressive real
estate to give that clergy a needed feeling of
worldly importance.

"Now go, sell all that you own, and give the money
to the poor."

Christ, were he here today, would be horrified to
find himself being the one held to blame for what
passes under the name "Christianity". I'm sure if
he meant to leave behind a lasting religion at all,
it was some entirely different one. He certainly
described it so, one consisting entirely of a
lifestyle of sacrifice of self, and of service to
the less fortunate by every participant, not of
lusting for wealth and power, and of harassing and
condemning those who need help, as is so common
among those most feverently claiming to be "good
Christians" today.

Christ would call them "skilled minions of Satan",
instead, I suspect, and with whistling whip cast
them from the Temple to join the moneychangers in
the dust.

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