This is Jesus...We Gotta Talk About This Christian Soldier Thing

In this day when we are all consumed with sex, there are things going on in the world that we should be concentrating on. . .

June 27, 2007 at 07:07:24
This is Jesus... We Gotta Talk About This Christian Soldier Thing.
by Dennis Diehl
http://www.opednews.com


Ok, this is Jesus, we gotta talk!

"ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days.
Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.

"We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them."

Guys! Guys! This Christian soldier thing has to stop before everyone gets killed in Jesus name amen! There is no such thing as a Christian Soldier. It's a bad song and it should never have been written. I don't want Christians marching onward anymore. They are giving me a very bad name and creeping everyone on the planet out! Please, you gotta stop "Marching as to war", and no where, even in that hymn does any Christian get to pile up the dead and burn them! It's just an analogy.

Please, put down the "with the cross of Jesus" and let's rethink some of the great stuff I wrote that somewhat goes against what you seem to be up to. Put the Cross down and let's march ahead with say...oh, food! Yes, let's bring people food! Or how about "with the hugs of Jesus, going on before?" That works great. Let's change the words.

"Onward all us nice guys, walking not like thugs With some food from Jesus, and a bunch of hugs. Jesus, he just loves you, wants you to be free. Forward with the fooooooood, here's a hug for thee.

Onward Christian nice guys, making not a fuss With some food from Jesus and some hugs from us.

Onward then you nice guys, boy we like you too Here, how can we help you, do what you can do? We are here to love you, help you all we can. Let's just build some pla-ay ground, someone bring some sand.

Onward Christian nice guys, here's some food for you Gosh we're just so haaaappy, thanks for all you do."

Something like that. Anything but what you're singin!
Hey remember when I said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy?" Can we just wallow in that one for a bit before you go out again tonight?
Please, I'm not the royal Master marching against my foes. I don't do foes anymore! Put the damn cross thing down now! Wow, am I having a bad day up here reading about you guys! My Father is just looking at me like "do something," but you guys have to do it on your own or you won't learn anything from me. They are not the foe! No one is the foe! Foe St. Pete sake, stop!!!

Please, do not "like a mighty army, moves the Church of God anymore either. You're giving us all a really bad name. Atheist's and agnostics are having a field day with this stuff. It's ok if you don't "tread where the saints of trod." They did way too much treading where I never wanted them to tread and way too many people got squished when I never intended that!

Oh and please stop with the "we are not divided, all one body weeeeeeeeeeee" stuff. You haven't agreed on one thing since the day started singing that song. You're killing me along with anyone that evidently that gets in your Christian way. You're all divided an you know it. Satan hightailed it up here real fast and has been laughing his ass off at me all day over this stuff. You're not "one in hope and doctrine" and for God's sake, sorry Dad, you're certainly not "one in chariteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." I wish you were. You're not a happy throng. You're a crazy one! I don't want anyone to blend their voices with yours in any triumph song. We're not trying to win anything here. I don't need you to win for me. I'm not playing!

So please guys, let's stop marching as to war and like a mighty armying! They are just people...PEOPLE. They have families, they want to feel safe, they need a place to live and a job to keep them going. You're all the same! Jeeeeeeeez, don't worry I can take my own name in vain if I want to, this is really bad stuff!
Rodney! Where is Rodney King? Rodney you tell 'em. "Can't we all just get along? Excellent Rodney! That's the whole point of what I was getting at! Gabriel, put what Rodney just said into the next Sermon on the Mount update. And be sure to give him full credit!

Oh I'm so upset. Satan, bring me a beer, I gotta catch my breath. Cancel my calls for the day. Gosh, save me from my own followers.

In Me...Your Friend,
Jesus-Prince of Peace

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dennis_Diehl


Dennis Diehl is a former pastor of 26 years, who outgrew the Literalism of Fundamentalism. He writes about Pastoral and Church abuse and is available to speak on such topics or be helpful to any church suffering under abusive religion or pastors.


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Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2007

June Graduations Beg The Question: What Is Our Future?
by Joan Chittister

It’s happening everywhere, I know. But I learned last week not to take it for granted. In fact, it may well be our major problem and it is hiding in plain sight.With a measure of curiosity short of nostalgia but greater than personal interest, I found myself watching a series of local high school graduations on the public service channel last week. Why I paused — and stayed — on that particular channel, I’ll never know. But I’m glad it happened.

It was, in fact, a veritable “taste of America” moment that I haven’t seen too often since I left the scholastic world years ago. The graduates were combed, washed, heeled and proper. No goon show kids here. They wore their mortarboards flat and undecorated. Their gowns were pressed and glowing. Their smiles were broad, proud, satisfied.

One group of these graduates was from a collegiate prep school; the other from a local comprehensive high school that stresses technical proficiency and professional skills. Both groups were attentive, well mannered and, as teachers love to say, “a credit to their schools.” If such a display of achievement and conduct has any meaning to it at all, it must indicate that our schools are putting out young adults who will fit into this society well, who will surely succeed in life as we have shaped it for them.

But that is exactly what made the whole scene so uncomfortable, even troubling.

According to researcher Christopher Swanson using data collected in 2003 and released June 6 by the national daily, USA Today, this country graduates only 69.6 percent of the four million students admitted to its high schools yearly.

What’s worse, he points out, the largest school districts in the United States graduate even less than that of every potential graduation class every year. Three of them — Detroit, Baltimore and New York City — graduate fewer than 40 percent of the pupils they enroll in ninth grade. Eleven other urban school districts, the same research reports, have on-time graduation rates lower than 50 percent; they include Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Houston.

There are those who dispute the figures, of course. Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute argues that Swanson’s numbers fail to take into account the number of students held back in order to complete state exit exams or to take advanced work. Whether they actually ever do that or not he does not report, but he does insist that U.S. high schools graduate at least 80 percent of a four year student body. On the other hand, the New York Post reported May 22 that Mayor Bloomberg was ecstatic to be able to announce that New York City graduation rates had reached 60 percent this year.

Whatever the precise national figures, the question this year’s graduation videos raised in me remains: Where are the rest of the graduates? Where are the one million students we lose every year who do not get diplomas, who do not graduate, who are not prepared for any kind of higher education or professional advancement? What do they look like? What do they read? How do they vote? What issues concern them? What are they going to do in life? And what does that have to do with the rest of us?

There are lots of things to worry about in this world. If you have any kind of insight at all you know that the Middle East can blow sky high at any moment. “The first battle of World War III,” some called the invasion of Iraq and who would deny that tag with any degree of confidence now.

And the war in Iraq gets worse by the day. Did we really “liberate” these people or did we simply unleash the factors within that country that had been held in check by Saddam Hussein for years and that are free now to destabilize the entire Middle East?

Is war the only way forward in this tinder-box world? And if not, who is there who will develop a better way?

The immigration situation is no small issue now, as well. Is the question of undocumented aliens only a new kind of indentured servitude? Are illegal workers simply one more population of people held hostage to an economic system that pays them little for their service and keeps them hidden in a system that uses them but refuses to recognize them.

The loss of the middle class, the increasing number of families falling below the poverty line, the lack of universal health insurance, the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to other countries are all domestic matters that signal a change in the quality of life in the United States. What will life look like in a few short years for those who are not the mega rich?

And most of all, in what way will the 7,000 students who drop out of school in the major cities of the United States every day of the school year influence any of those answers?

Maybe instead of spending more money on weapons, more money on walls designed to seal our borders, more money on high tech spying and technological Big Brother houses, we should spend more money on teachers, more money on schools, more money on day care and Head Start programs, more money on tutors, more money on organized inner city youth programs, more money on adult training centers, more money on subsidized higher education.

Then, maybe we wouldn’t have to worry so much about our borders. Then maybe we wouldn’t have to complain so much that we have to struggle to understand our computer technicians because they’re all in India now. Then maybe U.S. culture would become as desirable to the rest of the world as U.S. money is. Then maybe we’d really have a culture worth sharing with the rest of the world instead of the daily reruns of “Dallas” and the menu of masochistic murder stories that are our hallmark around the world now.

It looks to me as if our enemies are not so much from outside of us as from within. What we have ignored for the sake of military superiority — the education of a population capable of bettering the rest of the world as well as ourselves — is costing us dearly now.

From where I stand it seems as if history may indeed repeat itself. Especially when we’re not looking. Ask the Romans.

A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Joan Chittister is a best-selling author and well-known international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women’s issues, and contemporary spirituality in the Church and in society. She presently serves as the co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization of the United Nations, facilitating a worldwide network of women peace builders, especially in the Middle East.

Published on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 by The National Catholic Reporter
© 2007 The National Catholic Reporter