WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY?
By Floyd J. McKay / Guest columnist - "What would Jesus do about religion's evolution?"
Listening to a glorious Christmas concert, my
thoughts turned to how religion has come to dominate the news of the
21st century in ways I would never have dreamed as a youngster growing
up in the clapboard Baptist church of my North Dakota family.
That news is not uniformly good. Some of it is bizarre, or merely tragic.
One cannot help but wonder what Jesus would think of
today's religion that bears his name, let alone the other two
monotheistic religions that emerged from his homeland.
Certainly there is no peace on the troubled earth
that we call the Holy Land. Nearly a quarter century ago, I produced a
television documentary I called "Holy Land, Bloody Ground," for which I
journeyed to the Middle East. If the ground was bloody in 1982, it is
saturated in blood today, and all three monotheistic religions have a
hand in the carnage.
We kill, they kill, we all kill in the name of God.
Christians are squeezed from the birthplace of Jesus by militant
Zionist Israelis on one side and Islamic militants on the other.
Ironically, Christian fundamentalists are egging this on in hopes that
it will trigger the Rapture, when the chosen will have box seats as
unbelievers are barbequed by a righteous God.
Not to be outdone, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad favors an Islamic version of the End Times in which he
nukes Israel and prompts the return of the Mahdi, a prophet of
particular importance to Shiites.
In Iraq, devastated by a war prosecuted by
right-wing Christian politicians in league with neoconservative
Zionists, an Islamic theocracy is likely to result, widening divisions
within the region and putting women back in their proper place behind
veils and walls.
Even in this country, sometimes cited as the most
religious in the Western world, the body of Christ is torn and tossed
from one extreme to another.
Episcopalians, a denomination that in my youth was
associated with an upper class viewed only from afar, are splitting on
the question of homosexuality. To accommodate their homophobia, some
American parishes are turning to a Nigerian bishop, the fruit of
19th-century Anglican evangelism in Africa.
In a peculiar religious soap opera, the family of
America's Protestant icon, Billy Graham, is caught up in a bizarre
debate over where the esteemed evangelist is to be buried — although he
has not had the good grace to die, bless his heart.
Graham's son, Franklin, who claims the mantle of
evangelist leader but shows none of the compassion or humanity of his
father, wants to bury Graham and his wife (also undead) in a strange
memorial in Charlotte, N.C., that novelist and Graham friend Patricia
Cornwell calls "a mockery."
It is, indeed, somewhat bizarre, a Disneylike barn
and silo where visitors are greeted by a talking cow. Graham's younger
son sides with Graham's wife, who wants their burial places to be
simple graves near their rural home.
This drama is symbolic of what has come upon the
Christian faith in this country. Summed up, many modern churches are
modeled more closely on Adam Smith than Saint Peter. Franklin Graham is
an entrepreneur, in the manner of Jerry Falwell, Billy James Hargis and
a host of market-driven preachers. His dad did well financially, but it
is extraordinarily hard to imagine him wanting to be remembered by a
talking cow. As Cornwell told him, the whole affair is a travesty.
How much of today's commercialized religion is just that?
How many of Christianity's battles are fought to
build market share? It would seem the moneychangers have returned to
the temple along with disgraced evangelists, pedophile priests and
intolerance.
When the next Congress convenes in January, a Muslim
congressman-elect from Minneapolis will swear his oath on the Quran.
From the reaction of the Christian right and its talk-radio acolytes,
one would think he was planning to swear on a portrait of Satan — or at
least Saddam. "One nation under God" has come in recent years to mean
"One nation under my God."
Having achieved political power here and abroad,
Christians, Muslims and Jews squander it by reaching for more. Christ,
were he here today, might identify with penitents of all three
religions, people of good will and good works of charity and
brotherhood.
But I suspect he would shun many of their
self-righteous leaders who have sold their birthright for a pittance of
political or financial power and who kill in God's name.
They are giving religion a bad name.
Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor emeritus at
Western Washington University, is a regular contributor to the Seattle
Times editorial pages
Editor's Note: Amen brother
Floyd! Our family attended an Episcopal Christmas eve service at
Portland's Trinity Church. One of my former students sings in the
choir. From the make-up of the audience Blue Oregon was much in
evidence! Open and affirming is the buzz word in these parts
including our own hometown United Church of Christ. Several years ago
we attended a show at the Portland Art Museum of Russian art. One
set of lithographs was a beautiful chart listing the lineage of
Abraham. The sad fact is that the problems in the Middle East are
a family feud. Judaism, Islam and Christianity all come from the
same source. And the last time I checked, they affirmed the same
God. It goes to show that the best laid plans of the divine don't
always work out when the hand of man enters the picture.
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