This article won't highlight the plastic, capitalist Easter that you and I have been trained to know, nor will it showcase a giant rabbit or any other silly symbol of Easter. What this editorial will do is ponder what it would be like if Jesus Christ returned to Earth for Easter.
If Christ returned to Earth for an Easter vacation, would he be hated, abused, and murdered? Most likely …
Most of us know Christ as a long-haired peace activist whose soul would be sickened by the world’s corruption – America's political corruption in particular. “Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said…"Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor."
Such ideals, contradictions and rebuttals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. Self-proclaimed Christians who are selfishly entertained by power, nationalism, and war are a disgrace to Christianity. These are the same ignorant saps who believe Jews are doomed to Hell, but love a Zionist Israel. These so-called Christians are bound for the lake of fire (assuming there is one) and some of them, sadly, don’t even know it.
Technically speaking, the Pope is also bound for the lake of fire (unless of course he stays up to date with his confessions …) because he has become mesmerized by riches which should otherwise, by Jesus’ teachings, be given to the poor. The Vatican is like any corporate whore, except worse, because they claim to better our existence, when they are merely exploiting people and their beliefs for their own wealth and so forth.
Almost every Pope in history has been as corrupt as any politician (i.e. slave trade, support for Hitler and Nazi Germany, etc.). Christ said, "Judge a tree by the fruit that it bears; by its fruit will you know whether the tree be good or evil,” and not by what they say. The facts speak for themselves. The papacy is the wealthiest business empire on Earth. They obtain money by deception, from the poor, for example, to buy shares, property, paintings, gold, precious stones and pearls. Didn’t God apparently say not to store up treasures on Earth (Matt. 6 v 19-21)? Yet what do the Popes do? They take money from the poor and give it to the rich, hoarding it in the Vatican's vaults (creating mass poverty) - the exact opposite of what Christ said His followers must do. I know, you’re probably saying that the Vatican is just “keeping an eye on all that stuff” or “keeping it safe”, but that is irrelevant to what Christianity stands for - capitalism, tradition, or heritage preservation doesn’t necessarily or magically make it “right”.
More than 95% of the world’s wealth and resources are in the hands of less than 5% of the world’s population and every night, two-thirds of the world’s population goes to sleep hungry. How has this come to pass and be accepted as “normal”? It would be very wrong to believe that our reason for living is simply to serve a group of people, who have exalted themselves into positions where they can hoard wealth and have “authority” over others for the bettering of themselves only.
Some say religion is no longer needed, but that’s not true – regardless of whether or not religion is needed – it’s being used today, and is often sinfully exploited for political and/or personal gain. Why do you think Bush is a Christian? It’s most certainly not because he feels it in his soul to be so. Consider what freedom means and then consider the bonds of slavery that we are subject to under “the system”. We are taught from an early age to follow their system, and that anyone who does not do so is the enemy. Schools, media…all those forms of order attempt to condition us to "the new system".
Whatever happened to the traditional Laws of Freedom – the Ten Commandments (and common sense, for that matter)? They directly contradict materialistically rich rulers of this world claiming to be of a group known as Christianity. What it contains, if practiced, would keep us all, as one race, at peace. Religion can be an effective tool in further evaluating the injustice, environmental destruction and mass-oppression that is (and has been) happening in the world.
Now I know what you’re thinking; you think that I’m just another anti-establishment guy, who may be just bitter about things I can’t change, but it’s much deeper than that alone and if your mind is half open, you'll see where I'm coming from.
Jesus' life of peaceful rebellion was followed by a perverse twenty centuries of bloodthirsty bigotry. I’ve always found it strange that the same people who believe we need more weapons are generally fundamentalist Christians. Based on this, our leaders are either evil as Hell, or they’re very uneducated and way too ignorant for everyone’s good. Should we not be praising the embracement of better education? Ironically, we’re not…and here’s proof:
National leaders’ disregard for the people (i.e. the federal allowance of the 9/11 attacks), attacks on people of color (racism), attacks on nations [most notably those with wealth (i.e. opium & oil)], attacks on humans of the same gender who love each other, attacks on youth who enjoy sex, etc. All that, in the name of God? All of these attacks which involve the over-sight of “Christians” would leave Jesus himself horrified. So it’s not that religion is not needed – some would argue that religion is needed more than ever – it’s just that religion has been disgustingly manhandled to the point that it has been made the excuse for chaos (it’s not…man is the cause of chaos, and religion is the so-called solution to chaos in the first place). Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God – he did not speak of the God that George W. Bush claims to know. Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, George Bush and their corporate-fundamentalist dependants speak for a very different kind of God - one at war with the Deity described by Christ – yes, that’s right, another war that you might not have been aware of.
Bush’s and Rove’s "master" must be defined by hate, greed, intolerance and hypocrisy. Christ kicked the money-mongers out of the temple, told the rich to give their wealth to the poor, and to follow him. Bush is unable to do that and has given no sign to ever do so; therefore, he is unable to speak for Christianity beyond a politically devious point of view. Today's Republicans have enshrined wealth, power and greed. Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy…not the God that our corrupt leaders, including the Pope, seem to have found behind the scenes. In fact, from a religiously argumentative point of view, we could say they speak from Satan and have given no sign of detouring from their crusades.
Today's "religious" right-wingers worship meanness of spirit and a greed-driven, war-loving totalitarianism without respect for nature (which includes the people). The only way to salvation, they say, is their own unilateral way – otherwise, you’re a terrorist, a liberal divorced from reality, or something else not pleasant and supposedly subject to ridicule. I hope you interpret my words as unpleasant, because that’s what I’ve aimed for (war), to remind you of all the wars around us.
Tecumseh, the great Shawnee spirit-warrior, allegedly shouted in the early 1800s: "When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed him. The son of your own God. And only after he was dead did you worship him and start killing those who would not."
If Christ came back to organize against US political actions, there would be an unfathomable amount of hate-speak directed from the more notable Republicans. O’Reilly would not believe the Easter thing and more than question, or make fun of, a "peace prophet”; these so-called Christians cannot even come close to handling the very things they preach – are you reminded of the term blasphemy? If Jesus persisted, and his followers grew in numbers, Republicans wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. Unrealistic scenario you say? Maybe so, but the Republicans in power of the US are even more unrealistic…I can guarantee that. They’d design a scandal, pin the blame on one measly terrorist or ethnic group, and pump out propaganda with the help of the media. Modern Republicans would go to great lengths in censoring an anti-war “Son of God”. There’d likely be rumors that Jesus was gay and a user of drugs. Why then, or how, can this be considered normal? Or can it at all?
Would Jesus stand for the slaughter of 100,000 or more Iraqis in his name for wealth and political gain (even if it is the only thing that seems idealistic)? What would Christ think about a president who supports the torture chamber and electric chair? What would Jesus, who despised hypocrisy, say about a Bush who scurries around to prolong the life of a brain-dead woman, but whom gleefully executed 150 people as governor and even more as president? How would Jesus cope with a “self-proclaimed Divinity” embracing the death, misery, poverty, and many other evil premises, of others? There are several million prisoners held in the US military and civilian gulag, a barbaric prison system that makes the Romans' seem benign by comparison. What about systematic sexual abuse by both prison guards and Catholic priests? What about the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi children? What would Jesus say about gay marriage? "Love thy neighbor," would be a fair assumption, regardless. Why is someone’s sexual preference the business of those who use Jesus’ name to prolong and promote bigotry and intolerance? 50 years ago, those same cynical haters claimed Biblical sanction for laws preventing people of different colors from marrying one another.
Hitler called Christ an Aryan supremacist. Now, the US elite use him to sell tyrannical, greed-driven, gay-hating, anti-abortion, anti-personal choice, war-loving hypocrisy (not to mention, election campaigns). There’s no way Bush could have made it this far in his endeavors without the blasphemous exploitation of Christianity which in turn duped us, “the sheep”. In fact, Bush would not have been able to become President had he not “found Jesus” after the exposure of his corrupt past.
Religion is the United States’ weakest link.
Easter should remind us that if Jesus returned to preach what he challenged the Romans with, particular Republicans would do to him what Pontius Pilate (the one who ordered Jesus' crucifixion) did; they would ridicule him and then kill him.
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