I don’t know whether this is irony or what. A church puts a sign in front of its building saying “Jesus loves Osama”, and prompts pretty universal condemnation. The PM says that people will think that the priorities of the church in question should be elsewhere. Philip Jensen suggests that the sentiment, posted along with the verse “Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you”, is “misleading”.
What a fabulous illustration of how confonting the message of Jesus is. Nobody denies Jesus said it, but everyone wants to qualify the sentiment and distance themselves from the presentation of the sign. It attracts comment from denominational and governmental leaders. John Howard suggests that churches have MISDIRECTED PRIORITIES for daring to suggest that Jesus loves our enemies.
It’s straight from the sermon on the mount for crying out loud!!!
I guess the lesson is that you can mention this, but you aren’t allowed to flesh it out with any of those confronting real life examples.
Via Matt
Great Article, hope you don't mind if I send links to it.The problem is "Christians" equating God's desires with that of thier nation.(Nationalism) Bible believing Christians approve of and promote actions and activities of a nation that are in direct conflict with the Truth.Let's assasinate Chavez from Venezuala? Come on... Who is you God??check out http://web.stcloudstate.edu/kscoleman/ and click on the link "GOD'S ANSWER"This tells how to deal with Religious Middle East fundamentalist
ReplyDelete"The problem is "Christians" equating God's desires with that of thier nation.(Nationalism) Bible believing Christians approve of and promote actions and activities of a nation that are in direct conflict with the Truth."That's part of the problem, I think.The real problem is that we really don't believe the scriptures, and the totally absolute claim of obedience implied by saying "Jesus is Lord."If Jesus tells me to love my enemies, I really have no choice but to do that, and if that makes me unpopular or even a threat to the state, then so be it.So often though, christians want to have a bit of God to make them feel holy or loved while maintaining the worldly values that they love so much.BlessingsKeith
ReplyDeleteFor a bit more info on the global attention gained by these posters, see http://dubbo.org/wayne/jesus/jesus-loves-osama.html
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