The Jesus Reboot

   

The image of Christ commonly associated with my own
denomination,
chosen only for that reason.

   Whenever one tries to discuss the importance of religious liberty, these days, immediately people start hissing hate at you. “How dare you be a Christian with bigoted values? Your hate should not be legal!” Followed, inevitably, by charges like, “Jesus hung out with the worst kind of sinners, and judge not lest ye be judged!” What they are really saying is, “I want to be a good liberal, so I will reveal to you I never actually read the Bible.” Christians, however, have waited too long to push back against this sort of insanity, and we are now facing very real government imposed censure of our moral codes, because I know the left, and preventing the reinforcement of religious liberty and thought will not be where this ends. We saw where this religious intolerance ends at Auschwitz, the last time a leader declared, “the fairy tale is over, the parishioners will be made to dig their own graves.”  This, of course, is what Adolph Hitler said of Christians, once he decided they were no longer useful. The things he said of the Jewish people and religion, which is the father religion to modern day Christendom, is of course, even worse. Yes, I went to Godwin’s law, but that’s because I have not seen a time where the intensity of blind hatred of a religion has been so bad, except through the lens of history. Also, the eradication of Christianity is already very literally under way in the middle east, with ISIS rounding up and murdering local Christians by the thousands.

   Right now, the anti-Christian hate mongers try to hide behind the shield of “we hate you because you hate.” It is, however, a misnomer to apply the term hate to Christian doctrine. We are about loving people. Love is a central tenant of our faith. We do not discriminate, we love. And when the gates of hell are opened against us, we return that fire with water, and increase our love. Anyone who has read the New Testament should have an understanding of that.

   The problem is that this knowledge is so prominent that it is now being misused to get

Christophobic protesters rally against Christians

Christians who are not as well versed in the New Testament as they should be to shut up. I’m especially astonished as to how few Mormons can respond to charges like, “Jesus hung out with sinners,” and “Judge not lest ye be judged.” This is my honest frustration with my own faith. Because of the emphasis on the Book of Mormon, familiarity with the New Testament in our faith is tepid at best. 

   My point is this, there are answers to these charges, and they are not hard to find. These charges are tossed our way because the anti-Christian bigot wants us to assume that Jesus tolerated the behaviors of these sinners, and therefore we should accept… not tolerate accept, promote, and disseminate their behaviors… Or else! Ironically, Jesus Himself had to deal with this charge. His detractors accused Him of associations of ill repute. We can look to the New Testament to answer this charge. Open up to Matthew 9:11-12:

I hope this is not your Bible.  

11: And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

12: But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

   We can also look at Luke 5:31:

31: And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

32: I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. (Emphasis mine)

   Wait, what? There’s even more to the story then that? Yes. Yes there is. Notice here that right off the bat, Jesus does not condone or excuse the behavior of these people. He is not hanging out with them because they are sinners, and sin is so awesome. He is calling them to repentance, and unlike many in our academia today, these sinners are humble enough to kneel before the Lord their God and ask for forgiveness and receive His grace.

   Now lets’ turn to John 8:10-11. After Jesus stops the stoning of a prostitute and persuades the crowd to disburse, Jesus turns to the accused as says:

           10: …Woman where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?

11: She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn the: go and sin no more. (Emphasis mine.)

   I actually saw a Jesus movie once where Jesus was re-envisioned as a California surfer, not literally a surfer, but the surfer demeanor.

What the Left wishes Jesus was.

He was everybody’s buddy, and never said an ill word to anyone ever. Shockingly, the scene where He stopped the stoning of a prostitute was cut short, ending with Jesus saying to her, “then neither do I condemn you.” This is what the left wants Jesus to be like. They want to pretend that Jesus was all a-okay with sin, and therefore, nothing is true, everything is permitted. (Pardon the Assassin’s Creed reference.) Were they able to get away with it, the left would re-write the bible to include the following.

The left's attempt to re-make Christ in their own image.

11: And Jesus did sayeth (in a ridiculously over the top California accent). Whoa, dud, you’re like a prostitute?

12: Excellenteth! How mucheth? Because these twelve dudes behind me have totally been away from their wiveseth for quiteth some timeth!

   Jesus would also likely be played by Keanu Reeves, or if Marvel Comics is writing it, Heather Graham, and Jesus will also carry around Mjolnir.

I no longer think ill of this film.

   
   At any rate, one of the Jesus movies that was the more troubling for me was the Gospel of John. I reviewed it poorly, criticizing it for portraying Jesus as something of a fanatic. And while I contest the harshness of the tone of Jesus, as they portrayed, after re-reading the Gospel of John, I discovered that the movie was literally word for word that book of the old testament. It can be an uncomfortable read because Jesus takes a no bars held approach to sin. If you are a sinner, repent, and follow me, and sin no more. IF YOU DON’T YOU WILL BURN IN HELL. Jesus was such a “right wing extremist” that he flat out suggested that if our hands and feet offend us, that we are to cut them off, because it’s better to be maimed than to have your hands and feet and be in the everlasting fire (hell.) Don’t believe me? Here it is in full context.

   Matt 18:8: Wherefore if thy hand or they foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than have two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.

   18:9: And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with no eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

   Now I would be irresponsible if I were to expect you to take that literally. Jesus was fond of using metaphor, the hands, feet and eyes represent sins, and the command to cut them off is a call for repentance, not a literal call to mutilate yourself, but He was trying to hammer the point of how damaging sin is in the eternal scheme of things. And these are not the only scripture in the Bible that make it clear that God punishes sin. There’s Jer. 50:31; Ezk. 44:12; Matt. 25:46; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2 Pet. 2:9; Heb. 10:29, and many, many more. The fact that Jesus Himself talks about hell fire and damnation makes the argument that there is no hell and everything is permitted nonsensical.

   This is, of course, when the leftist will reveal their real feelings. “I don’t want to have

What the left really thinks of your faith.

anything to do with a God that cruel!” But is it God that is being cruel? No. That’s just human arrogance. That is literally man loving his sins more than he loves God. In reality, God loves all men which is why He wants all men to return to Him. That is precisely the reason He sent Jesus to save all men. Whether or not we can be saved is entirely up to us. God does not condemn you to Hell, you choose it by not accepting His grace.

   

  Jesus hung out with sinners to call them to repentance. Those who loved Him are those who accepted his love and His Sacrifice so that they could be freed from sin. Jesus did not hang out with unrepentant sinners. Look how often he tried to call the Pharisees to repentance? How did that work out for him? Oh yeah, these unrepentant sinners had him crucified by an out of control Big Government that had the audacity to be dictating what the people of Israel should and should not believe. Don’t believe that? Look up what Pilate was doing to the Jewish Temple, and then let’s talk.

   That is the comparison that is apropos to the situation we face today. We have a government that is dictating to Jews and Christians what we can and cannot believe, and characterizing any resistance, falsely, as hate. We have a situation where people on facebook are threatening to beat up and turn over the tables of college students who have a booth that dares to promote religious liberty. We have a society that threatens to burn down pizza parlors, and teachers who use face book to solicit help from his students in burning down said pizza parlor because of a mischaracterization of that parlor’s religious beliefs. This inciting to violence is evidence of where the hatred and bigotry in our society really is. Calling people to repentance is an act of love.

   

Sin is a reality.

   Sometimes religious values can make some people uncomfortable because it calls into question certain behaviors, as we must do, and as Jesus did. Nevertheless, I contend that calling people to repentance is a sincere act of love, not hate, and a brave one at that. You have to risk your relationships with friends and family to try and help someone back to Christ, or worse, having your business burnt down, or people making threats of physical harm to you, and your college booth. We face a society with an extreme devotion to sin, one that would rather literally kill you and I than listen to our appeal for the salvation of their soul. Calling someone to repentance is not an easy thing to do. It's so sad that the left has put up a shield of calling any and all adherents to Christian values as "bigots." What a superb means of avoiding having to think things through. God bless all of you, but remember that there is a Constitutional right to free exercise of religion, but there is nothing there about protecting you from being offended by people who are trying to help you. Perhaps, rather than being offended when someone offers to help you find your way back to Christ, you should at least appreciate the level of love they have for you to be willing to risk all to reach out to you. After all, you constantly try to appeal to God’s love, but miss the point that:

“…God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3: 16-21 emphasis mine.)

He died so you can be free from Sin. 

   Wow, is that apropos. You see, my fellow Christians, Jews and Mormons, they hate us because they love their sins. We love them, because we want to see them freed from sin, and not condemned to the eternal fires that ARE warned of in the Bible.

   Lefties, we love you. We are not judging you, as you keep accusing with your “judge not lest ye be judge” out of context quote. We are trying to help you. That is WHY we MUST condemn some of your BEHAVIOR, in accordance with Biblical teachings, precisely because we do NOT want to see you suffer eternal damnation. But I think you know that, and that is why you call us names, like bigot, condemn our faith, and then try to sell us a Jesus reboot, with the role of Christ played by a radical Marxist who teaches that nothing is true and everything is permitted. The problem is, Jesus came to save us from sin. Your reboot cannot accomplish that end.

   God bless you all. We love you, and long for the day you begin to truly understand us.