Jesus would be on trial in Europe
This Christmas season, while we think of Jesus Christ looking serene with his mother at the manger scene, it’s good to remember that Jesus grew up to say the kinds of things that would land anyone in prison and/or executed by the ruling religious and political authorities with the full approval of Focus on the Family. He truly did come to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted…
In Northern Ireland we have a very literal example for all to see. The government there is putting a pastor on trial for calling Islam ‘satanic’ in his sermon. I hate to spoil it for you, but Jesus called everyone who didn’t love and follow him, “satanic,” or “of the Devil.” (John 8:42-44)
Pastor McConnell faces up to six months in jail if convicted over a sermon he made last year at Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast in which he branded Islam as “heathen” and “Satanic”. He was charged under the 2003 Communications Act with making “grossly offensive” remarks about Islam. – Catholic Herald UK
(AP) Prosecutor David Russell told Belfast Magistrates’ Court Monday that the case had “nothing to do with religion or freedom of expression.”
He said McConnell “characterizes the followers of an entire religion in a stereotypical way. And that’s grossly offensive and that’s not protected from saying it from a pulpit.” – AP NEWS
It’s good to see that a prominent Muslim scholar has come to the pastor’s defense at the trial. Muhammad al-Hussaini said, “…In a free and democratic society we enter into severe peril when we start to confuse what we perhaps ought or ought not to say, with what in law we are allowed to, or not allowed to say.”
How many pastors will defend this pastor in saying something that is a self-evident deduction from the Bible? My guess, not many.
Come to think of it, Jesus would have the ‘family values’ crowd up in arms. Imagine a pastor saying something like this today,
“I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law…” Matthew 1-:35
Or…
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:26
Jesus wants me to hate modern psychology and mom? Who does he think he is? God or something?
I don’t know about you, but this kind of rhetoric doesn’t create a safe space in my humble opinion. Never fear, my dear ones. Perhaps we can all vote on this very soon? I’ve even heard that democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
“A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” – Gary Strand