A Modern Take on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"

From “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

Men seeking donations for the poor: “At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and the destitute. Many thousands are in want of common comfort, Sir.”

Scrooge: “Are there no prisons? And union workhouses are they still in operation?”

Men: “At this festive season, a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.”

Scrooge: “I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I support the establishments I have mentioned, and those who are badly off must go there.”

Men: “Many cannot go there. And, frankly, many would rather die.”

Scrooge: “Then they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”

My Take: Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else think that the GOP is just a bunch of Scrooges. They really would rather let the poor starve and die…yet they cling to being superior Christians. Christ made all of his disciples give away all their material possessions to follow him.

The Gospel according to Matthew 5:3-10

• Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.
• Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
• Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
• Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

These are the eight beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. When I interpret this reading, I believe that peacemakers (verse 9)are those that seek to end war and conflict here on earth (UNLIKE the war mongers of US Congress) I also read that those who suffer persecution for justice’ sake are the GLBT community and Immigrants who only seek equality and human rights (verse 10). I read the meek as the single mother who works in a restaurant and has food stamps and Medicaid to care for her children (verse 4). Lastly I believe that if Jesus were to take a stand on Political Issues, he would be a “Bleeding Heart Liberal.” (Pun intended).

An Evil with Many Masters

An evil with many masters
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

A few words about Christian terrorism.

And I suppose the first words should be about those words: ``Christian terrorism.'' The term will seem jarring to those who've grown comfortable regarding terrorism as something exclusive to Islam.

That this is a self-deluding fallacy should have long since been apparent to anyone who's been paying attention. From Eric Rudolph's bombing of the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics to the so-called Phineas Priests who bombed banks, a newspaper and a Planned Parenthood office in Spokane, from Matt Hale soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago to Scott Roeder's assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, from brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams murdering a gay couple near Redding, Calif., to Timothy McVeigh destroying a federal building and 168 lives in Oklahoma City, we have seen no shortage of ``Christians'' who believe Jesus requires -- or at least allows -- them to commit murder.

If federal officials are correct, we now have one more name to add to the dishonor roll. That name would be Hutaree, a self-styled Christian militia in Michigan, nine members of which have been arrested and accused of plotting to kill police officers in hopes of sparking an anti-government uprising.

Many of us would doubtless resist referring to plots like this as Christian terrorism, feeling it unfair to tar the great body of Christendom with the actions of its fringe radicals. And here, we will pause for Muslim readers to loudly clear their throats.

While they do, let the rest of us note that there is a larger moral to this story, and it has less to do with terminologies than similarities.

We are conditioned to think of terror wrought by Islamic fundamentalists as something strange and alien and other. It is the violence of men with long beards who jabber in weird languages and kill for mysterious reasons while worshipping God in ways that seem outlandish to middle-American sensibilities. And whatever quirk of nature or deficiency of humanity it is that allows them to do what they do, is, we think, unique. There is, we are pleased to believe, a hard, immutable line between us and Them.

Then you consider Hutaree and its alleged plan to kill in the name of God, and the idea of some innate, saving difference between us and those bearded others in other places begins to feel like a fiction we conjured to help us sleep at night.

``Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive,'' it says on Hutaree's website. And you wonder: Who is this Jesus they worship and in what Bible is he found? Why does he bear so little resemblance to the Jesus others find in their Bibles, the one who said that if someone hits you on your right cheek, offer him your left, the one who said if someone forces you to go one mile with him, go two, the one who said love your enemies.

Why does their Jesus need the help of men in camo fatigues with guns and bombs? In this, he is much like the Allah for whom certain Muslims blow up marketplaces and crowded buses. Muslim and American terrorists, it seems, both apparently serve a puny and impotent God who can't do anything without their help.

Sometimes, I think the only things that keep us from becoming, say, Afghanistan, are a strong central government and a diverse population with a robust tradition of free speech. The idea that there is something more is a conceit that blows apart like confetti every time there is, as there is now, a sense of cultural dislocation and economic uncertainty. That combination unfailingly moves people out to the fringes where they seek out scapegoats and embrace that feeble God. And watching, you can't help but realize the troubling truth about that line between ``us'' and ``Them.''

It's thinner than you think.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/07/1566736/an-evil-with-many-masters.html#ixzz0l62KRcOS