by Jerome du Bois
Ten days ago Jeff Jarvis posted about religion in the public square, calling it "And God Rolled His Eyes." It ended up as a debate between he and Hugh Hewitt, with summaries and comments on other blogs, and the post expanded into three parts and hundreds of comments.
At the end of the first part, Jarvis writes:
Since I am getting links to this post from both Hugh and Glenn Reynolds and -- considering the topic -- there may be new readers here who haven't been subjected to my bio before. So, in the interest of transparency and context: I'm a Congregationalist (not of the UCC flavor but, yes, liberal); I'm co-head of my small church's board and I teach Sunday school and occasionally get wrangled into giving a sermon (to which I have subjected my blog readers). My smarter sister is a Presbyterian minister (I was raised Presbyterian). So I am a Christian and I do not feel under attack in America. I feel free in America -- and I am grateful to both God and the Constitution for it. [My emphasis.]
About forty comments into the first thread, I posted this one:
Jeff:
Could you please ask your smarter Presbyterian sister why her church doesn't want anything to do with Israel, and what Jesus might have thought about that?
Thanks. Merry Christmas.
Jerome du Bois
Now, compared to JJ and HH, I'm microblogospheric, but that doesn't change the question. And nobody said nothing about it. They all just rolled over it. So I brought it home to highlight it here -- for the Jews, to whom we all owe so much, if only we examined history.
I know I don't owe the Presbyterian Church jack shit. Did you know that the Presbyterian Church has chosen to divest its portfolio of investments in companies that have significant dealings with Israel? The main cat's paw is Caterpillar. (I predict the P.C. will be the first to find a way to formally canonize Rachel Corrie.)
Should we now expect to see photos and video of Presbyterian Church leaders chaining themselves to the giant front landing gears of the C-130s loading Caterpillars for Sri Lanka, even though the machines' only purpose is to turn chaos into order? I think not. That takes balls and ovaries, and these twits ain't got none. It's cold out there.
As for the Sri Lankan government idiots, they are forbidding 60 able-bodied men and women from helping them out because they are active Israeli Defense Force soldiers. They will allow the doctors and nurses in -- and all the medicine and other necessities, too, of course -- but don't they know that most of these doctors and nurses, and almost every other Israeli helping hand, is a former member of the IDF?
As Jesus said, "We are behaving like insects." No, wait, that was Douglas Coupland.
Jesus said, "Why are you people acting like such assholes?" No, wait, that was me.
One more time. Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
And I say, may the hammer of divine justice fall upon all who stay any honest helping hand extended toward the innocent, dead and alive.
[I haven't linked as I should, but I'm sick and angry, and this stuff is easy to Google. As Hieronymus Bosch, LA Police, said, "I'm sorry, it just seems to me that sometimes the whole world is a homicide victim."]
Posted by Jerome at December 29, 2004 07:22 PM | TrackBack