In a recent post in ‘s journal, I commented about how it seems that the religious extremists who value the prohibition of gay marriage over feeding the poor, etc, love Paul more than Jesus. It seems a simple observation to me, but I’d hope it would be offensive to the parties in question, even though I somehow doubt it would. I think it would be more befuddling than insulting. Sad that.
Unrelated: my professor at SFSU got his PhD from Minnesota in 2005. Michael Bar? A friend says he sounds like the Count on Sesame Street. 🙂 Pls don’t tell him!
Being offended would require actually being educated….and most extremists are anything but.
*sigh*
Seems obvious to me. Every time I hear one of them go on about that sort of thing and ignore issues like poverty, peace, and generally treating other people well, I find myself wanting to tell them, “What would Jesus do? He’d probably forgive you after tossing you out of the Temple by your ear.”
I was recently reading a Quaker blog as I’m following Quaker responses to the abduction of Tom Fox, since he was a friend as well as a Friend to a friend of mine, and I came across this:
http://plaininthecity.blogspot.com/2005/12/we-are-all-come-to-well-now-what.html
I think that stuff like his interactions with the Samaritans, prostitutes, and tax collectors were among the best parts of the bible. Unfortunately, folks like to concentrate on Paul because Paul was working to sell the idea to the Romans, and presented it as a clear set of rules and heirarchy, which make some folks more comfortable than a squidgy, “Look folks, be decent to each other. Be decent to the heretic, who is still a person. Be decent to each other because you are still a person.”