Posted by LUKE on December 27, 2003 at 13:15:56:
Is the Pope Aiding and Abetting Terrorism? Are the REAL Christians, who actually follow the teachings of Christ, helping the terrorists?
According to the Bush Cartel, the answer is "yes."
John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney and Ari Fleischer have warned us: challenge the Bush administration's strategy in its war on terror and you are aiding the terrorists.
So, in Bush's brain, the Pope--God's emissary on earth for Catholics--who is the world's most high profile religious leader -- is a dangerous man. What's the "heresy" the Pope is committing according to the Bush Cartel?
Well, the Pope is aiding and abetting terrorism because he wants a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis. To the Bush Cartel, if you don't subscribe to the peculiarly perverse theory that war IS peace, then you are facilitating terrorism.
But the Pope's Christmas message against the American war in Iraq (as violating the dictates of God's and Jesus' message of peace) presents a more profound challenge to Bush. In has daily oozing of religiosity, Bush has claimed, in the most fundamental sense, that God is on his side, the side of the avenging, wrathful Crusader, the side of unending conflict, the side of the war with Iraq. Like all things Bush, the Bush family has an alarming capacity for wrapping their arrogance in a cloak of Godliness and feigned humility.
Poppa Bush had no compunction about telling off the Bishop of the Episcopalian Church in America,
Frank Griswold, implying that the Bishop is the one who is out of step with God, not the Bushes. The
Episcopalian Church is Poppa and Barb's denomination. The Bishop is their religious leader. But no one is
closer to God than the Bushes. In fact, George the Junior is always telling White House staff that it was
God's will that he became president (which is probably an understandable perception on his part, since he
lost the election).
Earlier this year, Bishop Griswold, who was Episcopal bishop of Chicago from 1987 to 1997 before being named presiding bishop of the United States in 1998, said, "We are loathed, and I think the world has every right to loathe us because they see us as greedy, self-interested and almost totally unconcerned about poverty, disease and suffering."
Griswold continues: "Listening to Anglican voices in the Middle East, it's very clear to me that continued war on the Iraqi people will lead to a complete destabilization of the entire Middle East. And what may be
perceived here as a focused attack on one particular country is going to erupt into something involving the whole region, if not the whole world. The focus on terrorism and fear and anxiety and heightened alerts make the U.S. populace more and more anxious and means we turn more and more inward and disconnect ourselves from the larger world. Our nation historically has been generous and so open to the rest
of the world, and now it's all turned in on itself.
"If we are a nation under God ... then we have to adopt God's perspectives, which means a superpower
must be a super servant. I think this is what we don't see clearly," Griswold said. "The voices that are
being raised up now are equivalent to the prophets of old saying, 'Wait a minute; what is justice here
rather than retribution and revenge?' How are we being called to see the world as God's world and that everyone in it is loved by God?"
And Junior, who officially changed from the Episcopalian Church to the Methodist Church when he
married Laura, doesn't fare any better in his own denomination, which believes the Iraq war is "not a just war," but that it "violates God's law."
But Bush the Junior isn't listening. He doesn't need any uppity Bishop to tell him what is on God's mind. God is talking directly to Junior. End of conversation.
In fact, with the exception of the Southern Baptists and Evangelicals (the same people who supported
slavery), almost every major denomination in the United States opposes the war in Iraq
So the next time you hear George talking about God being behind his little war, just remember that Bush
hijacked the government -- and now he's hijacking God. Merry Christmas to the REAL Christians, those who actually follow the teachings of Christ, who told us, "I say unto you, love your enemies." Don't bomb them! Especially the children.
--Matthew 5:44, 45
[But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father. (Words of Jesus)]
Counterfeit Christianity is always safe; real Christianity is always in peril. --William Barclay
It is our nature to hate our enemies. It is Christ's nature to be kind to His. You know you're growing up to be a REAL Christian when you can be kind to yours. - Luke Bledsoe
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