BEWARE THE TROJAN HORSE

Greetings from the Christian Progressive Liberal. Dr. Teresa Whitehurst provided a scathing commentary on James Dobson's attack on Dolly Parton through his Focus on the Family venue over on BuzzFlash. I sure enjoyed it, and I was inwardly shouting for joy at Dr. Whitehurst's pronouncements. Her commentary opened my eyes not only to such silly attacks on cartoons, songs and anything else that facilitates promoting diversity, but it also increased my awareness to a more subtle and evil perspective from the likes of Dr. Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Dr. Tim "Left Behind" LaHaye.

Dr. Whitehurst's commentary opened my eyes to the grave fact that far from promoting Christian morals and values, these four men are using their forums as the "Trojan Horse" to promote bigotry, racism, sexism, xenophobia and just good, old-fashioned hate. The Trojan Horse they use is Jesus Christ Himself and everything He represented. And just like the original Trojan Horse managed to infiltrate the fort where Helen of Troy was kept, and begin the Trojan war, Dr. Dobson, Falwell, Robertson and LaHaye are doing the exact same thing; infiltrating society and all annals of the Federal Government with their hate; through policies, Constitutional amendments and congressional legislation - and calling it Christ's love. They distort Bible passages to prove their point, and essentially beat a person or group into submission if you don't agree with them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is NOT what Christ represented. Yes, He made His purposes for coming to earth very clear; because God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son in order to save the world. The World represents everyone on it; not just those who are willing to march in lockstep and abandon his own thought process to the likes of someone else with a hidden agenda that is not in alliance with what God wants. God wants us to love Him with free will - that means we accept God because of our own personal experience with Him, and not what someone is being coerced or forced to think or accept. That is not true worship and love of God.

Let's face it: God didn't need us - but He created us because He wanted to. As a Christian, there are facets of my life that I cannot engage in because of my beliefs and the values that have been shaped as a result. Yet, at the same time, in demonstrating Who Christ is to others, my life has to reflect that. Nowhere in my Bible have I studied that Christ went around beating up those who disagreed with Him - in fact, most of the Gospels as recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John clearly indicates that Jesus often hung out with what would be considered the dregs of society; the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the blind, the poor and sick.

He spent a good deal of His time on earth loving those individuals. Jesus also spent a good deal of His time telling the "Haves" to share their resources with the "have-nots" and that they couldn't enter His kingdom if they couldn't demonstrate that they could do this. Jesus spent a good deal of His time calling out the wealthy, the educated, the government officials on their hypocracy, and when His pronouncements on their sins got to be too much for the leaders to take, they hung Him on a cross and killed Him. But He rose again, and now, His Spirit lives in all of us who wears the label of "Christian". So our lives need to reflect what He lived.

Yet the likes of Dr. Dobson and his ilk will not share this with those who need to hear it. And they sure aren't being loving about what they DO share. Instead, they focus on people, places and things that cannot fight back, like the bullies they really are. Stuff like SpongBob Squarepants' sexuality and trying to discern if Tinky Winky is gay, rather than calling President Bush on his policies that ensure that the poor will remain poor and become even more poor; that the lack of a quality education for children is just as much a sin as adultery or murder; that raping the environment is NOT of God, and that the homeless are in their condition because of their own undefined "sin". Give me and other self-respecting Christians a break, please! If the lifestyles of homosexuals is that offensive to them, then why don't they confront it like mature human beings? Have they sat down and held any type of debate with gays and lesbians that didn't include name calling, insults or physical altercations? Didn't think so - that would require them to be a real Christian (sarcasm). And what about families like Dick Cheney's who have gays or lesbians as members? What counsel are you giving them? Are you telling them to consider that family member dead and never have contact with them again, ever? Is that something Jesus would do?

My job as a Christian is to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ to every human being I come into contact with. I readily admit, I haven't always been successful, because I am fully and beautifully human - but nevertheless, that is my goal as a Christian. So, when I come into contact with homosexuals, I am not beating them over the head with my Bible and condemning them to hell - I need to make sure I'm not hell-bound myself! While I agree with the Biblical teaching about homosexuality, I also believe that God would not create a person with a sexual attraction to the same sex without providing a means for them to deal with it. If I'm asked, I share what I've been taught, but not in a way that condemns another human being, and I don't try to force my opinion on them if they disagree with it. I let them know that I love them and have concern for them anyway, just like ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING! Only God has the right to condemn another person - when you travel on the road of unconditional love, you will get a challenge of loving someone you don't necessarily like, or agree with. However, this is a maturing process in the goal of being a Christian. Therefore, bigotry, xenophobia, intolerance, has no place in the life of a Christian. How can you show the love of Christ when you're on television essentially supporting hatred of others because they are different? Or espousing governmental policies that causes others to sin when those policies lead them to continued cycles of poverty, neglect, ill health, undereducated, an unsafe environment, hazardous housing and no medical coverage when they get sick?

It will not stop with homosexuals. Ethnic groups will be next; you can already see the signs of it according to where America is going into countries and starting wars. It is no coincidence that most of the Middle East is populated with dark-skinned ethnic groups. It is no coincidence regarding the genocide occuring in Rwanda and Darfur, while America doesn't bother to lift a finger and the rest of the world is looking for some semblance of Jesus in our actions. We have allowed the word "liberal" to become so vilified that since we don't use it, we no longer give in the same manner, freely.

Women will not get a free pass, either. Only 85 years ago, women gained the right to vote, and there's nothing in the Bible that indicates that women were treated as second-class citizens, either. The Apostle Paul names several women who assisted him with his ministry; many were business women such as Dorcas, Priscilla and Lydia, who was a merchant of royal cloth - the first Church was started in her home (read the Book of Acts if you don't believe me). So where does Dr. Dobson, LaHaye, Falwell and Robertson get off with the "mission" they are on to "save the world"? You don't "save the world" through subjugating the will of others - you present the information and allow them to decide for themselves, because that's how God wants it.

Something that Fox News will never do, cause they both report and decide.

I don't watch Larry King very often, but I happened to tune in on Tuesday night when he had Dr. La Haye and his wife on the show. Dr. LaHaye kept protesting that he didn't want the government using the media to "force the views of other groups on to others" yet what was most profound was what he left unsaid, because, in a sense, Larry wouldn't allow him to say it. The unspoken refrain was "but we want to control the media to force our opinion on them". Give Larry a little bit of credit; he wouldn't allow Dr. LaHaye to start preaching his views on the air - especially if you're talking about the separation of Church and State and preventing a government-ordained religion. Because the likes of Dr. Dobson, LaHaye, Falwell and Robertson - that's the main agenda they want; define their view of Christianity and impose it on others, and claim that Jesus approves. Didn't you see it in the relief aid going to the tsunami victims? Some religious groups were actually making it a condition that the Sri Lankans convert to Christianity before they saw a penny of disaster relief.

That's not Jesus' way.

And on a note to African-Americans and other ethnicities, but in particular, my ethnic race - we have long been victims of racism, and discrimnation to the point that we cannot afford to be co-opted by right wing evangelicals who want us at the table regarding gay issues, but were notoriously absent during the Civil Rights movement, to the point that many of them were giving tacit consent to subjugating the Black man and claimed they were doing it in the name of Jesus. We have more important issues to consider than whether or not gay individuals can get married. Waging war under lying pretences; deliberating tanking the economy and generating enough national debt to the point that they are already plotting how to rob the elderly from their Social Security checks and preventing them from getting the medications they need in order to hasten their demise; not to mention the red-lining tactics that prevent us from home ownership and quality education for our children - these are more pressing issues that are leading to sin, rather than the living arrangements of homosexuals, which may have little, if no effect on you personally at all. So why are we throwing open the welcome wagon for Falwell and his ilk - NOW? Because you want a slice of the faith based money pie? You need to remember that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and our communities cannot stand anymore "assistance" from the government that's designed to futher decimate our communities. Don't you remember the crack cocaine infiltration under the Reagan Administration in the 80s? I guess not - we didn't own planes or boats to transport that devastating endemic into Black neighborhoods; an endemic from which we have yet to recover.

Beware the Trojan Horse - it may be directed at you in Jesus' name, thanks to the likes of Dr. Dobson and his group. They've taken Focus on the Family to the point that the family is getting left out of the Focus.