Posted on 12/24/2018 2:20:41 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Just imagine the New York Times publishing an article entitled “What a Christian Could Teach Supporters of the Saudi Crown Prince About Jesus,” or “What a Christian Could Teach Supporters of the Ayatollah Khamenei About Jesus.” This is not to compare Trump either to the Saudi Crown Prince or the Iranian Supreme Leader, although many Leftists are so deranged regarding Trump that they would endorse such comparisons with relish. The point I’m making, on the other hand, is that the New York Times editors would rather have their teeth pulled out with rusty pliers than ever to publish an article by a Christian telling Muslims what they should think about anything, but they don’t hesitate to publish this self-righteous and disingenuous propaganda by Wajahat Ali lecturing Christians and trying to shame them out from supporting Trump.
Ali doesn’t know as much about Christianity as he wants you to think he does; for example, he claims that he read the King James Bible while at Bellarmine High School in San Jose, California. Maybe he read it on his own, but apparently graduated from high school in or around 1998. Few, if any, Catholic schools ever used the King James Bible, which was a Protestant translation first published in 1611 and rejected by the Catholic Church. Because of its archaic language, it was widely discarded in the mid-twentieth century. The idea that a Catholic school was using it in the 1990s is ludicrous. If he read the Bible at school, Ali almost certainly read the New American Bible, and if he read the King James Version on his own, it’s unlikely he understood much of it, unless he had mastered Shakespearean English by the time he attended high school.
More importantly, Ali in this article continuously confuses socialism and state control with Christian charity, as if having the government confiscate citizens’ wealth and redistribute it to those it sees fit is the only way Christians can love their neighbor today. He also tells his Times-reading marks that Jesus would want open borders, with no apparent regard for the Christian obligation to love one’s neighbor at home — is inundating a country with migrants who will raise the crime rate and saturate the welfare rolls really charitable to those who must suffer as a result of this inundation?
The arrogance of it all is what is overriding. Bringing in a cynical and deceptive Muslim who endeavors to shame Christians by claiming they’re bad Christians for rejecting a globalist, socialist agenda — that epitomizes the New York Times today.
“What a Muslim Could Teach Trump Supporters About Jesus,” by Wajahat Ali, New York Times, December 22, 2018 (thanks to Vikram):
At Bellarmine, an all-boys Catholic school in San Jose, Calif., I was often the token Muslim and probably the only person who began freshman year thinking the Eucharist sounded like the name of a comic book villain. I eventually learned it’s a ritual commemorating the Last Supper. At the monthly Masses that were part of the curriculum, that meant grape juice and stale wafers were offered to pimpled, dorky teenagers as the blood and body of Christ.
During my time there, I also read the King James Bible and stories about Jesus, learned about Christian morality, debated the Trinity with Jesuit priests and received an A every semester in religious studies class. Twenty years later, I can still recite the “Our Father” prayer from memory.
Growing up, I’d been taught that Jesus was a major prophet in Islam, known as “Isa” and also referred to as “ruh Allah,” the spirit of God born to the Virgin Mary and sent as a mercy to all people. Like Christians, we Muslims believe he will return to fight Dajjal, or the Antichrist, and establish peace and justice on earth. But it was everything I learned in high school that came together to make me love Jesus in a way that made me a better Muslim.
Even though I don’t personally celebrate Christmas, the season always makes me think of his legacy of radical love. This year, it’s especially hard to understand how Trump-supporting Christians have turned their back on that unconditional love and exchanged it for nativism, fear and fealty to a reality TV show host turned president.
According to a Washington Post/ABC poll conducted in January, 75 percent of white evangelicals in the United States — compared with 46 percent of American adults over all — said “the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants” was a positive thing. Sixty-eight percent of them believe America has no responsibility to house refugees, according to a Pew Research poll conducted in April and May.
The numbers aren’t quite as jarring when we look at different slices of religious America. According to a PRRI poll conducted in late August and early September, 59 percent of Catholics and 75 percent of black Protestants view Trump negatively. Still, I can’t fathom how anyone who knows the Jesus I encountered at Bellarmine could be comfortable with this administration.
Jesus was a humble carpenter from Nazareth who miraculously fed 5,000 people but never humiliated them with condescending lectures about God favoring those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Mr. Trump has expressed enthusiasm for gutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, by adding unnecessary and cruel work requirements for food stamp recipients.
Mr. Trump also chose Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who admitted he isn’t qualified to run a federal agency, to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Dr. Carson, who says his Christian faith helps him “serve the nation even better,” tweeted he’s “moving more people toward self-sufficiency” by advocating huge cuts to housing aid, increased rent and more stringent work requirements. In high school, I must have missed the sermon where Jesus told the poor, hungry and homeless to stop asking God for handouts.
President Trump and Republicans have also waged a nonstop war on Obamacare for nine years, allowing 14 states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, leaving four million eligible Americans unable to enroll. The Jesus I met in high school healed a blind man. Guess what he didn’t do? Rail against the socialist evils of taking care of people’s health.
The Jesus I know commanded, “You shall love your neighbors as yourself.” He didn’t add “unless they are undocumented immigrants or Muslim or gay.” He would welcome refugees from Central America, feed them, wash their feet. He would have been horrified at the conditions that led 7-year-old Jakelin Caal to die of dehydration and shock in Border Control custody after seeking refuge in this country with her father.
Christianity isn’t unique: Every religion is abused as such by some of its followers and manipulated to advance political agendas. But the hypocrisy of white Evangelical Christians’ support for Trump in light of his undeniable cruelty and apathy — toward refugees, Puerto Rican citizens recovering from a devastating hurricane, victims of California fires and a newspaper columnist killed by Saudi Arabia — is too much to bear. Despite this barrage of hate, Evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham still support Mr. Trump because they believe he “defends the faith.” How?…
Oh, NOES!!! The bad orange man wants people to EARN a living. Allah forbid!!!
This mohammedan < censored > is welcome to pound sand. Or, better yet, repent of his mohammedanism and embrace his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It’s really hate speech.
Oh, yeah.
Probability that he was reading a King James Bible at “Bellarmine”?
Vanishingly close to zero.
Thank you.
That too. His head is filled with worms.
“At Bellarmine, an all-boys Catholic school in San Jose, California.” Let’s start with Bellarmine is a Jesuit College Preparatory School. I went to Fairfield Preparatory School. We never referred to it as Catholic or by Fairfield. It was Prep or Fairfield Prep.
Secondly, a non-Catholic did not take religious studies classes. They were excused from that course each and every year.
I doubt he is who he said he is.
Looking at Wikipedia, Spencer is a Melkite Greek Catholic. As I said not whom he says he is.
“What a Muslim Could Teach Trump Supporters About Jesus,”hat a Muslim Could Teach Trump Supporters About Jesus,””
That the Word became flesh? Hmmm?
Didn’t think so..
Has a fatwa been placed on the said Muslim for speaking about Jesus?
Has he been charged with breaking blasphemy laws and thrown into a dungeon to rot?
Has there been a mob of Christians running around in berserker rage, inflicting vicious violence and bloodshed, rape and damage of property?
I don't think the New York Times will ask these questions, because that would be intellectually honest and truthful. Moreover such and article goes against their bias and propaganda.
Who do you say that I am??
That is the key question and this mussie fails miserably
Shockingly, America still isn’t a theocracy.
IOW. Obama ain’t a Christian
I have the Bible. I don’t need to learn about Jesus Christ from the New York Times or Muslims. The New York Times and Muslims deny Christ as the Son of God. That right there means I don’t have anything to learn from them.
[It’s a pretty disrespectful account of the Catholic communion ceremony.]
And how it is. What was the little asshat doing at an all Catholic school if he had such contempt for it?
[But the hypocrisy of white Evangelical Christians’ support for Trump in light of his undeniable cruelty and apathy — toward refugees, Puerto Rican citizens recovering from a devastating hurricane, victims of California fires and a newspaper columnist killed by Saudi Arabia — is too much to bear.]
What horseshit. Perhaps this moron needs to do some self-examination of why he belongs to a death cult masquerading as a “religion” that is responsible for non-stop wholesale slaughter worldwide to this very day and primarily treats women worse than cattle. A “religion” that would execute him if they ever found out he went to a Catholic school thus committing the ultimate blasphemy to the Islamic lunatics he holds so dear.
How to behead Him?
What a bigot. If this was done the other way around he would be without his head already.
That pretty much sums up what I had to say about this piece of garbage. This isn't the only topic over which the NYT displays this ignorance, either - we routinely receive lectures on firearms from people who have never held one, lectures on energy from people whose only conception of energy production is plugging in the juicer, and now lectures on theological propriety from people who think Satanist statues in the middle of Christmas displays are a human rights issue. It's unfortunate to be ignorant, it's stupid to remain so, and it's arrogance to display it so proudly.
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