Regarding Jesus and I-phones

Last night on the bus, a woman sat down next to me, and opened a small leatherbound Bible and began to read the Psalms in a voice that made it pretty much impossible for me to read the Hillary and Obama stories I had pulled up on my I-phone.  She had some verses highlighted so she could find them quickly. These were read with particular vengeance.

I have no idea what kind of Christian she is, but I found myself thinking....

For the most part, what Christians these days really should be praying for is that they are dead, dead wrong in their belief that Jesus will return to earth some day.  For if he does, he's likely to be really, really pissed at the behavior of many folks using his name without a proper licensing agreement.

There was a time when I believed that some of the common, narrow-minded behavior you hear about reflected the isolated acts of a handful of fanatical wackos.  But I've come to think that this isn't the case.  The Westboro Baptist church, which harassed some families of fallen soldiers by protesting with signs reading, "God Hates Fags," and "God Hates America," is unfortunately more representative of today's Christian than we like to admit.

The mainstream Christian Church is today represented by guys like Jerry Falwell, the very same fellow who flat-out said that 9/11 was God's retribution for America's evil ways. Specifically, tolerance of gay people appears to really piss of God and his only begotten son.

This kind of attitude—that my group and my group alone has the key to truth, and the rest of you are damned—is the principle by which most Christians now live. Sorry, but it's true.  Christians aren't even united among themselves. Baptists are convinced that Catholics and Lutherans will roast in hell; Pentacostals think Lutherans are the spawn of Satan...on and on it goes.

It is exceptionally rare to hear any Christian church preach actual tolerance anymore.  The possible exception is the modern Mennonites—who, by the way, are considered outcasts by a large ratio of other Christian denominations.

I'm not that kind of believer, but I really do hope that Jesus does return to earth.  I want a front row seat when he casts all the "believers" out of the temple. 

I'm a bad man sometimes.  When the lady's holier-than-thou recitation got really intense, I gave up reading about politics on my I-phone and looked for some porn to show her.  (Not really, but I thought about it.)