The Quran Mentions Jesus More Than 100 Times

By Brett Buckne
Special To The Star
Sep 18, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Anniston Star"

A man protesting against a project to build an Islamic center near Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center twin towers stood, holds a copy of the Quran near the planned construction site in New York on Sept. 11. A recent Pew Forum for Religion & Public Life poll indicated that the majority of respondents had little or no knowledge of the Muslim faith at all. Photo: Associated Press

Two months ago, he was an obscure pastor leading a small congregation in Florida. That was before Terry Jones, pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, created a global firestorm by declaring Sept. 11 “International Burn a Koran Day.” It’s a threat Jones has since abandoned amid pleas and outrage from not only the Muslim world but people of all faiths.

“Muslims take the value of the Quran very seriously as divine scripture, and we are very careful to handle it and store it properly,” explained Safaa Al-Hamdani, a member of the Anniston Islamic Center. “It is never allowed to be kept in unsanitary places, is never allowed to touch the ground, and we must have clean hands to touch it.

“I cannot emphasize enough the value of this book to all Muslims.”

And yet Jones appeared oblivious as to why his threats were so offensive. The reason? Jones knew nothing about the Quran.

“I have no experience with it whatsoever,” he told the New York Times. “I only know what the Bible says.”

Jones’ ignorance about the teachings and beliefs of Islam is not uncommon. More than half of respondents in a recent poll by the Pew Forum for Religion & Public Life said they knew little or nothing about the Muslim faith.

Had Jones or any of his followers bothered to read the Quran before threatening to burn it, they might have been surprised by what they found.

Moses is mentioned more than 130 times. Jesus is mentioned more than 100 times. Mary is mentioned more in the Quran than in the New Testament, and Muhammad is only mentioned four times, explained Gordon Newby, chair of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

A new exhibit, “Islamic Calligraphy and the Quran,” is on view through Dec. 5 at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory. In conjunction with the exhibit, Newby has lectured on the relationship of the Quran to Jewish and Christian scriptures.

“The Quran,” he said, “is the latest book to join the monotheistic dialogue on the nature of God and God’s word.”

The Quran is about as long as the New Testament, consisting of 114 chapters, or suras, which vary in length from three verses to 286.

“The best way for newcomers to read the Quran is not from front to back, but back to front,” wrote Stephen Prothero, author of ITAL Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn’t.UNITAL “Start with the Al-Fatiha (The Opening), but then skip to the shorter, more theological suras in the back. Then read the narratives of the prophets (toward the middle) before concluding with the legalistic content of the longer suras in the front.”

Muslims believe that the Hebrew and Christian scriptures were both revealed by God but have been corrupted over time, while the Quran exists today as it was originally delivered. Translations are viewed as human products. Only the original Arabic versions of the Quran are considered authoritative.

“The Quran teaches the bodily resurrection and a coming judgment,” Prothero wrote. “It requires prayers and almsgiving and fasting and pilgrimage. It portrays a world in which one God repeatedly reveals his will to human beings through prophets and messages that stretch from Moses to Jesus to Muhammad.”

The Quran takes many of the biblical stories and uses them to teach how God wants human beings to act before the day of judgment to avoid being cast into hell, Newby said.

“Be faithful to God, perform charity, do good works, and you’ll be OK,” he said. “I know a lot of preachers who deliver pretty much that same message every week from the pulpit, as well as priests, rabbis and imams.”

A Brief History Of The Quran

“Islam” means surrender or submission to the will of Allah (God).

Newest among the world’s major religions and with more than 1 billion followers, Islam is based on the simplest of creeds. Murmured in the ear of newborns and the last whisper of the dying, that creed rings in a single sentence: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

Followers of Islam, or Muslims (the word in Arabic means “one who submits”), revere Muhammad as the greatest prophet who ever lived, the last of God’s messengers. Muslims honor him and the prophets who preceded him – Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus – as human, not divine. Allah rules alone. Muhammad’s role was to bring an absolute and final revelation - the Quran.

The Arabian desert was home to wandering tribes who worshipped nature spirits and made pilgrimages to a cube-shaped shrine in Mecca that housed scores of idols. It was into this prosperous crossroads that Muhammad was born around the year 570.

Little is known about his childhood, except that he was known a hard-worker, earning the nickname of al-Amin, “the trustworthy.”

Because of this reputation, the 25-year-old Muhammad married a rich widow named Khadijah, who was 15 years his senior. The marriage gave him four daughters, and time to ponder questions that burdened his soul.

Over the years, Muhammad’s tribe had become wealthy, as Mecca grew into a thriving mercantile city. They were obsessed with attaining greater wealth, rather than protecting the poorer and weaker members of the tribe.

Muhammad also worried that a spiritual crisis was gripping the region. While Christianity and Judaism were familiar religions, the nomads worshiped numerous pagan gods and had no prophets or scriptures of their own.

“Indeed, the Jews and Christians whom they met often taunted the Arabs for being left out of the divine plan,” wrote Karen Armstrong in ITALIslam: A Short History.UNITAL

“It seemed to many of the more thoughtful people in Arabia that the Arabs were a lost people, exiled forever from the civilized world and ignored by God himself.”

That changed in 610, when Muhammad stepped into a cave on Mount Hira, three miles from Mecca. While in the midst of prayer and a ritual fast, Muhammad felt overpowered by the angel Gabriel, who gripped him tightly, forcing the first fragments of the Quran to pour from his mouth.

Inspired by his own vision and his wife’s steadfast support, Muhammad eagerly awaited further visitations. He often went to Hira. He meditated. He prayed. He waited. More than two years passed before Muhammad again heard a heavenly voice and saw Gabriel seated upon a throne.

From that moment forward, he never faltered as the revelations were delivered verse by verse – surah by surah - over 21 years. Such experiences were painful for Muhammad, who often told confidants, “Never once did I receive a revelation without feeling that my soul had been torn away from me.”

The ‘Maniac Poet’

Initially, converts were few, but, with growing confidence, Muhammad attracted larger audiences drawn by the promise of an afterlife.

In paganism, death was the end of existence, thus attaining wealth was the ultimate goal in life. But the Quran taught that the rich must share with the poor, and promised a glorious afterlife for the righteous and hellfire for the sinful. This threatened the powerful upper-class leaders, who turned against the “driveller, star-gazer and maniac-poet.” They stoned and beat converts.

In September of 622, Muhammad obeyed a vision telling him to leave Mecca for Yathrib, an oasis city some 250 miles north. This migration marks the beginning of the Muslim era. Islam grew in political power as Yathrib became Madinat al-Nabi, “the city of the Prophet,” or simply, Medina.

In January 630, Muhammad marched on Mecca with a force of 10,000 and was met with little resistance. On camelback, Muhammad made seven trips around the Kaaba, which housed the various pagan gods, ordered all its idols destroyed and rededicated the shrine to “Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.”

Victory at Mecca set a model of leniency followed by later Islamic conquerers that allowed pagans to embrace Islam. Christians and Jews could maintain their own faiths – if they paid a tax – having received valid revelations of their own.

“The Quran insists strongly that ‘there shall be no coercion in matters of faith,’” Armstrong wrote, “and commands Muslims to respect the beliefs of Jews and Christians, whom the Quran calls ahl al-kigab, a phrase usually translated ‘People of the Book,’ but which is more accurately rendered ‘people of an earlier revelation.’”

Not long after conquering Mecca, Muhammad’s ministry came to an end. From a hill near Mecca, he faced a throng of pilgrims and preached his final revelation. “This day (God has) perfected your religion for you … and has chosen for you … Islam.”

One morning in 632, Muhammad died peacefully in the arms of his wife. When Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, learned of the prophet’s death, he called followers together.

“O men,” he said, “if anyone worships Muhammad, let him know now that Muhammad is dead. But if anyone worships God, let him know that God is alive and immortal forever.”

Contact Brett Buckner atbrett.buckner@yahoo.com.

Read more:Anniston Star - What religious book mentions Jesus more than 100 times The Quran

Why Are So Many Christians Conservative?

How Can People Who Claim To Be Followers Of Jesus Be Political Conservatives?

By Mike Lux

May 19, 2010
Courtesy Of "Alter Net"

When you are in the political world, you have decisions to make every single day about who you will try to help and who you won't. In spite of the earnest quest of good technocrats everywhere, the simple fact is that there are only a few win-win solutions. Who you tax, who you give a tax break to, what programs you cut or add to, who you tighten regulations on, and who you loosen them on, what kind of contractors are eligible for government work, which school districts and non-profit groups get federal money, etc: these political decisions are generally not win-win. Instead, they mean that one group of people win, and one group of people loses. It is the nature of politics, and you can't take the politics out of politics.

The most fundamental difference between progressives and conservatives is that question of which side you are on. Conservatives believe that the rich and powerful got that way because they deserve to be, that society owes its prosperity to the prosperous, and that government's job when they have to make choices is to side with those businesspeople who are doing well, because all good things trickle down from them. Progressives, on the other hand, believe it is the poor and those who are ill-treated who need the most help from their government, and that prosperity comes from all of us -- the worker as well as the employer, the consumer as well as the seller, the struggling entrepreneur trying to make it as well as the wealthy who already have.

Usually, I might spend my time arguing which of those worldviews gives us betterpolicy outcomes, or which is better politics, but in this post I want to focus on something else: which side the God of the Judeo-Christian Biblical tradition is on.

Between Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories about Christian social justice (Since Communists and Nazis both used the words "social" and "justice," sometimes even together, the phrase must be bad along with other words they used a lot like the, and, one, thank you, please, today, tonight, and tomorrow), Sarah Palin's "spiritual warfare," and my very fun e-mail debates with a much-beloved but sadly misguided conservative Christian relative, I have been thinking a lot about Christians and political ideology of late. As those of you who read me a lot know, I was raised in a church-oriented home, and I write about religion a fair amount. This isn't because I am conventionally religious: I decided about four decades ago that since there was no way for sure about the nature of God or the soul or all that metaphysical stuff, I wasn't going to spend much time thinking, caring, or worrying about it. If that sends one to hell, at least I'll be there with a lot of my favorite people. But I still have the social and moral teaching I learned from my upbringing embedded in me as a core part of my value system, and I still know my Bible pretty well.

That's why I am always puzzled by how people who claim to be followers of the Jesus I read about in the Bible can be political conservatives.

Now I know there are many people who have not been brought up in the Christian faith, or who were but aren't interested in it anymore. Perhaps like a great many folks, you have been turned off by all the high-profile preachers who claim to speak for Christianity but preach a brand of narrow, intolerant conservatism that you can't relate to. My view is that even if that is the case, it is still important to know something about the Christian New Testament because it is such a historical and cultural touchstone in our country. I also think it's important to have a sense of just how different the Bible is from how conservative Christians represent it. For those of you uninterested in all this, I understand why: you definitely won't want to dig into what follows. But for those of who are, here is my argument about Christianity and progressivism in politics.

Conservative Christians' primary argument regarding Jesus and politics is that all he cared about was spiritual matters and an individual's relationship with God. As a result, they say, all those references from Jesus about helping the poor relate only to private charity, not to society as a whole. Their belief is that Jesus, and the New Testament in general, is focused on one thing and one thing only: how do people get into heaven.

The Jesus of the New Testament was of course extremely concerned with spiritual matters: there is no doubt whatsoever about his role or interest in the issues of the day, that the spiritual well-being of his followers was a major interest of his. How much he was involved with or interested in the political situation of the day is a matter of much debate and interpretation. Some say it was a lot and others that it was pretty limited or, as conservatives would say, not at all. However, much of a priority or focus it was, though, if you actually read the Gospels, it is clear that Jesus' main concern in terms of the people whose fates he cared about was for the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. Comment after comment and story after story in the Gospels about Jesus relates to the treatment of the poor, generosity to those in need, mercy to the outcast, and scorn for the wealthy and powerful. And his philosophy is embedded with the central importance of taking care of others, loving others, treating others as you would want to be treated. There is no virtue of selfishness here, there is no "greed is good," there is no invisible hand of the market or looking out for Number One first. There is nothing about poor people being lazy, nothing about the undeserving poor being leeches on society, nothing about how I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps so everyone else should, too. There is nothing about how in nature, "the lions eat the weak," and therefore we shouldn't help the poor because it weakens them. There is nothing about charity or welfare corrupting a person's spirit.

What there is: quote after quote about compassion for the poor. In Jesus' very first sermon of his ministry, the place where he launched his public career, he stated the reason he had come: to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, to help the oppressed go free, and that he was here to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord -- which in Jewish tradition meant the year that poor debtors were forgiven their debts to bankers and the wealthy. In Luke 6, Jesus says the poor and hungry will be blessed, and the rich will be cursed. He urges his followers to sell all their possessions and give them to the poor. The one time he really focuses on God's judgment and who goes to heaven is in Matthew 25, where he says those who go to heaven will be those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those in prison, gave shelter to the hungry, and welcomed the stranger -- and those who don't make it were the ones who refused to help the poor and oppressed.

And he was a really serious class warrior, too -- he wasn't just into helping the poor; he didn't seem to like rich folks very much. In Matthew 6, he focuses on the love of money as a major problem. In Luke 11, he berates a wealthy lawyer for burdening the poor. In Luke 12, he says that the wealthy who store up treasure are cursed by God. In Luke 14, he says if we throw a party, we should invite all poor people and no rich people, and suggests that the wealthy already turned down their invitation to God's feast, and that it is the poor who will get into heaven (a theme repeated multiple times). He says that the rich people will have a harder time getting to heaven than a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. He chases the wealthy bankers and merchants from the Temple.

I have never heard a conservative Christian quote any of these verses -- not once, and I have been in a lot of discussions with Christian conservatives, and heard a lot of their speeches and sermons. The one verse they always quote (and I mean always -- I have never talked to a conservative Christian about economics and not heard them quote this verse) is the one time in which Jesus says that "the poor will always be with us." The reason they love this quote so much is that they interpret that line to mean that in spite of everything else Jesus said about the poor, that since the poor will always be with us, we don't need to worry about trying to help them. Apparently since the poor will always be with us, we can go ahead and screw them. But Jesus making a prediction that there will always be oppressive societies doesn't mean he wanted us to join the oppressors. By clinging desperately to that one verse in the Bible, and ignoring all the others about the poor and the rich, Christian conservatives show themselves to be hypocrites, plain and simple.

The Jesus of the New Testament spent his public career preaching about the nature of God and our relationship to God, but also about how we should deal with each other. He repeatedly blessed mercy, gentleness, peacemaking, community, and taking care of each other. He lifted up the poor and oppressed, and spoke poorly of the wealthy and powerful. If anyone in modern society talked like he did, you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would condemn that person as a class warrior, a socialist. Jesus may not have been primarily concerned with politics, but for what politics he did have, it is virtually impossible to argue that he was anything but a progressive thinker.

I want to close on one other note here. I focused here on the Jesus of the Gospels (principally Matthew, Mark and Luke -- the Gospel of John is almost all focused on mystical spiritualism), but Jesus is not exactly the only Bible character concerned with issues of social and economic justice. All of the first five books of the Torah (the Old Testament for Christians) talk a lot about justice for the poor; the Psalms are full of verses about the helping poor; every Old Testament prophet castigates the Jewish people (and yes, their governments) for mistreating the poor. And in the New Testament, there are some dynamite passages promoting progressive thinking aside from all of the Jesus quotations I mentioned. Three of my very favorites:

• In Acts 2: 44-45 says: "The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common: they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each are needed." My question: did Karl Marx quote that line directly, or did he come up with his each-according-to-their-own-needs doctrine on his own?
• Jesus' mother Mary says that Jesus will "fill the starving with good things and send the rich away empty" and will "pull the princes from their thrones and raise high the lowly." I guess the big guy came by his politics from his mom.
• Speaking of the big guy's family, in the Book of James, which is purportedly written by Jesus' brother (and scholars think there is a pretty good chance it really was), James really goes heavy into the class warfare stuff. In James 2: 1-13, there is an extended admonishment on respect for the poor and mercy. In 2: 5-8, he says it is the poor whom God chose to be loved, and the rich "who are always against you." In 2: 13, he says that "there will be judgment without mercy for those who have not been merciful themselves, but the merciful need have no fear of judgment."
• And in 5: 16, he condemns the rich again starting out: "Now an answer for the rich. Start crying, weep for the miseries coming to you... Laborers plowed your fields and you cheated them: listen to the wages you kept back, calling out: realize that the cries of the workers have reached the ears of the Lord."

Judeo-Christian scripture is a rich and complicated work of literature. Written over the course of (at least) several hundred years by dozens of different authors, there are a variety of perspectives and many times outright contradictions in the theology and the politics of the writing (if it's all inspired word for word by God, He seems to have changed his mind a lot). But one thing is extremely certain: the poor seem to be who God is most concerned about. Yes, there are a few quotations (four, if I remember right) trashing gay people, along with quite a few more about the right way to do animal sacrifice and to be careful about eating shellfish and hanging out with women who are menstruating. But mercy, kindness, and concern for the poor and the weak and the outcast seems to matter a lot more, with literally several hundred verses referencing those agenda items. If you are a progressive, that is a pretty good ratio.

Prince of Peace or Evangelistic Predator?

Jesus, Yes! Christ, No!

By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS
December 29, 2009
Courtesy of CounterPunch

Every Christmas the birth of Jesus is heralded with the hope of peace for the new year: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:14, New Testament, New Revised Standard Version). The irony here is that those “whom he favors” with “peace” often use their believed “exceptionalism” to justify making or supporting or accommodating war on those judged to be disfavored. The baby, for whom there was “no room in the inn,” ended up a “Savior,” who denies room to those who do not profess his name. The prophesized “Prince of Peace” is turned into an evangelistic predator.

Jesus taught that one of the two greatest commandments is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39). Conversely, an assumed resurrected Christ commissioned his disciples to make their neighbors like themselves: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28: 18-20).

Loving one’s neighbors as oneself is about calling them by their own names and thereby honoring them, not seeking to baptize them in the name of someone else. Love recognizes and empowers other people’s right to be who they are, rather than using belief in a “higher power” to gain power and authority over them. The very Golden Rule that guides love of neighbor as oneself is violated by an evangelistic need to do unto others as one would not want done to oneself. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is democratic. “Make disciples of all nations” is imperialistic and divisive. The one creates equality. The other inequality. Jesus, yes! Christ, no!

Most Christians seek to explain as a paradox the contradiction between Jesus and Christ—as if the two complement rather than conflict with each other. Such rationalizing is believed to be necessary to justify chosenness and war that trump humanness and peace. A favorite teaching of Jesus’ is a verse in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5: 9) Yet this revered teaching is undone by a bigger than life “Savior,” who declares that the only true “children of God” are those who believe that he alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life,” and that “no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) “Love your neighbor as yourself” serves to cushion and rationalize belief in an imperialistic Christ. Christianity suffers from a split, self-contradictory, forked-tongue theological personality. “Peace on earth” is embraced as is war on those who are not “favored,” whom today are called “Islamic extremists.”

Thus, a professing “Jesus died for my sins” Nobel Peace Prize recipient President Barack Obama can go to West Point Military Academy and, like former President George W. Bush, declare more war in Afghanistan in the name of peace. To a receptive audience of 4,000, mostly gray-uniformed cadets, Obama got away with telling falsehoods and distorting reality to justify his decision to send 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan. He began, “We did not ask for this fight,” reminded the cadets of the 9/11 attacks against America, said, the extremists “took the lives of innocent men, women and children without regard to their faith or race or station,” and stated, “Only after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden we sent our troops to Afghanistan.” (“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan,” abc NEWS, Dec. 1, 2009). In fact, on October 14, 2001, the Guardian reported, “President George Bush rejected as ‘non-negotiable’ an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.” Matthew Rothschild points out this fabrication and other of Obama’s West Point falsehoods in a telling editorial column on “Obama Steals Bush’s Speechwriters,” The Progressive, Dec. 2, 2009.

President Obama told the cadets that al Qaeda is “a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents,” and talked about a “new beginning between America and the Muslim world . . . that. . . promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity [italics added].” (“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan”) It is as if the millions of “innocents” killed and maimed and uprooted in Iraq by the Bush administration’s falsely-based invasion and occupation of Iraq never happened. As if the air strikes of US drones and bombers have not “slaughtered” thousands of “innocents” in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is as if US-armed and -backed Israel did not engage in “the slaughter of innocents” during its indiscriminate 23-day bombardment of Gaza last December, in which some 1400 Palestinians were killed, 446 of whom were children. Such tragic irony: descendents of the baby for whom “there was no room in the inn” are turning the rooms of Palestinian children into rubble. (See, “Childhood in ruins,” by Harriet Sherwood, foreign editor, guardian.co.uk, Dec. 17, 2009) Like the huge oil reserves in Iraq, it is as if Afghanistan is not “surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions . . . [and] ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to service much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia,” as William Blum writes in the Dec. 10’s Counterpunch. It is as if Christianity, another “of the world’s great religions,” has not been used to bless and accommodate the defilement and destruction of “innocent men, women and children without regard to their faith or race or station.”

Another of President Obama’s statements to the Military Academy cadets does violence to the truth: “Today, after extraordinary costs, we are bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end [italics added].” (“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan”) A week after that statement deadly bomb attacks rocked Baghdad, reportedly killing at least 121 people and wounding over 400. (The New York Times, Dec. 9, 2009). How can Obama “bring the Iraq war to a responsible end,” when there is no recognition that the Bush administration is responsible for committing a horrible war crime against the Iraqi people in invading and occupying their country?

Nine days after West Point, President Obama continued to reveal that he had no intention of “bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end.” In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he revealed his disconnect from reality in stating the “first . . . of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace”:

First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior—for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable.” (“Text of Barack Obama Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 2009).

The Bush administration broke international “rules and laws” in launching a criminal war against Iraq. In 2004, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned this unnecessary war as “illegal,” and the vast majority of people in “the international community” strongly demonstrated against it as well. The fact that the Obama administration has refused to bring the Iraq war “to a responsible end,” by “holding accountable” and prosecuting former President Bush and Vice President Cheney and others for their war crimes, speaks far louder than Obama’s rhetoric about the “three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.”

Back again at West Point, President Obama’s attempted rhetorical camouflage of reality became even more outrageous. He looked all those West Point cadets in the eyes and said about United States’ forward-moving partnership with Pakistan, “We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.” (“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan”). The United States provided “the guns” for and the pressure on the Pakistani army to attack Taliban strongholds, which has not “unleashed . . . the great potential” of the Pakistani people but the uprooting of well over 3 million of them. A majority of the Pakistani people see the United States not as a partner but as their enemy. (See Alberts, “The Self-Delusionary American Tragedy,” Counterpunch,

Nov. 23, 2009). Such a tall, tragic tale about “stand[ing] up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.”

One of the biggest lies President Obama told the West Point cadets is, “More than any other nation, the United States has underwritten global security for over six decades.

. . . Unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination.” (“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan”) Tell that to all of the governments the United States has subverted or overthrown, and to the oppressed people under all of the dictatorships the United States has supported and installed. Tell that to the citizens in some 130 countries in which more than 1000 US military bases are located. Global domination under the guise of “global security.” US imperialism that will not protect American security, never mind “global security.” Thirty thousand more troops to Afghanistan will not create more security for America but more enemies—and more war without end, which benefits those for whom war is profitable.

In that West Point Eisenhower Hall, President Obama’s falsehoods co-existed peacefully with the echoes of contradictory words repeated often in the venerable, almost century-old Cadet Prayer:

O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. . . . Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing . . . and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. . . . Make us chose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. . . . Soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. . . . All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of all. Amen. (www.usma.edu/chaplain/cadetprayer.htm)

“Great Friend” or “Master of all?” “Prince of Peace” or evangelistic predator? New-born baby or heaven-bound “Savior?” Liberator or indoctrinator? Enabler or controller? Good Samaritan or true believer? Jewish insurgent crucified as an “extremist” by Roman occupation forces for seeking to liberate his oppressed people, or “Messiah” resurrected from the dead by a Christian god to evangelize the world as the “Savior” of all? Jesus or Christ?

And beyond Jesus, all the other ways and truths and lives that empower and create community.

Rev. William E. Alberts is a hospital chaplain and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

Jesus's Birth Is A Myth Born Of Politics

Beautiful as it is, the story of the birth of Jesus is a myth born of the political needs of early Christians.

By Rev. Howard Bess,
Source: Consortium News.
Posted December 23, 2009.
Courtesy Of Alter Net

The Advent season is a fun time. For many Christians, it is the happiest season of the year. The joy comes from the anticipation: "Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king."

I do not desire to dim the lights of Christmas, but it might be helpful to some to hear what the stories of Jesus birth are really about.

There are four versions of the life of Jesus. We call them the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Only two of the versions say anything about the birth of Jesus.

Mark, the first of the Gospels, begins the Jesus story with Jesus as an adult. John, the last Gospel written, likewise says nothing about the birth of Jesus. Matthew tells the birth story in only a few short paragraphs. Luke's version of the beginnings of Jesus is four times as long as that of Matthew.

Those two versions are very different. Luke plays with a much larger cast. His flair for the dramatic is pronounced. He includes an abundance of poetry and music with the support of angelic hosts.

Reconciling the two versions has been tried by many, but never with success. They are two different stories. They each have their own distinctive version of the events that surrounded the birth of Jesus.

In attempting to understand the meaning of the birth stories, we ask some familiar questions. Who wrote the material? When did he write it? Why did he write it? For whom was he writing? What literary device was the author using?

The actual authors of the two stories (who wrote them down) are historically unknown. The stories were written 40 to 50 years after the death of Jesus. The reason the narratives were written is a bit more complicated.

By the time of the writings, Christians and Christian churches were under severe persecution by their Roman masters. The growth in the number of followers of Jesus was dramatic and had become a matter of concern to local puppet rulers.

Lord had become the title given Jesus throughout the churches. Calling someone "Lord" had the companion confession of servitude. For Christians of the late first century CE, Jesus was the true possessor and ruler of their lives.

Under the Caesars, Augustus and Octavian, the mantle of divinity was claimed for the Roman emperor. They claimed the titles Lord, Son of God, Bringer of Peace, and Savior of the World.

First century Christians remembered very well that according to Jesus "You shall love the Lord your God with heart, mind, soul, and strength." Jesus was their Lord. They did not have divided loyalties.

The ancient world was full of miraculous birth stories. It was a favorite way for rulers to claim divine rights. It was a literary tool that was waiting for early Christians to use to declare the divine specialness of the one they called Lord.

The birth narratives that were eventually attached to Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, were stories that were created and circulated to counter the claim of the Caesars to be divine and worthy to be called Lord. Every claim of specialness for Caesar was countered by the claim that all his titles belonged to Jesus.

The birth narratives are as much political treatise as theological statement. They cannot be found as a part of the earliest memories of followers of Jesus and make sense only in the context of their Roman oppressors claim for divinity.

For whom were the birth narratives written?

The intended audience was probably internal. The early church needed celebrations to remind Christians who they were. Communion and baptism became the tools to remember the death of Jesus and his resurrection. The birth narratives were the perfect base for a celebration of his coming into the world.

What literary device was used by the authors?

Broadly speaking the authors were storytellers. They were not historians. Their work cannot be understood as history.

The birth narratives are properly called myths. A myth by definition is any story or report in which God or a God is the primary actor. Angels, free-moving stars, dreams, and unexplained bright lights are a part of the tools of mythology. Christians and the world at large have not been served well by attempts to read the birth narratives as history.

Just as many children feel deceived when they find out Santa is not real, many Christians feel deceived when they conclude that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that a star did not travel through the sky and come to rest over a particular place in Bethlehem.

As a Christian, I embrace the belief that a loving God is active in the affairs of the world. I believe that Jesus from Nazareth is Lord. I believe he is Son of God. I believe he is Bringer of Peace. I believe he is Savior of the World.

These are the messages so beautifully told in the birth narratives. It doesn't matter whether or not Jesus was born in Bethlehem. When the birth stories are put into their broader historic and religious context, they become masterpieces of truth-telling and a witness to the joyful life.

Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net. This piece first appeared at the non-profit ConsortiumNews Web site.

Also of Interest:

• God's Divine Sperm? Lib Church Shakes Up Story of Jesus' Birth (AlterNet)