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[First, go read this speech by Bill Moyers, here.]
Hey, you, I'm talking to you.
That's right, you with the Left Behind books and the pro-Zionist agenda and the "End of the World is Near" signs. You.
Have you ever thought of, ever considered, that maybe, just maybe, you should actually read that Good Book of ours? (I say ours as a fellow believer in Jesus Christ, although not in that crap you're professing.) Rather than having someone tell you what's there? All of it, not just a few pages at the end and selected verses from Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans chosen to bolster your own prejudices. ALL OF IT.
You might find some pretty amazing things in there. Like Jesus saying "Keep awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour." 1 Get that? No one knows when the Day of Judgment is at hand. Not you, not Tim La Haye, not Jerry Falwell. It could be tomorrow, it could be ten years from now, it could be 200, or 2,000 or 20,000 years from now. No one knows. Even assuming that the Revelation to John could be read as some sort of road map to Armageddon (and many if not most intelligent Christians I know don't think it can) it means nothing. Similar things have happened in the past, and similar fervent believers have held the last days were at hand, yet here we are. We may one day see clearly, as Paul says, but right now we see only as through a glass darkly.2
Or try this on for size: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, Says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." 3 So you think you know what God is going to do? You think that by facilitating global destruction and unrest that you can hasten the coming end of days? What damned (and I mean that quite literally) presumption.
Remember what God said? How he gave us dominion over creation, to be good stewards?4 Sorry, Bub, but raping and pillaging the environment is not good stewardship. Trashing the planet to benefit the few (elect as you may see them, greedy as I do) while so many people suffer from poverty, despair, and hunger is the antithesis of what that man you claim to view as your Savior preached. Jesus came to give sight to the blind and release to the captive5 (and food to the hungry --- or have you forgotten that little loaves and fishes incident?6) not to help people who arguably already have too much in their lives get more. And I don't know about you, but I sure would not want to stand before my Maker and say, "Well, I thought it was okay to turn your garden of creation into a midden, and leave not just my children and grandchildren but all of yours a world ravaged by my excesses, because I thought you'd be coming by soon and lifting me up."
And finally, you might just want to consider what the prophet Micah (who, it is a sure bet, had God's word in his mouth more than you do) said: "And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 7
1 Matthew 25:13
2 1 Corinthians 13:12
3 Isaiah 55:9
4 Genesis 1:27-30
5 Luke 14:18-22
6 John 6:1-14
7 Micah 6:8
Hey, you, I'm talking to you.
That's right, you with the Left Behind books and the pro-Zionist agenda and the "End of the World is Near" signs. You.
Have you ever thought of, ever considered, that maybe, just maybe, you should actually read that Good Book of ours? (I say ours as a fellow believer in Jesus Christ, although not in that crap you're professing.) Rather than having someone tell you what's there? All of it, not just a few pages at the end and selected verses from Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans chosen to bolster your own prejudices. ALL OF IT.
You might find some pretty amazing things in there. Like Jesus saying "Keep awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour." 1 Get that? No one knows when the Day of Judgment is at hand. Not you, not Tim La Haye, not Jerry Falwell. It could be tomorrow, it could be ten years from now, it could be 200, or 2,000 or 20,000 years from now. No one knows. Even assuming that the Revelation to John could be read as some sort of road map to Armageddon (and many if not most intelligent Christians I know don't think it can) it means nothing. Similar things have happened in the past, and similar fervent believers have held the last days were at hand, yet here we are. We may one day see clearly, as Paul says, but right now we see only as through a glass darkly.2
Or try this on for size: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, Says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." 3 So you think you know what God is going to do? You think that by facilitating global destruction and unrest that you can hasten the coming end of days? What damned (and I mean that quite literally) presumption.
Remember what God said? How he gave us dominion over creation, to be good stewards?4 Sorry, Bub, but raping and pillaging the environment is not good stewardship. Trashing the planet to benefit the few (elect as you may see them, greedy as I do) while so many people suffer from poverty, despair, and hunger is the antithesis of what that man you claim to view as your Savior preached. Jesus came to give sight to the blind and release to the captive5 (and food to the hungry --- or have you forgotten that little loaves and fishes incident?6) not to help people who arguably already have too much in their lives get more. And I don't know about you, but I sure would not want to stand before my Maker and say, "Well, I thought it was okay to turn your garden of creation into a midden, and leave not just my children and grandchildren but all of yours a world ravaged by my excesses, because I thought you'd be coming by soon and lifting me up."
And finally, you might just want to consider what the prophet Micah (who, it is a sure bet, had God's word in his mouth more than you do) said: "And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 7
1 Matthew 25:13
2 1 Corinthians 13:12
3 Isaiah 55:9
4 Genesis 1:27-30
5 Luke 14:18-22
6 John 6:1-14
7 Micah 6:8
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