{"id":1780,"date":"2017-12-27T21:40:55","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T02:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2017-12-27T21:40:55","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T02:40:55","slug":"jesus-not-nice-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

During this Christmas season, when the image of the Christ-Child<\/em> is more visible than it is at any other time during the year, Christians would be well-served to come to terms, perhaps for the first time, with their Lord as He is actually revealed in the Bible\u2014as opposed to the 21st<\/sup> century liberal, Politically Correct sentimentalist fiction preached from most church pulpits.<\/p>\n

It is at once tragic and scandalous that the contemporary Christian church, in both its Catholic and Protestant varieties, regularly forgets its obligation to reject worldliness.\u00a0 Far too many of its leaders are \u201cof the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be of the world is to affirm the Zeitgeist<\/em>, the Spirit of the Times. Those who are \u201cwith the times\u201d may or may not be filled with conviction, but they can be counted upon to accept unquestionably the PC dogmas of the present generation.<\/p>\n

First, in its fear of incurring the wrath of its self-appointed guardians, the church leadership has twisted the Gospel in order to accommodate PC\u2019s elevation of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion over all other values.\u00a0 After all, to defy this Creed, or to be merely suspected of defying it, is to convict oneself of bigotry\u2014\u201cracism,\u201d \u201csexism,\u201d \u201cclassism,\u201d \u201cethnocentrism,\u201d \u201chomophobia,\u201d \u201ctransphobia,\u201d \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d and any and every other \u201cism\u201d and \u201cphobia\u201d in PC\u2019s catalogue of unpardonable transgressions.<\/p>\n

The Gospel\u2019s is now peddled as a message of Inclusion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s true, of course, that Christ extends His offer of Salvation to everyone <\/em>who will but avail themselves of it.\u00a0 In this sense, the Good News most certainly and literally is inclusive.\u00a0 However, it is no less true, no less Biblical, that there is another respect in which the Gospel is certainly, literally exclusive<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Anyone who refuses to accept Christ\u2019s saving grace will be excluded from His gift of eternal life.<\/p>\n

Jesus declared Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life.\u00a0 He is the Gate through which all who wish to enter Heaven must pass.<\/p>\n

This means that all non-Christians must, at some juncture (whether in this world or a Purgatory-style state), embrace Christ as Lord and Savior if they aspire to live forever with Him.\u00a0 They must become Christians if they want eternity.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s invitation<\/em> to Heaven is inclusive.\u00a0 Heaven<\/em> itself will be exclusive.<\/p>\n

Second, if the exclusionary character of the Gospel\u2019s promise is to be marginalized, ignored, or denied, then so too must the nature of Christ be marginalized, ignored, or denied.<\/p>\n

Jesus is the Incarnation of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made flesh.\u00a0 Since God is Love, so too is Christ.\u00a0 This much the Church continues to affirm.\u00a0 But it equates God with a one-dimensional, a worldly, feel-good, mushy-minded sentimentalist conception of what it calls \u201clove.\u201d<\/p>\n

From this perspective, Christ is never angry. He is unconditionally forgiving, forgiving the worst of the worst even when they don\u2019t ask for it.\u00a0 He is non-judgmental.\u00a0 The Jesus that is preached from many a pulpit spent His ministry talking about nothing other than tolerance, inclusion, and, of course, equality.\u00a0 To judge from the average sermon, Jesus was (and remains) fundamentally no different than the 21st<\/sup> liberal cleric delivering it.<\/p>\n

The Jesus spun from the imaginations of today\u2019s left-leaning ministers is as worldly as are the ministers themselves. \u00a0This Jesus is of the world, and the world from which he derives his identity is the present world, the world of PC that liberal theologians, scholars, and clerics are committed to reinforcing.<\/p>\n

Implicitly, the current church promotes a version of Marcionism<\/em>, the old Christian heresy that the Old and New Testaments affirm different Gods: the God of the Jews, of the Old Testament, is a God of wrath, an inferior being to Christ, the all-merciful God of the New Testament.<\/p>\n

In reality, however, Jesus of Nazareth is one and the same God that flooded the Earth, destroying every man, woman, and child other than Noah and his family.<\/p>\n

The Lamb of God, Jesus, is the same God who, repeatedly, either directly or indirectly brought about the deaths of scores of human beings (as well as their animals).<\/p>\n

Jesus is the same God who proclaims His utter hatred <\/em>for, not just some abstraction called evil<\/em>, but evil doers<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, God hates<\/em> those with \u201chaughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood [.]\u201d He hates <\/em>the person with \u201ca heart that devises wicked plans\u201d and \u201cfeet that make haste to run to evil [.]\u201d God hates<\/em> \u201ca false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers\u201d (Proverbs 6:17-19).<\/p>\n

Jesus is the same God who, in the New Testament, frequently promises to unleash horrific, agonizing violence upon the unbelieving\u2014non-Christians\u2014when He returns on the clouds of glory.<\/p>\n

In summary, the Christ-God of the Bible is anything but a \u201cnice guy,\u201d let alone a guy with whom the PC clerics who preach in His name would care to be associated.\u00a0 In being linked in any way to Jesus, such clerics know that their fellow travelers, the guardians of the secular, respectable world, would brand them as \u201chate mongers\u201d\u2014and worse.<\/p>\n

The Christ of the Bible, the Christ of faith, is most definitely not a person of our (Politically Correct) world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During this Christmas season, when the image of the Christ-Child is more visible than it is at any other time during the year, Christians would be well-served to come to terms, perhaps for the first time, with their Lord as He is actually revealed in the Bible\u2014as opposed to the 21st century liberal, Politically Correct…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus: NOT A Nice Guy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During this Christmas season, when the image of the Christ-Child is more visible than it is at any other time during the year, Christians would be well-served to come to terms, perhaps for the first time, with their Lord as He is actually revealed in the Bible\u2014as opposed to the 21st century liberal, Politically Correct…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-28T02:40:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy","og_description":"During this Christmas season, when the image of the Christ-Child is more visible than it is at any other time during the year, Christians would be well-served to come to terms, perhaps for the first time, with their Lord as He is actually revealed in the Bible\u2014as opposed to the 21st century liberal, Politically Correct…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2017-12-28T02:40:55+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html","name":"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-12-28T02:40:55+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-28T02:40:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/12\/jesus-not-nice-guy.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jesus: NOT A Nice Guy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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