{"id":646,"date":"2007-09-25T09:36:04","date_gmt":"2007-09-25T09:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jwalking\/2007\/09\/jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad.html"},"modified":"2007-09-25T09:36:04","modified_gmt":"2007-09-25T09:36:04","slug":"jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/09\/jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus introduces Ahmadinejad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You may have seen Columbia&#8217;s president, Lee Bollinger, introduce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. It wasn&#8217;t exactly a love-in. <object width=\"425\" height=\"353\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/tACSopIZVdk\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/tACSopIZVdk\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"425\" height=\"353\"><\/embed><\/object>That introduction plus all of the protests got me to thinking about how Jesus might have introduced Ahmadinejad. Would he have listed all of Ahmadinejad&#8217;s public policy sins? Would he have publicly challenged him on his horrific statements? His horrific policies?  Would he, in short, have sounded anything like President Bollinger?I don&#8217;t think so.My guess is that Jesus might have gotten up and said something like, &#8220;This is Mahmoud and I love him.&#8221; From there Jesus would, I think, have gone on to explain all that he loved about Mahmoud. Perhaps he would have used a childhood nickname or a pet name used by his parents. Maybe he would have talked about a few moments from Mahmoud&#8217;s childhood or teen years and used them as examples of the goodness in his heart. He would, I think, have broken down his life in front of him in a beautiful way. And I think that had Jesus done that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might have wept and embraced Jesus and given a very different kind of speech. How odd then to sit here as a man who tries to follow Jesus and realize that I need to think of Mahmoud in similar terms. It is not my right to hate him. Nowhere does Jesus give me that kind of license. I may not call him all the things that I want to call him. I may not yell at him for being a barbarian. No, I need to be ready to get on my knees and offer to wash his feet. That, I sense, is what the radical Jesus would have me do. It makes no sense. But isn&#8217;t that exactly the problem people had with Jesus when he first showed up on the scene? Didn&#8217;t they desperately want him to take down the Roman Empire? Didn&#8217;t they want their sometimes barbaric rulers to be destroyed? And didn&#8217;t they see Jesus as the answer to their problem?Jesus&#8217; solution, however, was rather different. He said he came to serve and not be served. He said that Rome should be given what Rome was due. He didn&#8217;t use his powers to change the Empire. He used to his life to change hearts.  He gave his life to give life.It is the Jesus paradox and it is why, I sense, he might have introduced Mahmoud with a kiss on the cheek. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have seen Columbia&#8217;s president, Lee Bollinger, introduce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. It wasn&#8217;t exactly a love-in. That introduction plus all of the protests got me to thinking about how Jesus might have introduced Ahmadinejad. Would he have listed all of Ahmadinejad&#8217;s public policy sins? Would he have publicly challenged him on his horrific statements?&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jesus introduces Ahmadinejad - J Walking<\/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\/jwalking\/2007\/09\/jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus introduces Ahmadinejad - J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may have seen Columbia&#8217;s president, Lee Bollinger, introduce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. It wasn&#8217;t exactly a love-in. That introduction plus all of the protests got me to thinking about how Jesus might have introduced Ahmadinejad. Would he have listed all of Ahmadinejad&#8217;s public policy sins? Would he have publicly challenged him on his horrific statements?&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/09\/jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-25T09:36:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Kuo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jesus introduces Ahmadinejad - J Walking","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\/jwalking\/2007\/09\/jesus-introduces-ahmadinejad.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jesus introduces Ahmadinejad - J Walking","og_description":"You may have seen Columbia&#8217;s president, Lee Bollinger, introduce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. 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