In Response to an article I published in this Newspaper entitled "Christians Eat Lions in 2004", I received the following email. I enjoyed the email and my reply so much, that I thought I would share it with you. While the email commenced with Dear Editor and was therefore probably intended for Ken Anderson, it was sent to me courtesy of the Email Address supplied at the end of the article. I have therefore not identified the Author.

THE RESPONSE:

The Problem with "Christians" in "Christians Eat Lions in 2004", By R.P. BenDedek , Nov 10, 2004, 04:29 is that all that glistens is not a rose.

I am a Christian, but, neither a born-again, evangelical, fundamentalist, heirarchical, prostheletizing, pontificating, Crusade-ing, segregating, "laying-on-of-hands", snake-dancing, Pro-War, "Pro-Life" (anti-abortionist) & Pro-Death (executionist), anti-social, "holier-than-thou", non-forgiving, avenging; nor, the hood-wearing & cross-burning kind, among all of theb others who make us up.

There are quite a few of each of those, of course, but they seem to be the least Christian of us all in their behavior. Those are certainly the most vocal ones and they are in the limelight perhaps because they are so colorful in our mediated culture. Their message is also fits easily into the sound bite culture -- Good vs Evil.

Unfortunately, it's really difficult to determine what's spiritually good and what's evil, in life. It's for each of us to determine on our own. That's why, in the struggle over souls, my Christian God has given us "free will" in pursuing our earthly course; but, not relinquished the judgment of our actions.

Those "Christians" who presume to judge in God's place, assume too much. They presume to speak for Christianity when they impose their judgment of others from their own limited understanding. If they were correct in this, there would be no need for God because we would be graced with them! No, thank you.

Their term, "Christian" is being used "politically" to unite highly discrepant groups with vastly divergent beliefs to act in concert to deliver on someone else's social agenda.

They (Mr. Dedek's "Christians") do not speak for Christ. They (Mr. Dedek's "Christians") do not speak for Christianity. They (Mr. Dedek's "Christians") do not speak for each Christian. They (Mr. Dedek's "Christians") do not speak for me.

They are, however, turning the tide and direction of Christian life in this country into something like what happened to Little League Baseball, something you wanted to participate in but the adult supervision was so contentious and competitive that you didn't want your children see or copy it. It had gotten a bad name, so now has "Christian", for largely similar reasons.

Now that I've poked serious offense by attacking two sacred cows, baseball and Christians, I don't know if you will still hear that I happen to love both. Some of my best friends play baseball. That doesn't change the fact that some of them behave very badly when they do. They should not be allowed to speak for baseball and what it should be, nor, should all Christians be willing to be spoken for by badly behaving "Christians".

MY REPLY

The article Title was the Title given in the source Document. "BY RPBenDedek" is automatically generated by the Article Manager (a machine). So the article was not MINE, and I don't speak on behalf of 'any' religion or 'any God' EVEN MY OWN.

Most people who spout off about religion (in my opinion) are dumber than my students, who, after of 4.5 years of English Grammar lessons for an average of 9 hours per week, Still don't know what 'Write this Down' means, let alone 'What is your name?' By Dumb of course I don't mean uneducated, I mean just plain stupid!

'Praise the Lord' and 'Hallelujah Brother' send chills down my spine while a 'Latin Hymn' is soothing, even if it represents everything theologically in opposition to my own theology.

All that having been said, any fool who doesn't stand up for what he believes in, is a FOOL, and if gays can have mardi gras, and preach the virtues of Gay marriage and Gay parenting, then any religious person of any persuasion who finds this repulsive but have never voted nor spoken out against such things is a 'dumb ass'.

You ain't no 'dumb ass' if for no other reason than you have spoken out. If you don't like the Christian extremists in America taking control of the government then do something about it, but if separation of Church and state is your thing, MOVE NOW before the Muslims take over, or worse yet, the government makes Homosexually Oriented Sex Education A PRACTICAL SUBJECT in order to placate the vocal minority AND before the HATE SPEECH LAWS get in place that effectively makes the USA worse than any communist regime.

As for me and mine, we cover the whole spectrum of all the religious nuts you mention and then some, with a 5 generational spread that went from Jewish,Catholic and Luteran, to No Catholics, One Jew, a couple of Muslims, a Buddhist, some Baptised in the Holy Ghost, unfortunately no snake charmers (by religion at any rate), some atheists who keep arguing with God, to the plain 'I don't give a Damn', to the last category "what does g-o-d stand for?". And we come in every colour of the rainbow - oh and sexual orientation (whew lucky I got that in - bases are all covered!)

While all that glistens may not be a rose, a rose by any other name still smells, and for those who suffer hayfever, they positively stink.

Thanks for the email, and one last point, even I know that the statistics in the original article are disputed by the media generally, which leaves the question begging, who and what the hell can you trust to be speaking the truth the whole truth or anything but the truth. "So HELP me God!'

I woke up at 4am after going to bed at 2am, felt hungry, cooked myself an egg and bacon toasted sandwich (don't tell the rabbi, - I took a 3 hour drive just to buy the damn bacon), and decided to open my mail.

I enjoyed your response and enjoyed even more MINE.

Thanks Again!

Additional Comment:

Hot off the presses is the latest Newsletter from Judson Cox entitled "Why the Democrats Lost". This newsletter goes first to subscribers before being listed at www.renewamerica.us/columns/cox and so is not yet available to the general public, but well worth the read when it is.

• Quote: Religion: 84% of the population of the United States is self-identified as Christian (CNN/Gallup 2002). Democrats think Christians are a greater threat to our nation than Islamic terrorists. They want all Christianity banned from public life, including all displays of the 10 Commandments, crosses and Bibles. They want 'under God' stripped from the Pledge of Allegiance, and 'In God We Trust' erased from our currency. Deeply held Christian beliefs are to Democrats what water was to the witch in 'The Wizard of Oz.'
• Quote: However, with the left so splintered, the Republican Party would achieve such dominance that America would essentially become a one party nation. Were this to happen, the accountability that our Founders built into our system would be lost. The potential for abuse under single party rule is simply too great. For that reason, I am going to offer Democrats some advice.

R.P.Bendedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (www.kingscalendar.com), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China. King's Calendar Social Commentaries

"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.