posted on December 23, 2004 07:01:40 PM new
Nick Coleman: The gospel truth about some readers
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
December 17, 2004 NICK1217
Many people say Christians are under siege this Christmas from godless types who want to give us a black eye. I don't buy it for one simple reason: No one knows how to give us Christians a bigger black eye than the people who call themselves Christians.
This week, a number of my fellow Christians took time from worship to criticize a column I wrote about the homeless. They didn't write to tell me about their concern for the 8,000 homeless in Minnesota or the fact that half of them are women and kids or that 100 of them died this year.
No, they wrote to say that even though we will always have the poor with us, as Jesus said, that doesn't mean those poor buggers shouldn't get out of the way of our SUVs.
"These homeless are bums, nothing but leeches on society," wrote a guy who signed himself Trav. "If we could push a button and make the homeless die and disappear without repercussions, nearly everybody would do it. I would. Good riddance."
(I am saving that e-mail for the police in case they ever need to study the Internet address from which it came).
I expected a certain amount of bum-bashing from nominal Christians who can love their neighbor as themselves only if their neighbor is a hot number. But what surprised me was the angry letters from people who were offended that I ended my column with a biblical Christmas story:
"After all," I wrote, "Once upon a time, a homeless couple came to Bethlehem, looking for shelter."
I was referring to the gospel story of Joseph and Mary, who was heavy with child, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem (60 miles by donkey) to be numbered in the census ordered by Emperor Augustus. Finding no room in the inn, they were forced to stay in a stable, where Mary delivered Jesus.
I thought it was pretty straightforward: The Gospels stress the strong identification Jesus had with the poor. But sharp-eyed Christians saw through the scriptural smokescreen to reveal my agenda: There I went again, shoving liberal dogma down their mouths. Thankfully, the righteous are smart. Especially the self-righteous.
"Your allegation that Mary and Joseph were homeless is just a plain lie," wrote Jerry. "They were no more homeless than you would be if you showed up at a posh hotel without a reservation and were turned away."
Oh, that could never happen, Jerry. If my servants screwed up a reservation, I would have them flogged.
"Joseph and Mary were NOT homeless," wrote Steve. "They were forced to go to Bethlehem by Caesar Augustus, who undoubtedly was the world's first liberal Democrat."
Wow, that's right (picture me slapping my forehead)! It's coming back to me now: Caesar built the Roman roads, conquered Gaul and traded on his friendship with Jesse Jackson to get appointed secretary of labor in the Clinton administration!
All I was trying to do in my homeless column was draw a timely connection between the poor and the Christmas story. This was a connection the nuns drew sharply for me in my formative years. And as I have written about the poor for the past 20 years, it has always been with the echo in my head of what the nuns told me Jesus had said: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
But dang me, I left out the important part: Mary and Joseph weren't homeless; they were just being shoved around by Democrats. And it's only because the Democrats have been laid low by Republicans that we are hearing anything about homeless scum now. That's what one Christian columnizer wrote on the Wall Street Journal online opinion site Thursday, citing my homeless column in little old Minneapolis as proof of a four-year-old prediction that the Democrats would crank up homeless stories if George W. Bush were elected.
I guess inoculating yourself against stories about a problem is easier than doing something about a problem.
But my bad: I personally persuaded hundreds of people -- lots of kids, too! -- into leaving their warm homes so they can stand in the cold every night to see if they get a cot in a church basement or have to sleep in a ditch. Some of them are quite vexed with me and have told me they plan to become wealthy contributing writers to the Wall Street Journal, as soon as they get some hot grub into them.
But back to Mary and Joseph and a babe who slept in the hay.
"They weren't homeless," wrote David V. "If I went to the Super Bowl the day before the game and couldn't find a room and didn't know where I could stay -- then I'm homeless?"
Yes, David. For a night. You also might need closer supervision.
I guess the point these compassionate Christians are trying to make is that Jesus wouldn't give the homeless a second glance if he came back. And you know what? They might be right. Jesus might walk right past the homeless, the poor and the sick, and march straight into our churches.
posted on December 24, 2004 07:08:56 AM new
Nice column, a c and p worth reading for a change. Thanks!
____________________________________________
Dick Cheney: "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11..."
posted on December 24, 2004 11:38:15 AM new
Actually, Mary & Joseph had a home, and they were in fact required to go to Bethlehem for the census that was being taken. They were NOT homeless. But the author is missing the bigger point:
Jesus WAS homeless.
He lived entirely by the generosity of others. Now, obviously, he had unique skills to repay his hosts, but he technically was homeless for his entire adult life.
Jesus would have been all for caring for the insane and the hopeless and the helpless. He would NOT have been supportive of helping drug addicts and gang members. There are homeless and then there are the needy.
Jesus would not have supported our welfare system. Look at Paul, arguably the most important (or second if you count Jesus himself) person in the history of Christianity. He had an incredibly important job to do to set up all those churches. But he still managed to support himself as a tentmaker. Church-building was his "night job".
[ edited by replaymedia on Dec 24, 2004 11:39 AM ]
posted on December 24, 2004 12:50:48 PM new"...He would NOT have been supportive of helping drug addicts and gang members. There are homeless and then there are the needy."
You're kidding, right? That's the most narrow-minded thing you've ever said, Replay.
posted on December 24, 2004 12:59:22 PM new
" That's the most narrow-minded thing you've ever said"
No, I could do much better
But I probably could have worded that better. Yes, Jesus would want to HELP them. He would want to cure their addictions and stop the gang-behaviors. What I meant was He would not want to SUPPORT them or allow them to continue in that kind of lifestyle.
Most homeless shelters don't do anything to solve the problem or actually help those people. All they do is give those people someplace to stay. that is NOT a solution. Everyone talks about helping the homeless, but homeless shelters don't do a lot to help.
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Replay Media - The best source for board games, card games and miniatures on the web!
posted on December 24, 2004 02:02:23 PM new
In Replay's self-righteous reply he not only missed the entire point of the OP but said that homeless shelters do little to help.
Well, last night is was below zero and homeless shelters gave warmth, food, and a place to sleep for men, women, and children who would've been cold and hungry otherewise, maybe even frozen to death.
Homeless shelters do what they can. They do not provide a permanent home, money or a college education to the needy.....there are no funds for that. But they DO help.
THEY do what YOUR Jesus instructed.....
To assume that all homeless people are in that position by choice is ignorant, cold, inhuman and un-christian....
..or is it un-christian ?
Sounds like SOME "christians" despise the poor.....and can't quite grasp what their Jesus was preaching......
posted on December 24, 2004 08:22:38 PM new
I think I was VERY clear on the distinction between the poor and the want-to-be-homeless-because-they're-lazy group.
I don't hate the poor. At the rate I'm going, I'm probably going to be poor someday. But I do -resent- the lazy people who make a living off of welfare and charity simply because it's easier than working.
There's no HATE involved anywhere there. The only oned spewing HATE around here are the usual suspects.
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posted on December 25, 2004 12:54:48 PM new
Replay says,"But I do -resent- the lazy people who make a living off of welfare and charity simply because it's easier than working"
Replay, do you also resent multi-millioniares who make a living off the backs of poorly paid workers?
Do you resent huge corporations who have off-shore addresses and pay NO income taxes? Who are handed government(YOU pay for it) contracts and then pay no income taxes (which YOU have to make up for)?
What is that if not CORPORATE WELFARE.
And these people aren't doing it so they can eat or find a warm place to sleep ...they don't need any more money......they are only doing because they can.
posted on December 25, 2004 01:31:45 PM new
Crow, serious question... are you OK? I don't have family (just Mr. Kraft), so I have an excuse to be here babbling, but what about you? Are you going to have someone to spend the holidays with?
I think you have a good heart but I'm curious as to why you come off so angry. Are you? Not at anyone in particular, but in general. If it's none of my business, that's OK. Just checking with no offense meant.
posted on December 25, 2004 02:03:03 PM new
Oh Kraft, you'll have to pardon me for laughing but your concern is ill-placed. If you knew how I'm enjoying today...I FINALLY have NOTHING to do....a day with nothing but playing on the computer, eating(WE just had a huge dinner), walking in a light snow, and murder mysteries stacked next to the sofa.
No, I don't celebrate Christmas....it really is NOT the only day in the year to be festive and happy, I have plenty of those at MY discretion....NOT society's...I never was comfortable in a herd of sheep.
Angry? Yes, I am angry about the condition of this country and the world. This is very constructive anger...the "get off your butt and DO something about it" anger....the good anger that gets things done. I like to light fires under people who think life is fine and dandy just because THEIR'S is.
The kind of anger that sends emails to my employees(congressmen, senators, representatives) and let's them know what I think is right.
The kind of anger that speaks out against wrongs and then DOES something to help.
The anger that wells up when reading a racist post in here and then finding no one else cares!
Don't get it confused with the "bad" anger...anger over nothing that festers until it hurts you.
Remember, not much would've happened throughout history, good or bad, if no one had ever gotten angry.
Besides, if you want to see anger go shopping right before Christmas and watch people's behavior.....that's the bad kind of anger. Listen to a police scanner over the holidays...there's bad anger and LOTS of it.
Something I never feel.
PS: Kraft, I just watched an interview with Elizabeth Taylor. After learning Rock Hudson, her friend, was dying of AIDs she became angry...angry because no one understood AIDS , there was no research, AIDS pateints were isolated. She became so angry she helped raise millions of dollars for AIDS research. People who never feel this kind of anger are dead inside and I'm not.
posted on December 25, 2004 04:29:43 PM new
I'm glad to hear you're having a nice relaxing day, Crow. Me too! I cooked dinner for Mr. Kraft and Mr. Ex-Kraft (men love me). I can hear them eating like pigs in the livingroom. How a person can eat that much food in one sitting is beyond me.
I certainly understand constructive anger, but I also know people who think their anger is constructive when it's not. In my experience, the people who come off the most angry actually are - not at the subject at hand, but about deep-rooted stuff that comes out as anger in every subject they include themselves in. That's how you appear to me. And even though your core message is always a good one imo, it's usually hidden in between all the insults aimed at the people who you don't agree with. That makes you look narrow-minded, which I don't think you are.
And sure, the world will never run out of jerks but again, imo, acting angry, whether you are or not, makes you (meaning any person) part of the problem and not the solution.
posted on December 25, 2004 04:38:47 PM new
"Replay, do you also resent multi-millioniares who make a living off the backs of poorly paid workers"
No, why should I? I don't have to support them. In fact, they support the majority of people who work for a living. I never got a job from a poor man.
"Do you resent huge corporations who have off-shore addresses and pay NO income taxes? Who are handed government(YOU pay for it) contracts and then pay no income taxes (which YOU have to make up for)? "
No. I believe the corporate income tax should be abolished entirely. What happens when a corporation makes a profit? Two possibilities:
A) They invest it in new equipment and new jobs.
B) The stockholders get it, who then either spend the money in our economy or reinvest it, causing result (A) from above.
It's not like these corporations make their profit and then keep it forever. Money's no good unless you use it for something.
A basic economics course should be a requirement for a high school education.
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posted on December 25, 2004 04:59:29 PM new
Gee Kraft, I didn't know you had a degree and were a successful pyschologist......maybe you could do a diagnosis of everyone here! But , of course, it wouldn't work because you have already decided how they are and you wouldn't believe a word they said about themselves because YOU know better......I bow before the all-knowing Kraft!
However, I just suspect you're very sly and devious with how YOU insult people....I guess I'm a little more straightforward.
Now, want my opinion of a woman doormat who not only cooks for, and waits on, her husband but also her ex-husband ?
No, you don't.
posted on December 25, 2004 05:09:01 PM new
Replay says, """"No, why should I? I don't have to support them."""
Replay, when they don't pay their fair share of taxes people like you and I have to make it up....we support them....look it up , do some research that isn't sponsored by Republicans.
"""Do you resent huge corporations who have off-shore addresses and pay NO income taxes? Who are handed government(YOU pay for it) contracts and then pay no income taxes (which YOU have to make up for)? "
No. I believe the corporate income tax should be abolished entirely.""""
Then why not abolish it for us , too??
""""What happens when a corporation makes a profit?
Two possibilities:
A) They invest it in new equipment and new jobs.
B) The stockholders get it, who then either spend the money in our economy or reinvest it, causing result (A) from above. """""
Replay, When a corporation makes a profit they invest it in 90 foot ocean going pleasure cruisers and Ferraris. New jobs? What new jobs?
posted on December 25, 2004 05:17:13 PM newKraft, I just watched an interview with Elizabeth Taylor. After learning Rock Hudson, her friend, was dying of AIDs she became angry...angry because no one understood AIDS , there was no research, AIDS pateints were isolated. She became so angry she helped raise millions of dollars for AIDS research.
She managed to raise money and awareness and aid in her cause and somehow did it all without insulting people or calling them names. She is an admirable woman and there are important lessons to be learned from her methods.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Residents of Samaritan House didn't know what to expect when the bearded, middle-aged man parked his sport utility vehicle in front of the downtown homeless shelter Christmas Eve.
The man walked into the building, pulled out a thick roll of $100 bills and began passing them out to each of the approximately 300 residents.
When he was finished, he had given out $35,000.
"It was like seeing Santa Claus and God all at once," said William Chengelis, who has lived at the shelter since November. "You hear about stuff like that but you don't think you'll be there when it happens."
As a crowd gathered, the man said he had once been homeless and knew what it was like to be in need. He did not identify himself and said only that he lived in Denver and had also distributed money at a Las Vegas shelter.
Possibly the man's biggest single donation was $5,000 to a family of six to find housing. Louis Quezada, Tessa Wittner and their four children had been living with Quezada's parents but were thrown out after an argument. They had been in the shelter several days.
"He asked if he gave us the money, would we get a house with it," said Quezeda, 23. "We said yes."
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
[ edited by bunnicula on Dec 25, 2004 05:26 PM ]
posted on December 25, 2004 05:33:11 PM new
"a corporation makes a profit they invest it in 90 foot ocean going pleasure cruisers and Ferraris"
A corporation is a paper entity. I have NEVER seen one driving down the road or in a boat. Do you mean the STOCKHOLDERS buy these things? Yes they do.
Spending money is GOOD for the economy, whether it's poor folks buying food or rich corporate management buying luxury yachts, that money still feeds the economy. Rich people tend to spend a LOT more money than poor people, and there's no way to argue that.
"they don't pay their fair share of taxes people like you and I"
Why should they pay taxes at all? Corporations are merely one cog in the machine of the economy. If the corporations didn't have to pay so darn many taxes, fewer jobs would be moving overseas.
"do some research that isn't sponsored by Republicans"
This argument is so totally BASIC to the SCIENCE of Economics that I don't NEED to do research. This is not a partisan issue, it's an economic one. We don't need to lower corporate income tax, we need to ABOLISH it.
Actually, I prefer the proposed Fair Tax Bill. Nobody's going to say THAT's Republican influenced.
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Replay Media - The best source for board games, card games and miniatures on the web!
posted on December 25, 2004 05:39:01 PM newWhy should they pay taxes at all? Corporations are merely one cog in the machine of the economy.
All of us are merely cogs in the machine of the economy. Yet we pay income taxes. Corporations should do the same.
If the corporations didn't have to pay so darn many taxes, fewer jobs would be moving overseas.
Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Corporations, with rare exceptions, don't give a damn about anything but making money. If they can pay workers overseas many times less what they pay workers here, they will. And with a government that sees absolutely nothing wrong with exporting jobs, that isn't likely to change.
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on December 25, 2004 05:49:22 PM new
Fenix says,"She managed to raise money and awareness and aid in her cause and somehow did it all without insulting people or calling them names. She is an admirable woman and there are important lessons to be learned from her methods."
I assume you're addressing me, classicrock, parklane, libra, twelve, linda, extexbill, stonecold, yellowstone, bear, maggie, kraft, neoroter, and all the others who use insults in their posts.
What have YOU learned fenix?
posted on December 25, 2004 05:53:15 PM new
" And with a government that sees absolutely nothing wrong with exporting jobs"
Crow tried to steer this into a politcal thread, but it's not gonna happen. I agree with you- the jobs going overseas need to stop. The only way this is going to happen is to make it more attractive for the companies to stay here.
And yeah, Bush's Economic policies suck. But so do those of the the Democrats.
NO elected politician can do the right thing anymore and even HOPE to get re-elected. Social Security reform? Income tax reform? Tort reform? It'll take a miracle to get anything fixed. There's just too much spin in Washington.
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Replay Media - The best source for board games, card games and miniatures on the web!
posted on December 25, 2004 05:54:57 PM new
It still amazes me that people in here can become upset over name calling and blow off a racist remark like it was nothing.....talk about skewed values, no prinicples, amoral, lacking in ethics , un-christian....but , oh, they don't call names.....what nice people!
posted on December 25, 2004 06:37:14 PM new"Gee Kraft, I didn't know you had a degree and were a successful pyschologist......maybe you could do a diagnosis of everyone here! But , of course, it wouldn't work because you have already decided how they are and you wouldn't believe a word they said about themselves because YOU know better......I bow before the all-knowing Kraft!"
Yes, I do have a degree but it doesn't take one to figure you out. Contrary to what you might think, I get along with everyone here because I treat people the way I want to be treated. As for bowing to me, sure, if you like.
"However, I just suspect you're very sly and devious with how YOU insult people....I guess I'm a little more straightforward."
Wrong. I'm not devious and I don't insult people. Not many people here do but if they do, it's mostly for fun. You just don't get that part.
"Now, want my opinion of a woman doormat who not only cooks for, and waits on, her husband but also her ex-husband ?" "No, you don't."
Why, would your comments be as positive as the rest are? ( ) The people in my life mean the world to me and I'm thankful that they've chosen to have Christmas dinner with me. Maybe after they've finished burping and watching tv, I'll give them both a bj.
posted on December 25, 2004 06:52:40 PM new
"Maybe after they've finished burping and watching tv, I'll give them both a bj. "
LOL
gotta ask one question-how do you and your ex get along so well?-have to admit having your ex over for diner with your hubby is a little bizarre. I'll say one thing you're unique.
[ edited by classicrock000 on Dec 25, 2004 06:53 PM ]
posted on December 25, 2004 07:46:50 PM new
Classic - it must be a trend on the board. Profe also has reported including his ex in both Christmas and Thanksgiving.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 25, 2004 08:05:45 PM new
Fenix-with his current wife? I know ex's get together for various reasons(kids etc) during holidays but usually their current spouse isnt with them.
