Just Curious

Thomas a Kempis

I have started to read Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ. Great devotional classic. Everyone loves it. When I say everyone, I mean everyone from the humanist Catholic saint Thomas More to Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; from Mother Theresa to Billy Graham the famous salesman of Jesus* (not that I agree with any of their theology...)

*I guess why Billy Graham and his colleagues bug me is because it seems that they have turned religion from a painful spiritual experience of reprobation, convincement, conversion and sanctification to a simplistic signing of a religious ID card. Well Dr. Graham, sinners are redeemed not only by "believing" in the "atoning blood of Jesus" but also by a heartfelt faith in that blood, which, to true Christians, is the Light of Christ, that lead us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Anyone who has not gone through this conversion cannot see God, since they who "love not [their] their brother whom they hath seen, cannot love God whom they hath not seen."

I think it's time for the "religious left" to set up our own broadcasting network, and have our own TV evangelists preaching the Sermon on the Mount everyday, whenever Pat Robertson makes his ludicrous appearance, preaching the "atoning blood of Jesus" and more blood of the infidels, who are supposed to be roasting in a furnace in Hell as large as Texas, rather than the old time Gospel of "love thy neighbor as thyself."

posted by James Chang @ 11:49 PM