If you're a Christian who supports killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself. Over they years, I have made some jokes about Christian hypocrisy and people have come up to me trying to have the same conversation. So let me explain, capping thine enemy is not what Jesus would do. It's what Suge Knight would do.
For almost two thousand years, Christians have been lawyering the Bible to try and figure our how "Love thy neighbor" can mean "Hate thy neighbor" and how "Turn the other cheek" can mean "Screw you, I'm buying space lasers." Martin Luther King Jr. can call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies, and Gandhi was so fucking Christian he was Hindu. But if you rejoice in revenge, torture and war----hey, that's why they call it the weekend----you cannot say you're a follower of the guy who explicitly said, "Love your enemies," and "Do good to those who hate you." The next line isn't "And if that doesn't work, send a titanium fanged dog to rip his nuts off." Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick, with lines like "Do not repay evil with evil" and "Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you." Really. It's in that book you hold up when screaming at gay people.
And----not to put too fine a point on it-----nonviolence was kind of Jesus' trademark. Kind of his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales. There's interpreting, and then there's just ignoring. It's just ignoring if you're for torture, as are more Evangelical Christians than any other religion. You're supposed to look at that figure on the cross and think, "How could a man suffer like that and forgive?" not "Romans are weak; he still has his eyes." If you go to a baptism and hold the baby under until he starts talking, you're missing the message.
Like, apparently, our former president, who says he gets scripture on his Blackberry first thing every morning, but who said on "60 Minutes" that anyone who would question that Bin Laden deserved assassination should "have their head examined." Hey, Fox News, you missed a big headline: "Obama Thinks Jesus Is Nuts." To which I say, hallelujah, because my new favorite government program is surprising violent religious zealots in the middle of the night and shooting them in the face. Sorry, Head Start. You're number two now. But I can say that because I am a non-Christian---just like most Christians.
I'm just saying logically, if you ignore every single thing Jesus commanded you to do, you're not a Christian. You're just auditing. You're not Christ's followers, you're just fans. And if you believe the Earth was given to you to kick ass on, while gloating, you're really not a Christian. You're a Texan.
