A Christian Commentary for the Self Righteous-Righteous

When I listen to the religious dogma, the politicization of Christianity, and the judgmental and self-righteous things coming out of the mouths of those who profess a personal relationship with Christ, I think to myself, "Excuse me, but did Jesus let you borrow His copy of the The Lamb's Book of Life?"

Hmmmm?

Now for those of you who don't understand the reference, the Book of Life is a book spoken of in the Bible that number the believers of God, those who have eternal salvation. To my knowledge this book has really exclusive readership... I mean, I've never read it myself, but I imagine that it is written in an extinct dialect of old Aramaic; or  maybe it's in a vault in heaven's library being guarded by the fiery sword of an Archangel; or just maybe- and this is pure conjecture here- God sleeps with it under his pillow for safe keeping, I really can't say. All I know is that this book is waaaay too important for some bigoted preacher, wayward politician, random loud-mouth, or anyone to own a personal copy.

But the way some people talk they really could have fooled me...

If you ask these people who apparently have access to the book, they will tell you exactly who is headed to the lake of fire for eternal damnation-- pro-choice advocates, the gay couple next door, U.S. soldiers, the liberal media, Catholics, Planned Parenthood supporters, Democrats, New Yorkers, you name it.

They’ll even tell you that they took a peek at the O’s and President Obama is definitely not in the Book of Life… as a matter of fact, in the place where his name would be (were he eligible for the pearly gates), it actually says, “see ANTICHRIST on The Devil’s Scroll...”

Now when I hear hateful (hate-filled), judgmental jargon, and reckless condemnation floating around in our public discourse, I think about how these hate/fear mongers are actually modern-day Sadducees and Pharisees. I’m sure that in the Bible days, you could not convince Senators- I mean Sadducees-  and Pharisees that they weren’t headed straight to heaven, but Jesus called them hypocrites who shut off the Kingdom of Heaven from others, but would not enter the kingdom themselves. In other words, while they were busy trying to bar others from the promises of God they only succeeded in barring themselves.

You'll have to forgive me if this sounds a little preachy because that is certainly not my intent. What I'm trying to say here is that no one among us, not even Glen Beck, knows the hearts of men; however, we can examine our own hearts, speech, and actions. We love to pose the "what would Jesus do?" scenario, but that question was answered thousands of years ago when Jesus walked the earth, effectively establishing the official record of "what He would do." From what I've read, there was nothing about the life of the man that had anything to do with blind hate and condemnation. Even the adulturous woman was offered salvation from her condemners by him. While Jesus walked the earth, he could not be bothered with those Sadducee/Pharisee (read: super "church-tacular, judgementally") types and he was crucified because of it, so don't be fooled by those people whose ways do not reflect the ways of the man they claim to represent.

So, my fellow Christians, let's show some love to all of God's children (even the wayward sons and daughters) and stop acting like you own the God-approved Book of Life. As a matter of fact, go ahead and  throw away that bootleg copy of The Lamb's Book of Life you've been holding on to... you know you bought that thing for $2.99 from a Jamaican street vendor in Brooklyn... ;-) 

Happy loving and happy living!