Sunday 23 February 2014

"What would Jesus do?" - to Abbott re asylum seekers

I don't believe in god, but being as I was a raving lunatic Pentecostal when I was young and stupid, I do know rather a lot about Christianity. I've a bachelors degree in theology, and for a short time (before I woke up to my error) I was also a licensed minister in the church. Therefore it is with some mystification that I listen to Tony Abbott's version of Christianity:




WTF? Don't verbal Jesus? People have been doing that for 2,000 fuckin years FFS. Now we're supposed to accept Abbott's verballing of Jesus? (That is of course accepting the premiss that he even existed at all). Even a quick Google search brings up Christians who disagree with Abbott. One of Christianity's fundamental beliefs is to care for strangers and welcome them:
Abraham left his father’s land and sought asylum in various foreign kingdoms as he headed off to the promised land.

Joseph was a refugee to Egypt.

Moses led Israel out of Egypt as asylum seeing refugees. Israel was called to care for asylum seekers/the aliens in their midst, as God does, as a result of Israel’s experience as refugees. So Deuteronomy 10:

“18 He [God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

Their failure to care for the foreigner is listed as part of the reason they’re booted out and forced into exile again in Ezekiel 22…

“6 “‘See how each of the princes of Israel who are in you uses his power to shed blood. 7 In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.” more
There's also this handy illustration at that site:

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