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The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive Thanks to Dean Brian Baker's blog for this gem from the 12/16/10 Colbert Report. Yep, the hypocrisy, inanity and pure crap coming from the conservatives is unbearable. The conservatives have never been more toxic. I wish America would 'wake up.' I confess that I winced when in the viddy baby Jesus, in the mythical birth story, was turned into a ham. Hilarious, but in a way that conservatives and fundamentalists are unlikely to appreciate - to say the least. By the way, note how Colbert's Jesus has gotten a hair-color job, as compared to the Jesus icon I am using in my "Weather and Whatnot" sidebar as an indicator of Jesus's birthday. It's either that, or I have the traditional [from the 50s] Scandinavian Jesus, as opposed to the Jewish...

M. Scott Peck, in his “Stages of Spirituality” from his book The Different Drum touches on the idea of what the statement “Jesus is my savior” would mean to people at different levels of spiritual growth. Peck expanded his view on how Jesus is a savior in an interview / book review by Ben Paterson , published in Christianity Today, timed for the release of Peck’s then-new book People of the Lie  (1985) . Quoting Paterson from the review: I asked [Peck] what he meant when he called Christ "Savior." He suggested that there are three ways to understand what it means to call him Savior. One way is to think of him as Savior in the sense that he atones for our sins. Peck termed that "my least popular level." A second way is to see him as Savior in the sense that he is "a kind of fairy godmother who will rescue you when you get in trouble as long as you remember to call upon his name." Peck believes that Jesus does just that. A third way to see Jesus as S...

Great doubt: Great enlightenment Little doubt: Little enlightenment No doubt: No enlightenment   — Zen Maxim From the stained-glass window of a church in Charleston, South Carolina: The father greets his younger son upon his return home. The  Book of Luke, chapter 15 , with its three parables, concluding with the  Parable of The Prodigal Son , is surely the most preached-about chapter in the Bible at the Union Gospel Mission. This is understandable since the prodigal son in the story easily serves as a representation of the typical congregant at the mission: someone who has left, or lost, his life to a period of waste and self indulgence. In the middle of the story, the son reaches his nadir. All the money has been spent and he is left in a terrible job and is destitute. He has an epiphany: I can go back to my father, not as his son (since I am shamed and sinful), but as one of his humble servants. 1 The story concludes with the son returning home, his father...

Most of the preachers at the Union Gospel Mission are talented and passionate and are empathetic (or, try to be) with the congregants.  A few, like Jimmy Roughton and Brett Ingalls, compose exquisite sermons, that have an arc leading to a point, and, in Roughton's case and in the case of those from Heart Talk ministry, love is expressed for guys they are speaking to, explicitly. But that leaves more than a few who clearly don't work very hard, if at all, at coming up with a sermon.  Often, what they have to say is blueplate fundamentalism, that wanders and can have no point, is mostly accusatory, and can focus quite a lot on the torment of hell.  For them, the finger wagging from an essay Mike Lux wrote is somewhat appropriate. This from Mike Lux's essay " How Do Christians Become Conservative? " in the Huffington Post [with emphases, mine]: Conservative Christians' primary argument regarding Jesus and politics is that all he cared about...