In Reply to: Re: Left and right (oops) here it is posted by sawyer on October 15, 2008 at 22:45:25:
Mr. Don, who would hardly call himself a lefty asked what the Christian left would be. I answered tongue in cheek. Am I such a bad writer that you missed my embedded sarcasm? Well I have a warped sense of humor.
We tend to filter God through our own eyes, our cultural bias. Jesus has been hijacked by everyone who makes Him out as one of their own. In India they claim he spent his years from 12 to 30 over there learning from masters. The Mormons claim that when he fasted for 40 days he spent them in North America preaching to the natives. In Egypt they claim He was there from 3 to 11. In Africa too. In Europe He was/is painted as blond-and-blue-eyed and in the Middle-east He was depicted as olive-skinned. I've seen an African Jesus, and a Japanese Jesus. I am always amused by the way the American right takes such ownership of Christianity, and see anyone left or left-leaning as automatically less Godly somehow. If you listened too closely to some of them you'd think Jesus was a warmongering Republican.
To me, He is neither left nor right. He is just himself, or whoever we make Him out to be. Isn't that what we call a personal relationship?
My uneasiness, not nervousness as you postulated, goes hand-in-hand with openmindedness and awareness that people can be eclectic and capable of making choices that don't go with the whole set. I've met rightwingers who had abortions. I've met communists who were devout Christians. I've met environmentalists who were heavy meat-eaters. I am only uneasy with the fact that "left" and "right" are inventions of politics, the need to (over)-simplify and convert people into manageable chunks. Just like fashion media is trying to decide for you what you should look like and how you should dress, political media is constantly trying to force you to be either left or right.