Jesus vs. Bush - Bush wins in a landslide

Okay a few more post election thoughts I need to get out.

I am beyond tired of hearing how Bush now has a mandate for his agenda. The man won 51% of the popular vote. That is a bare majority at best. Were the situations reversed and Kerry had taken 51% of the vote, he wouldn't have had a mandate either. Oh just because Bush actually won the election this time somehow that means it's a mandate. ARRRGGHH! This is a better rant about mandates than I could ever give, and I totally agree.

And I would like to get on my religious soapbox for a minute so listen up. Jesus was a thinker. I know it is somehow not in vogue to be this way anymore. As though contemplation and scholarship were somehow weak and immoral. I mean that was part of the problem with Kerry, wasn't it? The man thought too much. He didn't react and move immediately. He listened to the facts, weighed the issues, and made decisions accordingly. (Now I won't lie and say I was bowled over by candidate Kerry. I came of political age during the Clinton years and I saw him speak twice. That was charisma. Kerry didn't have that but I think he would have made a good president none the less.)

Now no one could ever call Jesus a flip flopper. (Not that most people knew what Jesus was actually saying since the man spoke in parables.) But I think it is fair to say he was not a man of action. He thought. He listened. He prayed. He spoke to large gatherings, and I'm sure not everyone there agreed with him. We only have a record of him ever really showing anger once when he overturned the tables on the money lenders in the temple. But some of his followers were very disappointed when he didn't turn out to be the war leading messiah they thought he would be. (Some even argue that this was why Judas turned him in to the authorities. Either in disgust that Jesus wouldn't do anything or as a way to try to get him to act. Obviously that didn't work.) Jesus didn't take on the authorities. He didn't tell the people not to pay their taxes. He didn't rescue them or lead them to safety the way many of them would have liked. Jesus spoke and hoped his words would lead others to change their minds, their hearts, their actions. Jesus spoke of the poor and suffering. He spent time with sinners and losers. He prayed for his enemies, he did not go out and slaughter them.

Now Bush is not a thinker. He will admit that readily. I'm quite sure he prays but does he ever listen? Bush is a man of action. He probably would have been very disgusted with Jesus were he of that time. No war? No overthrow of the war criminals? Jesus must be weak. His only true action was dying, a sacrifice for others. Bush only sacrifices others. (See Michael Moore's beautiful reaction to the election.) And I would bet that the same evangelicals that call themselves Christian would vote for Bush, a man of action and war, over Jesus, a man of thoughts and sacrifice.

This is not over. Not by a longshot. We may have a rough ride ahead of us but I guess at my core I am truly a follower of Jesus (hate to call myself Christian anymore, the term is so tainted) and I believe that if I pray enough, if I think enough, if I help enough, if I hang out with enough sinners, then maybe, just maybe I can change the world. And if I can't well, I will have at least changed myself. Jesus, forgive them, they know not what they do.