If You Can Find a Better Deal, Take It!
01/06/2010
Someone mentioned Christianity on television recently and liberals reacted with their usual howls of rage and blinking incomprehension.On a Fox News panel discussing Tiger Woods, Brit Hume said, perfectly accurately:
“The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
Hume’s words, being 100 percent factually correct, sent liberals into a tizzy of sputtering rage, once again illustrating liberals’ copious ignorance of Christianity. (Also illustrating the words of the Bible: “How is it you do not understand me when I speak? It is because you cannot bear to listen to my words.” John 8:43.)
In The Washington Post, Tom Shales demanded that Hume apologize, saying he had “dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet.”
Is Buddhism about forgiveness? Because, if so, Buddhists had better start demanding corrections from every book, magazine article and blog posting ever written on the subject, which claims Buddhists don’t believe in God, but try to become their own gods.
I can’t imagine that anyone thinks Tiger’s problem was that he didn’t sufficiently think of himself as a god, especially after that final putt in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year.
In light of Shales’ warning Hume about “what people are saying” about him, I hope Hume’s a Christian, but that’s not apparent from his inarguable description of Christianity. Of course, given the reaction to his remarks, apparently one has to be a regular New Testament scholar to have so much as a passing familiarity with the basic concept of Christianity.
On MSNBC, David Shuster invoked the “separation of church and television” (a phrase that also doesn’t appear in the Constitution), bitterly complaining that Hume had brought up Christianity “out-of-the-blue” on “a political talk show.”
Why on earth would Hume mention religion while discussing a public figure who had fallen from grace and was in need of redemption and forgiveness? Boy, talk about coming out of left field!
What religion — what topic — induces this sort of babbling idiocy? (If liberals really want to keep people from hearing about God, they should give Him his own show on MSNBC.)
Most perplexing was columnist Dan Savage’s indignant accusation that Hume was claiming that Christianity “offers the best deal — it gives you the get-out-of-adultery-free card that other religions just can’t.”
In fact, that’s exactly what Christianity does. It’s the best deal in the universe. (I know it seems strange that a self-described atheist and “radical sex advice columnist f*****” like Savage would miss the central point of Christianity, but there it is.)
God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you’re in. Your sins are washed away from you — sins even worse than adultery! — because of the cross.
“He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” Colossians 2:14.
Surely you remember the cross, liberals — the symbol banned by ACLU lawsuits from public property throughout the land?
Christianity is simultaneously the easiest religion in the world and the hardest religion in the world.
In the no-frills, economy-class version, you don’t need a church, a teacher, candles, incense, special food or clothing; you don’t need to pass a test or prove yourself in any way. All you’ll need is a Bible (in order to grasp the amazing deal you’re getting) and probably a water baptism, though even that’s disputed.
You can be washing the dishes or walking your dog or just sitting there minding your business hating Susan Sarandon and accept that God sent his only son to die for your sins and rise from the dead … and you’re in!
“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9.
If you do that, every rotten, sinful thing you’ve ever done is gone from you. You’re every bit as much a Christian as the pope or Billy Graham.
No fine print, no “your mileage may vary,” no blackout dates. God ought to do a TV spot: “I’m God Almighty, and if you can find a better deal than the one I’m offering, take it.”
The Gospel makes this point approximately 1,000 times. Here are a few examples at random:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23.
In a boiling rage, liberals constantly accuse Christians of being “judgmental.” No, we’re relieved.
Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world because, if you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, you have no choice but to give your life entirely over to Him. No more sexual promiscuity, no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no killing inconvenient old people or unborn babies — no doing what all the other kids do.
And no more caring what the world thinks of you — because, as Jesus warned in a prophecy constantly fulfilled by liberals: The world will hate you.
With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don’t deserve it. It’s the best deal in the universe.
