eileen fleming

After the inaugural ceremony in Alabama at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church, when Gov. Robert Bentley blew so much idiot wind this Christian-who is running for House of Representatives in Florida- went into a state of reflection regarding his statement:

"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister."

In the gospel [good news] told in Mark 3: 31-35, the mother of Jesus, his sisters and brothers arrived at the house where he was teaching.

Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him out. The crowd around Jesus told him, "Your mother, sisters and brothers are outside asking for you."

Jesus replied, "I am here with my mother, sisters and brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother."-Mark 3: 31-35

It was the Hebrew prophet Micah who instructed, "What God requires, He has told you o'man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord." -Micah 6:8

Being just means being correct, true, accurate, right and fair.

Merciful is to have, feel and show compassion; that sense of viscerally feeling the pain of another and being moved to help.

Being humble is knowing yourself and that good and evil also cut through every human heart.

All Christians-from the most fundamental to those left of the progressives-are connected to the other as a sister and brother in the mystical Body of Christ and it is a most dysfunctional family.

No church owns Jesus, no religion owns God and "Christ, you know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be. The way things are going they're gonna crucify me."-John Lennon

But as a citizen of conscience and lover of my brother Jesus I cannot be silent and so, I also address the Editor-in-Chief of SOJOURNERS Magazine, the Evangelical Jim Wallis whose latest book, The Great Awakening was written with hope to wake up institutionalized Christians to a rebirth that would heal, mend and transform "the biblical scandal of poverty around the globe and here at home, the crisis of environmental degradation and climate change that pose a threat to God's creation, and to the multiple assaults on human life and dignity that shame our world." [Page 12, Feb. 2008, SOJOURNERS]

Wallis seeks revival, but this Christian of The Beatitudes, has been calling for a second American revolution based on the wisdom and common sense that founded this republic:

"Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion... The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Tom Paine

Wallis proposes Seven Principals and Rules of Engagement for Christian political involvement in the world:

1. God hates injustice.
2. The kingdom of God is a new order.
3. The church is an alternative community.
4. The kingdom of God transforms the world by addressing the specifics of injustice.
5. The church is the conscience of the state, holding it accountable for upholding justice and restraining its violence.
6. Take a global perspective.
7. Seek the common good.

All seven points are well and good and I wish Jim much luck and hope and pray he does indeed arouse the multitudes of Christians that the Western institutions have failed!

Too many churches in the USA have become places to socialize, be entertained and patted on the back just for doing the minimum of what is required if one claims to be a Christian. I also contend that churches have become big business's that help maintain the status quo and I am not alone!

Reverend King, Jr. challenged his “fellow clergymen” from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama:

"Few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. Too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

"There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."'

"Small in number, they were big in commitment and by their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

"If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twenty-first century."

The gospel-which means good news, that Jesus preached, was very political and a direct challenge to the politically powerful and the arrogant, self-satisfied, self-righteous teachers of the law.

Two thousand years ago the Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry.

When Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me," everyone back then understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.

In the latter days of Nero's reign [54-68 A.S.] through the domination of Domitian [81-96] Christians were persecuted for following the nonviolent, loving and forgiving Jesus. That Jesus was first left behind when Augustine penned the heretical Just War Theory!

Augustine was the first Church Father to consider the concept of a Just War and within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be baptized Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began.

With the justification of war and violence supplied by Augustine’s Just War Theory, wrong became right. Nothing much has changed in two millennium, for in today’s Orwellian world politicians claim the way to peace is through war and that nuclear weapons provide protection.

American money claims 'In God we Trust' but the truth is America's faith is in an out of control Military Industrial Security/Surveillance Complex that seeks domination, power and control over any who would defy and challenge the American status quo!

Fifty years ago in his Farewell Address President Eisenhower warned US not to bind our economy to the Industrial Military Complex but like most prophets, he was ignored. Read more...

In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and thus, those who had been considered rebels and outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. Jesus’ other name is The Prince of Peace, and with the marriage of church and state, his true teachings were reinterpreted. The justification of warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted what Christ modeled and taught. Jesus was always on about WAKE UP! The Divine already indwells you and all others. Christ taught that to follow him requires that one must love ones enemies; one must forgive those who hate, curse and revile them, without even a thought of payback.

Christ lived a life that proved evil can be opposed without being mirrored, and that the cycle of a “tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye”, will never bring peace and justice. Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught –and all Christians never served in the army but instead willingly suffered rather than inflict harm on any other.

The term Christianity was not coined until three decades after Christ walked the earth. Until the day of Paul, followers of Christ were called members of The Way; the way being what he taught!

Christ was never a Christian, but he was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up [intifada in Arabic] for he challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were: sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.

What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces, by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant!

Clement, Tertillian, Polycarp and every other early Church Father taught that violence was a contradiction of what Christ was all about. There have always been those Christians who spoke out against this corruption of scripture and they have been ignored, reviled, rejected, mocked, persecuted and maligned throughout time. There have always been Christians who have never abandoned the true teachings, such as the Quakers, Mennonites, some Catholics and Protestants have been faithful witnesses to Christ by denouncing violence and caring for the poor. There have also always been Jews, Muslims, atheists, anarchists, secularists, rebels and revolutionaries who have lived lives that embody the message of Christ; for they have done what Jesus really said, and that remains most revolutionary!

Christ, you know it ain't easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They're gonna crucify me -John Lennon

Institutionalized Christians may well crucify me for claiming that too many who attend 21st century American churches have re-crucified Jesus, because what they really worship are institutions and pages in the Bible!

All institutions are man made and the Bible was not FAXED in from heaven, it was written down after centuries of the oral history being passed down. Whenever stories are retold, they change, and we all know this if we have ever played the childhood game of Telephone. Scribes were imperfect human who made many mistakes as they recopied texts and some also added their point of view and even left out what they chose to.

The most decisive event in the history of Christendom occurred when Emperor Constantine accepted the Christian faith, for an earthly king now protected those who had once been persecuted. Both a patriarchal monarchical state and church were formed at the same time. Power struggles and debates were common among the early Christians. Individual churches determined which texts were read, and they all had their favorites. Constantine sought to unite his empire, and uniting the church was a savvy political move. He announced he would pay for fifty illuminated copies of scripture to be bound, and thus the biblical canon was established and sealed. There was fierce debate among the bishops about what should be included and what left out.

The proto-orthodox, who had now become the dominant voice, determined what was heretical for everyone. The proto-orthodox demanded much-loved scripture to be burned, usually because it did not fit their understanding of God. We know more today about how diverse Christianity had once been with the discovery of the Nag´ Hammâdi Library. Read more...

I may just get crucified for this, and so be it which also means AMEN; but I contend that there is a cult within The Body of Christ in the USA that worships the Government and pages in the Bible, and I say it is a cult of the dead!

Just because the canon was sealed, does not mean that God stopped talking to his creation and ALL people can hear Him/She in their own conscience!

Nonbelievers are my cousins and they also are the children of God!

I contend that God has spoken and continues to speak thorough pure hearts and open vessels; such as poets, musicians, critics, dissidents and rebels.

St. Paul, never failed to express his freedom of speech and he warned the followers of Christ, NOT to judge the unbeliever but to provoke the believer onto good works. My hope and prayer is to provoke the believer to the way to mend, heal and repair the flabby Body of Christ by reconnecting US to our very roots in the land where Jesus walked and taught that it is the peacemakers who are the children of God; not those that starve, bomb, torture or occupy others!

The Christian EXODUS from the so called Holy land-is in pieces; Bantustans and has rendered their numbers from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% since 1948!

They are NOT fleeing just because of militant Muslims, but because of a brutal, inhumane military occupation aided and abetted by US policy and tax dollars which denies them their human rights as it ignores international law!

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and all the prophets said, "You will recognize the believers in their having Mercy for one another, and in their Love for one another, and in their Kindness towards one another; like the body, when one member of it hurts, the entire body hurts."

Every individual Christian is but one cell in the cosmic Body of Christ, "So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." -Romans 12:4

"Its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part [of The Body] suffers, every part suffers with it."-1 Corinthians 12:25-26

John Lennon penned The Wedding Ballad Of John & Yoko a few weeks after their 1969 marriage and then held a bed-in for peace to awaken the world via a media event to the abomination of the war in Vietnam. Using the global stage John said:

"Yoko and I are quite willing to be the world's clowns; if by doing it we do some good. And I'm saying peace. The struggle is in the mind. We must bury our own monsters and stop condemning people. We are all Christ and Hitler. We want Christ to win. We're trying to make Christ's message contemporary. What would he have done if he had advertisements, records, films, TV and newspapers! Christ made miracles to tell his message. Well, the miracle today is communications, so let's use it."

And as Reverend King, Jr. said:

“Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God.”

And as the first candidate of the Citizens of Conscience party running for House of Representatives from Florida, I sing the song another Floridan- Tom Petty sang three days after THAT DAY we call 9/11:

“You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down!

Tom Petty-I Won't Back Down

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Eileen Fleming,

A Citizen of Conscience for House of Representatives
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Staff Member of Salem-news.com
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com

Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"

Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" and BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010

http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming

Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine