"You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of s---."
A friendly person e-mailed me after reading my review yesterday to ask my opinion on the above. Yes, altough I tend not to use the term "Christian", I am one. I usually just say "believer". I didn't comment directly on the lyric, because my main interest is the music - and, yes, I considered this tune a filler tune, not because of the lyric, but because of the tune. But if you read all the way through yesterday, I gave myself permission to allow all the tunes to grow on me.
Now to the point of the e-mailer's question. I consider myself a patriot, but nowhere close to the way it's being described by George Bush or the Christian community. In fact, I believe any Christian who supports the current efforts in Iraq is, indeed, a hypocrite. There was absolutely no reason for us to ever get involved in the internal politics of Iraq in 2001 or 2002 and beyond. You'll find Cheney & his crowd were trying to get Clinton involved in Iraqui politics way back in 1997 & 98.
The only reason that people try to believe that almost makes sense to them is the popular held belief in the demonization of Saddam Hussein. One could, within several seconds using the internet, discover 30-40 world leaders that are much worse than Saddam Hussein - one could even include George Bush in that equation because he used his military to attack a country without any provocation at all. And not a neighboring country, but one on the other side of the world. (Can you even imagine the names he would start throwing around if China decided to attack Brazil? )
There was no evidence either before or after Bush's choice to involve our military that anything he was saying was true. Just because he said it a lot, and said it a lot more, did not make anything he said true. During that time, there's no doubt in my mind he knew he was lying - he was directly quoting words that were available on the internet from Paul Wofowitz some 4-5 years earlier. Thus, there's no doubt in my mind he is a hypocrite - because he claims from time to time to be a Christian, yet he's willing to openly lie about something so serious it will costs many many human lives.
As a believer, I tend to trust more in the words of Jesus - love your enemies - turn the other cheek, etc etc. You know how many dead Muslims there are who will never get the chance to hear the simple truths of Jesus because we dropped bombs on them instead of sharing the good news? Here's one you'll never know or believe until you explore the CIA web site (both past and present) for Iraq - do you know how many Christian churches there were under Saddam Hussein's rulership? (many). Do you know how many are left there today? (zero). If you claim to be a Christian, you should know the answers to these questions - it's easy to find out. You can also find out how many Christians were in the upper levels of Saddam Hussein's government (many), and how many there will be under the United State's leadership (zero). The answer will surprise you if you haven't explored it already.
How about democracy? How about the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government? Well, let's think this through. Under Saddam Hussein every citizen had the right to bear arms. You know the stockpile of arms the show on the evening news? You know where they came from? Our military has been and will continue to conduct a house to house search for weapons. Under US leadership, a citizen of Iraq no longer has the right to bear arms. If they do they are considered criminals.
Think that through. Under Saddam anyone could bear arms. If they hated him so much, they had the ability amongst themselves to change the government. Did they really want or need us? A few people who could get not illegally get the riches they desired under Saddam, yes. But the masses - no.
There's too much to really discuss. Who built the infrastructure of Iraq the past 5.000 years? Iraquis. So why won't we allow them to re-build without American corporations making a profit along the way?
This is all simply about Iraq, but we can go back, way back before Bush went nuts about Hussein & see he was a hypocrite a long time ago. So are most people who call themselves Christians in the United States. There's an old song we used to sing before Christians went nuts with greed for worldly wealth - "they'll know we are Christians by our love". Show me the love. Most preaching from most pulpits has, within 10 minutes, demonized someone or some concept. Christians are taught to hate from the pulpit. It's sad.
So what Jagger wrote isn't news - it's something we've all known for a long long time. Nobody is keeping Christ out of people's hearts more than Christians. Look at the folks that attend church with you. Would they attract you to learn about the simple gospel of Christ's love? Now turn it in - would anyone believe that you actually trusted and followed the words of Jesus? Or are you simply making excuses for your behavior and the words coming out of your mouth? Just because your pastor said it, does that make it true? Just because James Dobson or some other "Christian" leader said it - does that make it true? Are you simply believing them because they have clout, or are you believing them because you've followed the words of Acts 17:11? Those words, to put them in the modern vernacular, is "Trust no one without screening their words with the word of God".
I can't be any blunter than saying no nation professing to follow the words of Jesus would ever start an unprovoked war. I personally even have doubts about joining in a provoked war (see world war one for example) - but that's another issue altogether.
Of course, only an idiot would look at the things we export and consider us a spiritual nation. Other nations see what we export - ask them what they believe of the United States. Ain't hard to find out these days with the internet.
The other line in the song is about patriots. The only patriots I see in Iraq are those who are willing to give their lives for the country they love - the Iraqui people who our press are choosing to call insurgents and terrorists. Very seldom in the press is it recognized that we are the invaders, they are protecting their country from the invaders. No member of our military who is choosing to follow orders in Iraq is a patriot. They are obviously not protecting US soil from Iraquis. Of course, if you take that s off of soil a better picture would emerge.
And for those who haven't heard me in the past - there were no Iraquis on the planes during the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. No Iraquis!!! Doesn't matter how many times George Bush & his administration has implied it - it will never be true. It won't take you 2 minutes on the internet to unearth the fact that they were Saudi Arabians. If there were free elections in Saudi Arabia even today, there is no doubt that Osama Bin Laden would win. Ever wonder why we haven't asked our Allies to hold free elections - yet we insist that our 'enemies' do?
Enough. I've made my share of enemies today =:-) It always amazes me how mad Christians get when they hear me talk about this. I call them all hypocrites - but that's nothing new. And for anyone that's wondering - yes, I do believe there are believers all over this earth, and some of them even attend the buildings that call themselves churches. Every single one is not a hypocrite - there are many many many whose whole live is centered around sharing the gospel instead of bullets. Amen! For the uninitiated, the word Church comes from "ek-clessia", which means the called-out ones. The ones who are called out from the world and tend to see through the eyes of the spirit rather than the heart of a man. Never perfectly, of course, but constantly in the state of perfecting. And one cannot be in the state of perfecting by denying the words of their Lord and Saviour. Amen? Amen!
