Athanasius, Pope Leo, Sting, and the God Who Laughs Last:

---

Athanasius, Pope Leo, Sting, and the God Who Laughs Last:

A Monologue on Providence

 

The Man Without Permission

They said Athanasius was African. Then they added—almost apologetically—“but no known image of him exists.” As if history itself needed to clear its throat before proceeding. No face. No portrait. No complexion to debate. Only a voice. And yet his nickname survives the centuries: the Black Dwarf. Explain that to me.

---

A Voice Against Empire

He was Bishop of Alexandria—under pressure, under empire, under threat. He was asked to soften the truth, to make it more palatable, more negotiable. He answered by sharpening it. Christ is God. Period. A simple sentence, and yet a theological earthquake.

For this, they exiled him—once, twice, five times. Five removals. Five attempts to erase a conscience. Five efforts to delete truth by distance. But truth is stubborn like that. It kept sneaking back into the city. Athanasius returned again and again, not because he was powerful, but because what he carried could not be buried.

---

Doctrine Without a Face

All the while, there was still no image of him. No statue. No fresco. No face to venerate or contest. Just “Bishop of Alexandria.” Just fire. Just doctrine standing barefoot before empire.

---

History Clears Its Throat Again

History, as it does, fast-forwards. A balcony in Rome. White smoke. A new Pope. And then history clears its throat again and adds—almost casually—“by the way, his grandparents were Black.” Do you see it yet?

The faith that left Africa, that later came to be labelled the White man’s religion, returns wearing a fisherman’s ring. Speak, Lord. Your true servants listen.

---

The Humour of God

I have long suspected that God possesses the greatest sense of humour imaginable—the kind that waits centuries before delivering the punchline. For reasons I cannot fully explain, the closing lines of Sting’s Wrapped Around Your Fingeralways accompany this thought: Soon you’ll find your servant is your master, and you’ll be wrapped around my finger.Somewhere along the way, I realise I have travelled from Athanasius to a Police song, without meaning to.

---

Empires and Plot Twists

Empires love scripts. God prefers plot twists. They crown truth with thorns. They bury it under doctrine. They seal the tomb. And God waits. Then, in the fullness of time, He whispers—almost gently—Reverse it.

Not by force. Not by violence. Not by protest. But by time. Time is God’s last card.

---

The Long Reversal

Athanasius without a face. Leo with Black grandparents. And a God who keeps folding history until all pride is laid low before His throne, until the margins become the message, until the servant becomes the master.

---

Following the Sound of Laughter

And I laugh. Because how did I go from Alexandria, to the Vatican, to a singer from Wallsend? I followed the sound of laughter. God’s laughter. The God who always laughs last.

I rest my case.

— Don Kenobi
#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue
#RestInPeacePopeFrancis

The Forgotten Doctrine of Virtue [Video]

The Forgotten Doctrine of Virtue:

Grace, Martin Luther, and the Divine Masterplan

by Don Kenobi

---

“What do you think of Martin Luther?” I asked the Oldman one day.

“What I think of Martin Luther?”
He nodded slowly, for what felt like a very long time, before he began.

“Martin Luther… he did what he had to do. The 95 theses and all that. My honest opinion is simple: every Christian ought to revert to the Catholic Bible, because Martin Luther had no authority, divine or otherwise, to remove books from the same Bible he used during his priestly formation.”

To be clear, I do not share the subtle bile hidden in plain sight among some contemporary Catholic commentators. Perhaps it is because, as an African, I believe strongly that the schism which broke the Church into Catholics and Protestants was ordained by God for two reasons.

One: to check the excesses of the Catholic Church.
Two: to raise men of greater personal virtue, who would then raise others, who would challenge and eventually end the slave trade.

What am I saying?
That the schism was ordained by God so that a part of His body would, in due season, be outraged enough by the slave holocaust to work for its abolition. Because God is always on the side of suffering humanity.

---

God and Suffering Humanity

“About suffering humanity: some forty years ago, listening to the BBC, a wise old man, his name long forgotten, was asked:
‘On whose side is God?’

He answered cheerfully:
‘God is always on the side of suffering humanity.’

This was during the long Palestinian Israeli conflict. That answer became an article of faith for me. It cleared my eyes. It taught me that God does not care about religion. He is always on the side of suffering humanity.

---

Saul of Tarsus and the Priority of Virtue

“Consider this: if God cared about religion the way people imagine, how do we explain Saul of Tarsus?”

A non-Christian.
A man who actively supported the killing of Christians.
Yet he became the most revered of the early disciples.

He never met Jesus in person. There is no explanation except the simplest one:

When dealing with men, God does not care about religion.

“What does He care about? Let me guess two things.
One: that He created man in His own image.
Two: that while any man still breathes, he remains part of His divine masterplan.”

---

The Murderer on Death Row

“There is the story of a French prisoner executed decades ago for murder, now on the path to canonization.”

On death row he underwent a profound transformation.
Between crime and death, he found his way back into God’s masterplan.

What was his religion before he killed a man? Whatever it was, it failed him. On that basis God should be bothered by the failure of the religion, not the actions of the man.

But religion is only a lamp to illuminate our paths as we trudge the steep narrow way.

“Could the Almighty frown on any religion that illuminates the paths of men or women on that narrow way? I leave you to answer that.”

Back to the convicted man. His religion had failed him, but it was not charged with the murder he committed. And the murder did not stop him from finding his way back into God’s masterplan.

What value then was his religion at that point?

A famous hymn says:

“Just as I am, I come to Thee.
Myself I cannot better make.”

We cannot make ourselves better.

Every Christian understands this: all who wish to be better must come exactly as they are to Jesus, the fountain of living waters.

Just come as you are.
He will do the rest.”

---

The Bold Claim About Virtue

“For as long as any human being still has the possibility of coming to Jesus, how could God care primarily about their religion?”

Come. Just come.
Let Me wear a new nature on you.
Without that new nature we cannot have a relationship.

“I make bold to say that what matters to God is virtue, often heroic virtue, with which we conduct our lives, regardless of religion.”

What is virtue?
Simply the quality of being morally good.

There are virtuous people in every religion on earth, even among so-called heathens. Likewise, there are people in every religion with no virtue at all.

---

Virtue and Being Known by Name

“I believe that being virtuous is a prerequisite to being known by God by name.”

Jesus called Saul, an unbeliever, by name.

Was Saul virtuous? I leave you to answer.

Being virtuous, however, is not enough to place us inside God’s masterplan. A lump of clay by itself is not useful. Virtue is like the quality of the clay that attracts the potter.

“He scoops it up and leaves the dirt.”

“Virtue is the right soil quality.
It brings you to God’s attention, your personal advertisement.”

As Saint Peter says:

Just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.

---

The Virtuous Pagan

Catholic theology contains a concept that addresses a difficult but necessary question:

What of those who never encountered Christ, were never evangelized, yet lived lives marked by moral integrity?

The tradition answers with the idea of the virtuous pagan.

Virtuous is a strong synonym for righteous.
Related words include conscientious, honorable, upright, pure, and spiritual, all descriptors of a life oriented toward moral truth.

---

A Pauline Paraphrase

To paraphrase Paul the Apostle:

“Those who obey the law will be declared virtuous in God’s sight, even if they were never instructed in it.”

The Scriptural Source (More Exact Wording)

Paul writes in Romans 2:13-14:

“For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.”

What Paul Is Saying (Plain Sense)

Paul is dismantling a dangerous assumption: that possession of religious instruction automatically guarantees righteousness.

It does not.

What matters is obedience to moral truth itself, whether that truth is encountered through revealed Scripture or through conscience.

Put simply:

• Hearing the law ≠ righteousness
• Claiming the law ≠ righteousness
• Doing what is right = what God recognizes

---

Why the Concept of the Virtuous Pagan Is Necessary

Because history confronts us with men and women of undeniable moral stature who lived outside the boundaries of biblical revelation, yet embodied discipline, humility, justice, and truth.

Figures long admired, even by Christian thinkers, include:

• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Marcus Aurelius, whose private journal on self-discipline and humility remains one of history’s great meditations on character.

The doctrine of the virtuous pagan does not diminish Christ. It affirms something equally unsettling and profound: God is not mocked by labels. He judges the heart, and the life it produced.”

---

My Ancestors at the Time of Christ

“Now set aside the famous names.”

Consider my ancestors at the time of Christ. They lived along some great river, Niger, Nile, it does not matter.

They never heard of Christ.
They never heard the Ten Commandments.
Yet they lived according to the same universal precepts of virtue.

How?

Because every known precept of virtue appears across Scripture, Tradition, and world philosophy.

---

Lumen Gentium and Salvation

“Can such people be saved? And if so, how?”

Lumen Gentium, one of the most important Catholic documents of the last century, addresses this directly.

Those who do not know Christ through no fault of their own, yet sincerely seek truth and obey conscience, may be saved by the grace of Christ.

Not because of virtue alone,
but because Christ’s grace can reach them even without explicit knowledge of Him.

---

The Wedding Banquet and Virtue

“The Parable of the Wedding Banquet speaks to this mystery.”

A king prepares a feast.
The invited guests refuse.
He sends servants to the crossroads.
They gather the good and the bad.

But one man is found without a wedding garment and is cast out.

Virtue can be seen as the wedding garment.

It is what makes them acceptable before the king.
It is what allows them to sit in the seats abandoned by the first guests.

And who were the first guests?

You and I.

---

The Forgotten Heart of Christianity

“Nothing is more important than virtue.”

Any theology that diminishes the need for virtue, uprightness, and righteousness is anathema.

When Jesus said:

Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness,

He was pointing to virtue, the wedding garment.

---

Grace and Virtue

“What about grace?”

Grace requires no effort. It is a gift.
But virtue is different. Virtue is developed through diligent practice.

What we do repeatedly, we become.

Aristotle said:

“Excellence is never an accident.”

Replace excellence with virtuousness and the meaning remains the same.

Without virtue you cannot have a personal relationship with God.

Can we have a relationship with God solely through grace?
The answer is not gentle: absolutely not.

---

The Gold Coin Story

“I give a beggar a gold coin and ride away.”

That is grace. A gift.

But how can I have a relationship with him? I never see him again.

The possibility of a relationship lies in what he does with that coin.

Does he help others?
Does he transform lives?
Does he become known for generosity?

One day I hear of him.
I realize it is the man I blessed.
I seek him out.
Call him by name.

He could reject me.
Or he could embrace me.

Only then do we have a relationship.

Grace is transformed by virtue into a relationship.

---

Clay, Grace, Virtue

“Grace is the lump of clay.
Virtue is the skill that shapes it into something worthy.”

Luke 13 makes this clear:

“We have eaten and drunk in your presence.”

That is grace.

But Jesus calls them workers of iniquity.
The opposite of iniquity is virtue.

Jesus effectively said:
“Depart from me, you virtueless one.”

---

Workers of Virtue

“The surest way to make God know your name is to be a worker of virtue.”

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Virtue is works.

---

Back to Martin Luther

“Back to Martin Luther.”

He had no authority to remove books from the Bible used in his own priestly formation.

He once wrote of the Apostle James:

“I will not have it in my Bible. Jimmy mangles the Scriptures.”

Many non-Catholics are alarmed that Catholic Bibles have more books.

But it is the Protestant Bible that has fewer.
Let that sink in.

---

Don Kenobi

Started in Rome: 27 December 2023, 07:30 GMT+1
Completed in Luton: 30 December 2023, 09:03 GMT

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/0-iijVSDDXI

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The Known Precepts Of Virtue - Across Scripture, Tradition, & Philosophy.

Known Precepts Of Virtue

Across Scripture, Tradition, & Philosophy.

Human beings across centuries, continents, and religions have disagreed about many things — but not about virtue.

Wherever you look, from Scripture to classical philosophy, from Yoruba proverbs to Confucian texts, from the desert fathers to the Stoics, certain precepts appear again and again. They are the moral grammar of humanity.

Below is a synthesis — not a list of abstract ideals, but living precepts that every serious moral tradition, in one way or another, has recognised.

1. Consistency Between Word and Life

The oldest receipt of virtue is simple: your life must match your mouth.

Scripture says:    By their fruits you shall know them.

Aristotle insists: Virtue is a habit, not a moment. We are what we repeatedly do.

Yoruba wisdom sums it up:    Iwa l’ewa — character is beauty.

Where a sermon contradicts ancient wisdom, the sermon is a lie.

2. Capacity for Restraint

Every tradition teaches restraint as the essence of moral adulthood.

Power without violence.
Emotion without hysteria.
Anger without sin.

A person who restrains themselves has conquered the most difficult enemy — themselves.

This harmonizes with the classical virtue of temperance, the Stoic demand for self-mastery, and the Confucian pursuit of propriety (li).

3. The Ability to Tell the Truth — Especially When It Costs

Virtue never manipulates fog. It prefers clarity, even when clarity hurts.

Not cleverness. Not brilliance. Just truth, spoken plainly.

Jewish ethics calls this emet (truth). Islam calls it sidq (truthfulness).

Where truth is absent, virtue has already departed.

4. Compassion Without Self-Worship

True compassion is never a performance. It gives quietly, feels deeply, acts wisely, and refuses to center the self in the story.

Scripture simply calls this mercy — the clearest expression of the heart of God.
African Ubuntu calls it humaneness.
Buddhism recognizes it in “Right Intention” and “Right Action.”

5. Courage That Does Not Depend on Applause

Crowd-based righteousness is counterfeit.

Virtue stands when standing is costly.
Vice always seeks a chorus.

Aristotle called this fortitude, the golden mean between cowardice and rashness.
Christian tradition sees it as the courage of the saints, the strength of those who “stand having done all to stand.”

6. The Ability to Admit Wrong and Make Restitution

Nothing exposes the fraudulent faster than the inability to acknowledge fault.

Greeks called this sophrosyne — soundness of mind.
Christianity calls it repentance — not emotional regret, but correction.
Jewish ethics ties this to tzedek (justice).
Islam pairs it with amanah (trustworthiness).

Virtue pays its debts.

7. Justice Without Partiality

A major test of integrity: can a person judge fairly even when their own tribe is involved?

Every great tradition insists on this:
• The Bible demands justice “without respect of persons.”
• Islamic virtue (adl) commands fairness.
• Ubuntu’s restorative justice refuses tribal blindness.

Vice hides behind “my people.”
Virtue refuses that comfort.

8. Stewardship Instead of Consumption

How a person treats power, money, the weak, the environment, and institutions reveals their moral maturity.

Virtue builds; vice devours.

This resonates with:
• the Christian call to stewardship,
• the African ethic of communal responsibility,
• the Stoic emphasis on duty,
• the Confucian vision of harmonious social order.

9. Humility That Does Not Announce Itself

Humility is not self-erasure. It is simply the refusal to be the center.

Virtue does not need a spotlight. When humility must be signaled loudly, the receipts are usually missing.

Confucius calls this xin (trustworthiness) and propriety.
Christian tradition exalts humility as a heavenly virtue.
Jewish anavah captures its quiet strength.

Real humility is never declared by the self; it is observed by others.

10. Forgiveness Without Foolishness

Virtue forgives — but virtue is also discerning.

Forgiveness without memory is gullibility.
Discernment without forgiveness is cruelty.

To hold both together is wisdom.

Buddhism calls this balance “Right Mindfulness.”
Christianity calls it mercy with discernment.
Ubuntu calls it healing with sobriety.

11. The Fruit of Peace

Every long moral tradition has noticed this: virtuous people carry peace into a room.
Vicious people carry agitation.

You can fake kindness.
You can fake generosity.
You cannot fake peace.

Peace is the natural fruit of a well-ordered soul — the Romans called it tranquillitas animi, Scripture calls it “the peace that passes understanding.”

Classical and Theological Virtue Frameworks

These lived precepts echo the major virtue systems across history:

·      The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance.

·      The Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity — orienting the soul to God.

·      Confucian Constant Virtues: Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi, Xin — benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, fidelity.

·      Aristotelian Golden Mean Virtues: Courage, Generosity, Truthfulness, Magnanimity, Good Temper.

·      Stoic Virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Justice, Temperance.

·      Islamic Akhlaq Virtues: Patience, justice, chastity, gratitude, truthfulness, trustworthiness, mercy.

·      Jewish Mussar Virtues: Kindness, humility, truth, discipline, righteousness.

·      Buddhist Eightfold Path Virtues: Right thought, right action, right speech, right intention, etc.

·      African Ubuntu Virtues: Humanness, compassion, community, harmony.

·      Modern Civic Virtues: Integrity, responsibility, tolerance, accountability.

The Universal Core:

Across all these traditions, three precepts appear everywhere:

Truth

Justice

Courage

From these flow every other virtue:

Prudence,
Mercy,
Compassion,
Holiness, Integrity, 
and Love.

These are the pillars on which civilizations rise.
The qualities by which souls are measured.
And the only lasting proof of moral credibility in a chaotic world.

- Molue Research Paper

The Priest Who Offended the Narrative

Calling Everything Genocide Helps No One

Because we hate to think, because we hate to solve problems, we keep reaching for easy answers. Little pigeonholes into which we cram the complex problems that torment us.

Thus, while the Romans built aqueducts two thousand years ago to supply their cities with water, Lagos — two thousand years later — still cannot provide water for its citizens. Not just Lagos. Not a single city in Nigeria.

And now we have a new villain. The Governor of Benue State. The state most affected by the alleged genocide.

The Christian community attacks him because he dared to question the “Genocide Against Christians” narrative.

Here is a priest.
A Catholic priest no less.
Being accused of betraying his own people…

How bad must things get before they get any better?

We have sunk to a level of depravity where the murder of a young girl in church by terrorists was celebrated simply because she had said, days earlier, that there was no genocide.

Deeply troubling.

We have a problem.
We cannot solve it.
So we attack anyone who questions our definition of the problem.

Yet that is precisely the issue — our definition of the problem.

Here is what I found when I engaged a Virtual Research Assistant:

Quote:
If terrorists:
• attack for ransom
• attack for land
• attack for resources
• attack for political leverage
• attack to punish the government
• attack indiscriminately
• attack everyone they see regardless of identity

It is not genocide.

It may be:
• war crime
• crime against humanity
• terrorism
• ethnic cleansing
• mass atrocity

…but not genocide.
Unquote.

What does calling it “genocide” automatically do to help solve the problem?

Yet those who insist on calling it genocide will not, even for a millisecond, consider that what is happening in Gaza might also be genocide. They have a neat little reply: “But they started it.”

It is exasperating — this scourge of self-hatred that finds expression in hatred for others.

I am frightened by all this, and if I were a Muslim, even more so.

This is what we Christians excel at —  and what we have perfected RANK HYPOCRISY.... 

We have adopted the mindset of Christian Supremacy, a mirror-image of White Christian Nationalism, and have become foot soldiers of its hidden agenda.

Can we please press the RESET button?
Take a deep breath?
And choose to say or think only what can make things better —
what can make better things?

#dk

Azusa Street: The Last Witnesses: Rev. Cummings & Sister Maddie

Azusa Street: The Last Witnesses: Rev. Cummings & Sister Maddie

Watch here: https://youtu.be/qFC6vou4Ahg?si=So7E1gndnOyR67lf

Transcript of Video:   "A conversation with the last surviving eyewitnesses of the greatest revival in modern church history. Two precious Black saints — including Reverend Cummings, who has now been gone to glory for almost twenty years — left behind these memories. These recordings were misplaced for a long time, it seems, but what they contain is priceless.

Today is an exciting day to be alive, standing right here in Los Angeles, just a short walk from City Hall. Behind us is a hotel; around us, modern buildings. But on this very urban site, a movement once shook the world. Something happened here that changed the face of Christianity.

One of the foremost authorities on the charismatic movement is with us today to tell the story of what happened on this spot from 1906 to 1909 — the years of the Azusa Street Revival.

The building is long gone now, but the memory remains: one of the greatest revivals in church history, the birthplace of a worldwide Pentecostal movement.

For three years — day and night — people gathered here, worshipping, praying, and receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. From this place, men and women went out into all the world to spread the flame.

Let’s introduce our guests. It is an honour to have them here, because they were there when it happened. These are the only known survivors of that mighty move of God.

First, Sister Maddie Cummings, who attended the meetings as a little girl.

Next, Reverend Laurence Kentley, pastor of the Church of God in Christ in Pasadena, California. He, too, was present at the revival. Few voices remain who can speak from first-hand experience.

The Testimony of Sister Maddie Cummings

“I was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church,” she recalls. “They built a new church on Eighth Avenue. But I had tuberculosis — a terrible experience — and someone told my mother about a mission where people were prayed for and healed.”

She asked her mother to take her.

“They laid hands on me and prayed. Not only did I feel different, but doctors later confirmed it. That was seventy years ago.”

What Azusa Looked Like in 1906

This part of Los Angeles was just a two-block street near City Hall — a downtown neighbourhood.

The leader was William J. Seymour, a humble Black holiness preacher from Texas. He had come out of a revival in a Nazarene church, where he had experienced the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues.

The first outpouring began at a house on Bonnie Brae Street.

Crowds grew so large that the porch collapsed under the weight of those gathering to pray and sing.

They moved to an abandoned Methodist church on Azusa Street — a rundown building used as a warehouse. Inside that old, weather-beaten structure, God lit a fire that circled the globe.

People came from all over the world to see for themselves what God was doing.

What They Taught and Experienced

“What did they teach here?” the interviewer asks.

Sister Maddie replies:

“They taught that you must be saved, then sanctified, and then filled with the Holy Ghost — evidenced by speaking in tongues. Every gift you read about in the Bible was present: prophecy, healing, and more.”

There were no elaborate programmes, no printed orders of service.

“No one ever said, ‘Now we’ll have the preacher,’” she continues. “Someone would simply stand up as the Spirit led. And when things needed to settle, Brother Seymour would pray until the Spirit of God filled the room again.”

Crutches lined the walls — left behind by people who had come needing healing and left walking.

Languages, Miracles, and Mission

People often spoke in real languages they had never learned:

“We heard Chinese. We heard Japanese. We saw people from many nations touched by God.”

Visitors came from Pasadena, from across California, from every part of the United States — and eventually from Europe, Canada, Africa, and Asia.

“They came to find out what God was doing,” Sister Maddie says. “And they carried the fire home.”

She speaks of Bishop Charles Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ:

“Oh yes, I saw Mason before he came here. Many great leaders came through these doors.”

The Ministry of William J. Seymour

Seymour himself was a 30-year-old Black holiness preacher from Texas.

“What did he look like?” they ask.

“He was humble,” she answers. “When the power of God came upon him, he would pray. And the anointing was so wonderful. He never tried to push himself forward. He just waited on God.”

He slept in a small room on the side of the building. People often went there for prayer when the meetings grew too full.

“He carried a burden for souls,” she says softly. “And God used him.”

The Atmosphere of Azusa Street

What was the atmosphere?

“Like the Upper Room,” she answers. “You never knew when God would move. Sometimes people were healed instantly. Sometimes conviction fell. Sometimes the Holy Ghost came upon a person without anyone touching them. God moved however He pleased.”

No one could control it. No one claimed credit.

The Legacy

“Do you know,” she says, “that they came from all over the world? England, Canada, the Southeast, the Carolinas… everywhere.”

And the movement did not end here.

“It’s going to end in heaven,” she concludes. “Because the Holy Ghost that started here is still moving.”

Thank you for reading this beautiful piece of church history.

May the memory of Rev. Cummings, Sister Maddie Cummings, Rev. Laurence Kentley, and all the saints of Azusa Street live on.

To God be the glory — the same Spirit is still at work today."

End Quote

If All Christians Acted Like Isa, Would Muslims 'Hate' Us Still?

If We Acted Like Isa, Would Muslims Love Us More?

This #MOnoLogUE

challenges the slow infection

of Christian superiority,

of judgment dressed as doctrine,

of hypocrisy wrapped in Scripture

especially in modern Evangelicalism.

It walks through ordinary encounters

a Sikh in Montreal,

a Muslim taxi driver in the UK

and finds, to our shame,

that those outside the Church

often understand the heart of Jesus

better than those who shout His name.

It reminds us

that true Christianity is not recognized

by volume,

by certainty,

by political allegiance,

or by religious arrogance.

It is recognized

by mercy,

by humility,

by restraint,

by the quiet sweetness of Christ.

And it asks one simple question,

one that refuses to go away:

When people meet us

do they feel

that Jesus

has spoken to them?

---

Dear Eustace

Take a look in the mirror. Every religion has its apostates.

A Thought Experiment

Imagine if our faith were judged by the antics of Indaboski, or even by some of the better-known aBOASTates, sorry, apostates, the ones who never stop bragging about the “wealth” delivered to them through carefully crafted Ponzi schemes, wealth they brazenly claim comes from God Himself.

Misplaced Anger

Now imagine a Muslim saturated with hate toward Christianity because of our aBOASTates. Wouldn’t you consider their anger completely misplaced?

Obedience and Reality

If you obeyed Jesus, you wouldn’t feel this way. I’m not living in a fantasy world.

A Story, So It Isn’t Lost

About ten years ago, while visiting Montreal, I went to a laundry on Sherbrooke Road to drop off my clothes. The gentleman attending to me was named Singh. He was Sikh, still practicing, but clean-shaven. Naturally, we spoke about religion. He told me he had cut off his beard and stopped wearing his turban because he was tired of constantly being mistaken for a Muslim. People couldn’t tell the difference, and the pressure was getting to him.

“God Visited Me Today”

We spoke for about thirty minutes. As I was leaving, he said, “I feel like God visited me today.” I still get emotional remembering those words. That was a man searching for affirmation, and the Lord ordained my steps. I had found him on the internet.

What I Did Not Do

That Christmas, 2015, I asked my son to mail him a Bible. I have no doubt the Lord will send the Paraclete to meet him at the point of his spiritual need. What I remember most clearly is that I deliberately avoided preaching. I simply spoke about the compelling sweetness of Christ, and why Christianity works for me.

A Resolution

Let us resolve in our hearts to make everyone we speak to think, in their own hearts, “I feel like Jesus spoke to me today.”

Isa, Son of Mary

Imagine if we all acted or spoke like Isa, the prophet of Islam. Why would any Muslim not hold us in the highest esteem and want to be like us?

Another Story

A few weeks ago, a Muslim taxi driver, born in the UK, took me on a long ride to Heathrow airport. Once again, the conversation drifted toward religion. I told him the same things I’ve just told you. I explained that Trump is not a Christian, and that many Evangelicals are not Christians in any meaningful sense of the word.

The Sigh

He sighed loudly. I asked what was wrong. He replied, “Finally, I understand. I always wondered how people who claim to follow Jesus could support so much injustice.”

The Real Problem

And the fact is, Eustace, you are like most Evangelicals. You think you are superior, or that God has called you to be superior. It is that feeling of superiority that makes people reject mercy or empathy for those they consider inferior, always demanding justice.

Mercy and Justice

Think about it for a moment. Immigrants. The plight of young Black men in America. On and on. Mercy for us. Justice for them. That’s the real problem.

Closing

OK, gotta go. I think this makes for another good #DearEustace monologue. I rest.

Don Kenobi
#MyFrancisEssays
#MercyNotJudgement
#OldManInTheMolue
#LoveThyNeighbour

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