(CNN) — Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.

But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn’t so poor after all.

Anderson says Jesus couldn’t have been poor because he received lucrative gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh — at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says.

“Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey,” says Anderson. “Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation.”

Many Christians see Jesus as the poor, itinerant preacher who had “no place to lay his head.” But as Christians gather around the globe this year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, another group of Christians are insisting that Jesus’ beginnings weren’t so humble.

They say that Jesus was never poor — and neither should his followers be. Their claim is embedded in the doctrine known as the prosperity gospel, which holds that God rewards the faithful with financial prosperity and spiritual gifts.

A clash of gospels?

The prosperity gospel has attracted plenty of critics. But popular televangelists such as the late Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin and, today, Creflo Dollar have built megachurches and a global audience by equating piety with prosperity.

The prosperity gospel, however, clashes with the traditional depictions of Jesus as poor. That’s because the traditional image of Jesus as destitute is wrong, says the Rev. Tom Brown, senior pastor of the Word of Life Church in El Paso, Texas.
The proof, he says, is scattered throughout the New Testament. One example: The 12th chapter of the Gospel of John says that Jesus had a treasurer, or a “keeper of the money bag.”

“The last time I checked, poor people don’t have treasurers to take care their money,” says Brown, author of “Devil, Demons and Spiritual Warfare.”

A debate over the economic status of Jesus may seem nonsensical to some. Does it really matter whether Jesus was rich or poor?

It matters to people like Luke Timothy Johnson, a prominent New Testament scholar and author. He says that a rich Jesus is a distortion of history and a threat to one of Christianity’s core teachings: God’s identification with the poor.

“If Jesus reveals God, there is something powerful about God appearing and working among the poor,” says Johnson, a New Testament professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Jesus’ lifestyle is not of one in a gated community or a corporate office,” says Johnson, a former Benedictine monk. “You don’t have to go through a security gate to get to Jesus. People touch him. He reached out and touched children. His accessibility is one of the most powerful messages of Christianity. In Jesus, God is with us, and the majority of us are poor.”

‘The poor won’t follow the poor’

Some prosperity preachers extract a different message from the same biblical texts. Brown, the El Paso minister, says he doesn’t say that Jesus was rich because he wants to give people an excuse to live self-indulgent lives. He wants people to understand that Jesus used his material and spiritual riches to help people — and so should they.

Brown says Jesus’ own words prove that he wasn’t poor.

“Jesus said you will always have the poor, but you will not always have me,” Brown says. “Jesus did not affirm himself as being part of the poor class…

“I believe he was the richest man on the face of the earth because he had God as his source,” Brown says.

Jesus’ wealth is evident even in the Gospel accounts of his execution, some pastors say.

The New Testament reports that Roman soldiers gambled for Jesus’ clothing while he hung on the cross. They wouldn’t gamble for Jesus’ clothing unless it was expensive, Anderson says.

“I don’t know anybody — even Pamela Anderson — that would have people gambling for his underwear,” Anderson says. “That was some fine stuff he wore.”

Anderson says Jesus never would have had disciples or a large following if he was poor. He would not have been able to command their respect.

“The poor will follow the rich, the rich will follow the rich, but the rich will never follow the poor,” Anderson says.

Twisting scripture for personal gain?

Johnson, the Emory University New Testament professor, calls Anderson’s argument “completely illogical.”

“So Martin Luther King must have been a millionaire,” he says. “Crowds followed Siddhartha Buddha and he was poor. And mobs followed Mahatma Gandhi, and Gandhi wore a diaper, for God’s sake.”

The argument that Jesus was wealthy because the soldiers gambled for his clothes at his crucifixion doesn’t makes historical sense, either, says Johnson, author of “Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity.”

“Crucifixion was the sort of execution carried out for slaves and for rebels,” Johnson says. “It wasn’t an execution for wealthy people.”

A Baylor University religion professor who specializes in the study of the poor in the Greco-Roman world also says there is “no way” that Jesus could be considered wealthy.

Bruce W. Longenecker says life in Jesus’ world was brutal. About 90 percent of people lived in poverty. A famine or a bad crop could ruin a family. There was no middle class.

“In the ancient world, you were relatively poor or filthy rich, there’s very little in-between,” says Longenecker, author of “Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception.”

The New Testament is full of parables where Jesus actually condemns the rich and praises the poor, Longenecker says. In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually curses the rich, he says.

“The only way you can make Jesus into a rich man is by advocating torturous interpretations and by being wholly naive historically,” Longenecker says.

Anderson, the Arizona pastor, doesn’t buy that argument. He says the church has actually been damaged by teaching that Jesus was poor. God wants his followers to be rich, not for selfish gain, but to help others in need and spread the gospel.

When he first preached that Jesus wasn’t poor to his church, Anderson says he “ruffled some feathers.”

Now, he says, his church has 9,000 members and a global ministry.

“That’s so pathetic, to say that Jesus was struggling alone in the dust and dirt,” Anderson says. “That just makes no sense whatsoever. He was constantly in a state of wealth.”

STRASBOURG/ROME – THE European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Italian schools should remove crucifixes from classrooms, sparking uproar in Italy, where such icons are embedded in the national psyche.

‘This is an abhorrent ruling,’ said Rocco Buttiglione, a former culture minister who helped write papal encyclicals. ‘It must be rejected with firmness. Italy has its culture, its traditions and its history. Those who come among us must understand and accept this culture and this history,’ he said.

The court ruling, which Italy said it would appeal, said crucifixes on school walls, a common sight that is part of every Italian’s life, could disturb children who were not Christians.

Italy has been in the throes of national debate on how to deal with a growing population of immigrants, mostly Muslims, and the court sentence is likely to become another battle cry for the centre-right government’s policy to restrict newcomers.

The Vatican spokesman said he would not comment until he knew more about the ruling but Italy’s powerful bishops’ conference said the ruling ‘evokes sadness and bewilderment’.

Members of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government bristled, weighing in with words such as ’shameful”, ‘offensive”, ‘absurd,’ “unacceptable,’ and ‘pagan’. — REUTERS

Take away hope, convince yourself that you are the master of your own destiny, yada-yada-yada. All well and good. Until shit hits the fan, and you realise you are powerless. But, oh no, there isn’t a greater supreme being to turn to. God doesn’t exist, remember? Then what? Go jump in front of the bus?

What exactly do these people gain from trying to “convert” others to Atheism anyway?

ROME (Reuters) – Italian atheists have lost a bid to run “no God” advertisements on city buses after strong opposition from conservative political parties, a member of the group said on Saturday.

The ads reading “The bad news is that God doesn’t exist. The good news is that you don’t need him” were to have been put on buses in the northern city of Genoa, home to the Catholic cardinal who is head of the Italian Bishops Conference.

The mock-up was ready and the contract was sent to the group for signing but the publicity agency changed its mind and said the ad could not run it because it violated an ethics in advertising code, according to Giorgio Villella of The Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics (UAAR).

“Right-wing politicians criticized us ferociously,” Villella said by telephone from the group’s base, adding that at least one bus driver in Genoa said he would refuse to drive a “no God” bus.

“It’s strange that in a country where ads depicting near-naked women wearing skimpy lingerie is permitted on buses that we can’t run ads about atheism,” Villella said.

Villella said the group’s lawyers would likely file an appeal to a court to overturn the decision and that the group would try to run the ads in other Italian cities.

Atheists in Barcelona, London and Washington have already run “no God” ads on city buses.

I’m Not One Of Those ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ Christians
By Janet Cosgrove \ The Onion

Everybody has this image of “crazy Christians” based on what they hear in the media, but it’s just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don’t all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I’m trying to say is, don’t let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.

Like me. I may be a Christian, but it’s not like I’m one of those wacko “love your neighbor as yourself ” types.

God forbid!

I’m here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren’t anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We’re not all into “turning the other cheek.” We don’t spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn’t mean we’re all obsessed with extremist notions like “righteousness” and “justice.”

My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That’s all. Just the core beliefs. You won’t see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.

I’m a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.

But that doesn’t mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.

We’re not all “Jesus Freaks” who run around screaming about how everyone should “Judge not lest ye be judged,” whine “Blessed are the meek” all the time, or drone on and on about how we’re all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God’s love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She’s way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!

But believe me, we’re not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.

We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we’re against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.

When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!

I hope I’ve helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you!

My initial thought was: “What the…? Someone’s daughter is going to be taken away from her? Oh no!” It took a few seconds for the word “abuse” to register in my brain. And when it finally did, I could not resist reading the story.

Apparently, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NPSCC) has caught up to Jean, a mother of a 4-year-old girl named Nakai. Jean writes:

First thing in the morning my 4 year old daughter normally says to me, “I am going to be a good girl today mummy”. When she says this she really means it, and I can see how she longs to finish even just one day in her life without doing anything wrong. However my daughter knows as well as I do that within at the least an hour of saying she is going to be good, that promise will be broken…  So we have a problem, and this is an everyday battle. The problem is sin. I never taught my daughter to sin. This is because she, and as well as the rest of the human race have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. From the moment we are conceived we are sinners, Pslam 57:5. We are born with a desire to sin. We are all born God hating and evil.

Wow. Telling a little girl every day that she has sinned; that she has done wrong, that she is a sinner, that she is evil. And we wonder, 20 years down the road, how a beautiful young woman could turn out to be so screwed up emotionally and mentally. Because YOU made it so. Yes, you, who are supposed to protect and nurture her.

And if reading this post on her blog left me shaken, reading the comments on Word and Verse sent shivers up my spine.

Here are some examples:

What in the world? How dare they? I’m furious!!! May God punish the soul who picked up the phone to call the NSPCC?

More amazing is the sheer number of folks who read their own stuff between the lines and twist what Jean said ….never seen so many straw men in my life.

Sure, what’s next? Calling your child naughty and mischievous will soon be child abuse too?

She’s just stating the truth, and sadly, you just can’t handle it.

What the..? No, seriously. What??? This cannot be serious. I am not sure what God meant for us, but it is certainly not this. Then again, it’s not entirely Jean’s fault. It’s what she has been taught, by her church, presumably. It’s the same thing these other commentators believe. And that scares me even more.

Is this Christianity? It’s definitely not how I know it to be!

I will be praying, not for Jean to keep her daughter by her side, but for her to realise the horrors she is inflicting on poor Nakai.

I’m getting increasing peeved with health minister Khaw Boon Wan, who has accumulated, in my mind, three strikes in recent times to his name.

Strike 1: he suggested sending the aged in our population, who were uncared for, to live in a village in Batam, Indonesia. Say what? In the subsequent uproar, he claimed to have been misunderstood and misquoted by the media. After all, he said, he was a staunch Buddhist who believes in filial piety.

Right. What, we wonder was his original meaning? Between ‘land is expensive’ and ‘Johore, Batam and Bintan’, we can’t think of anything else that he could mean. for the record, here is what the “good” man said:

“My personal view is, our land is expensive. But we have nearby neighbours in Johore, Batam and Bintan. The elderly want to reach their doctors within half to one hour. So retirement villages in neighbouring countries is possible, barring the cross-border hassle. It is best to find cheap land on short leases.”

Srike 2: following a string of organ trading cases in Singapore, including the high profile case where the CK Tang chairman was charged and convicted for buying a kidney, Khaw proposes the legalization of organ trading.

Brilliant. Money can truly buy you anything in Singapore eh? The donation of one’s organs is a free act of charity, and should not be submitted to the “logic of the market,” says Pope Benedict XVI. Never mind that this opens the door for the poor to be tempted, or even coerced, into selling their body parts. After all, who cares about the poor; it’s only the elite that matter. Bah.

Strike 3: he is currently toying with the idea of legalizing euthanasia in Singapore. Of course, the Catholic Church and MUIS, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, have voiced opposition to this proposal.

Wow. This is not a debate on human rights. We don’t have the right to murder another human being, and we certainly do not have the right to kill ourselves. Some call it ‘mercy killing’, pointing to the suffering and citing euthanasia as a humane way to make a dignified exit.

No prizes for guessing what God thinks.

Yes, the ageing population is a key problem facing our society. But I don’t think shipping our old folks off to an island, or allowing them to kill themselves, are plausible solutions!

To have intelligent leaders is essential, but inadequate. We also need stuff like integrity, morality, ethics, and principles. More than academic and corporate success, we need leaders who know what is right, and are willing to stand by it even if it means they risk losing their jobs.

Do men like these actually exist? Yes. Former president, the late Mr Ong Teng Cheong, is an example.

But others, like Khaw, are an embarrassment to the PAP. And it’s about time someone bats them out of the political ballpark.