''Jesus flipped over tables, John’s mouth cost him his head. Their paths took them down the same road. Jesus was no sissy. It’s time we stopped representing him as one.''
Can I use
myself as an example? I have always been the aggressive type. Arriving fourth out of five children, being small (5’7”) in stature (I was called Baby Dave by my cousins until I was 10), and a natural whipping boy for my older brothers and their friends, I learned early to stand up and fight back. It was that “spunky” attitude that enabled me to be a three sport star in high school, earn varsity letters in football, basketball, and baseball at Otterbein College, and lead the fraternity in weekend drinking binges. “Daubie” was the life of the party…the original “wild and crazy guy.”
In 1987, at the age of 35, I met Jesus. Raised in church as a child, forced by my mother to watch Billy Graham crusades on television, I was religious enough to know right from wrong. Nothing more than a religious pagan, I ran to the altar with fear and trembling when the Gospel was clearly, and uncompromisingly, articulated to me. From that day forward my life has never been the same. Jesus did for me what a phone booth did for Clark Kent; changed me into a brand new man.
Overnight, I had gone from serving the King of Beers to serving the King of Kings and for the next 10 years “men of God” tried to turn me into a sissy… to domesticate me…to conform me to their image of what a “Christian man” should be. Until the ACLU came knocking at my door.
I thank God for the ACLU…they dynamited my sissy hind-end out of the pew. I’ve been on a devil-hunt ever since.
I grew up on John Wayne and Combat, Have-Gun Will-Travel and Paladin. Who can ever forget Matt Dillon and Gunsmoke, Hoss Cartwright and Bonanza, Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, and Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels in The Lone Ranger?
Has there ever been a greater line than the one uttered by Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, “Calling it your job don’t make it right.”
Today our sons get weenies like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Clay Aiken, and Zac Efron. Our churches get Joel Osteen, Ed Young, and Ted Haggard.
When I was a young boy the good guys were men, they loved women, and they defended the weak. Today, our leaders “come to consensus,” “reach across the aisle,” and are “open-minded.” Well, not me. I’m closed minded and proud of it. I know what I believe and not afraid to defend it. The prissy-pastors don’t know what to do with me. http://www.newswithviews.com/Daubenmire/dave174.htm