Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407260010
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No, Jesus would not be tongue-tied if he returned to sit down with some of the biggest celebrities of our age. In a gentle, humorous new book, ``What Jesus Would Say ...,'' a minister at one of the nation's largest evangelical churches imagines some of those what-if meetings.
Forget about a wrathful Lord leaving bodies strewn in his path as he tramps through the vineyards of pop culture. The Jesus envisioned by the Rev. Lee Strobel takes a sympathetic look at some of the betes noires of conservative Christians - Madonna, Bart Simpson and President Clinton.
Strobel, a minister at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, wants to show readers of the book to be released next month that religion is more about love than condemnation.
``The public perception of God tends to be so judgment-oriented,'' Strobel said in an interview. ``I think he does it through grace and love that helps our heart as opposed to slam-dunking people because they have messed up.''
Take Madonna, whose capacity for self-promotion and mixing religious and sexual imagery knows few bounds.
If the Son of God walked into one of her ``Girlie Shows,'' Strobel admits, ``I think a lot of people think the first thing Jesus would do is to slap her face.''
But Strobel believes Jesus would treat the Material Girl as he did the adulterous women at the well in the Gospel of John, offering her redemption and challenging those who are without sin to cast the first stone.
``Jesus was harshest on the religious leaders of the day because he saw such hypocrisy as throwing stones at other people,'' Strobel said.
On the political front, Strobel indicates Jesus would call Clinton to account for any infidelities and his stand in favor of legalized abortion. But he would also be pained by evangelicals who gloat over the administration's problems.
``Biblically, we're called as Christians to give honor to those in government. We should be praying for them,'' Strobel said.
Limbaugh - the mouth that roars and roars - would be told to put a sock in it when it comes to denigrating the poor, ``femiNazis'' or people with AIDS.
``He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their maker,'' Jesus, quoting from Proverbs, might remind Limbaugh.
In other chapters, Strobel envisions Jesus telling Mother Teresa to keep up the good work and Donald Trump to focus his eyes on the prize of eternal rather than temporal rewards.
That this is not your typical evangelical self-help book also is evident in the Top 10 list of things Jesus would say to David Letterman. No. 10: ``Sorry, Johnny gets the 11:30 slot in eternity.'' And No. 5: ``Behave yourself or I'll reveal to the world that you were Chip on `My Three Sons.'''
Strobel, 42, a former atheist who left a newspaper career for the ministry in 1987, said the idea came to him when a bunch of ministers at Willow Creek were sitting around talking and someone wondered what Jesus would say to the TV character Murphy Brown. Everyone laughed, but he later developed the idea into a series of sermons on the loving ways of Jesus.
Even Bart Simpson, the animated brat who calls his teacher ``hot cakes'' and doesn't say grace at meals because ``we bought this ourselves,'' is no one to have a cow over, according to Strobel.
He recalls an episode of ``The Simpsons'' in which Bart prayed before a test and received a D-minus that his father, Homer, proudly posted on the refrigerator.
The prayer and Bart's reply to his father's praise for his passing grade - ``Thanks, dad, but part of this D-minus belongs to God'' - are what Jesus would pick up on, Strobel says.
``Would Jesus put Bart Simpson over his knee and paddle him or would he put him on his knee and encourage him?'' Strobel asks. ``I think he would put him on his knee.''
by CNB