Thursday, November 13, 2008

I "failed" the Jesus Test

I got a message from a friend today. She sent it because she liked the pictures, but it hits two of my pet peeves.

It's a "Forward to your friends" message--and those who know me know how I feel about them. This one was worse than usual.

It proposes to have a test for me and wishes me luck in getting 100. Then it has a bunch of famous paintings of Jesus' life. I'm thinking it's a trivia test, and since it's from a friend and the pictures are lovely, I scroll down instead of deleting it like I normally would. Sandwiched between the paintings and a photo of a mountain is this message:

I'm not ashamed He is the only one that can save this
country and they want him removed from the government.

Our great nation will not stand if we delete HIM from all aspects of our government as the atheists want.

Well, that's nothing I haven't heard before--and since Obama is now president-elect, I suppose I expected it. What I did not expect was this:

Jesus Test

This is an easy test, you score 100 or zero. It's your choice. If you aren't ashamed to do this, please follow the directions. Jesus said,'if you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.'

This is the simplest test If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous thing he has done for you.. Send this to ten people

I'm not ashamed of my faith. I'm not ashamed to want Jesus in my life. But I'm not forwarding this message. It has nothing to do with shame. It has to do with my not using the name of my Lord in emotional blackmail. Perhaps, PERHAPS, if the message had been a reasoned argument, a link to an article or a personal and impassioned appeal for action, I might have considered it. This, however, will not change governments, minds or hearts, IMHO. It just spreads emotional spam. I deleted it and wrote this blog. Guess I failed.

Or did I?

5 comments:

Gray Rinehart said...

I wouldn't have forwarded it, either. I might have written back to the person who sent it to me and told them why, if I was feeling froggy enough.

Karina Fabian said...

I did, which is how I found out she was only forwarding it for the pictures. I'm not even sure she read the Jesus test part.

However, that hits on another pet peeve--often I get something forwarded by a well-meaning friend who either didn't check it with Snopes (for urban legend), didn't read it all the way through (hence the insulting Jesus Test) or sort of agreed with part of it, but left the entire message. (Had one where part of it was from a famous commentator, and then the person added their own diatribe, but made it look like this gentleman had said the whole thing. When I called my friendon it, she said, "Who cares? I just through the first part was great." I think the commentator would care, and I did, too.)

Jennifer Gladen said...

Karina,
Those forwards get on my nerves too. I fell for it a few times, then realized that God was not going to say to me on judgement day," Jennifer, you refused to forward that message. You must be ashamed of me."

I make God first in every part of my life - at least I try to. I think those are the things that count. Good for you for having the courage.

I mean think about it. Would Jesus rather us forward an e-mail or pray to Him?

Anonymous said...

I don't forward such things as a matter of general policy. It's a twist on the old Chain Letter racket, i.e. "Death Comes to Whoever Breaks the Chain".

This also puts it into the "Just like a (Chain Letter), except CHRISTIAN (TM)!", a pitch-sheet description which is always a big red warning flag.

Linda J. Hutchinson said...

I've flunked those, too.

Linda
www.lindajhutchinson.com