“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Folks, before the Christmas season is fully behind us, we are pleased to share this wonderful piece by the late Joe Sobran, courtesy of Fran Griffin and her Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, which works to preserve Sobran’s brilliant legacy (see info at bottom). — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

Jesus Christ – The Incomparable One

By Joe Sobran

Griffin Internet Syndicate, 6/4/2009

Jesus was far from being an old man when his earthly life ended. He was probably well under 40, roughly the age of Mozart, who died at 35, as his genius was still approaching its unimaginable peak.

By contrast, nobody thinks of Jesus as having died prematurely, as if he had been killed before his teaching had been fully developed, and as if it might have ripened into something more profound and interesting had his life span been longer. There is about his life a sense of completeness; he had done what he had come to achieve. At the very end, he said, “It is consummated.” He had foretold his own death and resurrection.

The Jesus Seminar, a liberal group that includes theologians as well as the director of Robocop, has tried to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic sayings of Jesus in the four Gospels; but nobody has ventured to suggest what he might have said if only he had survived another 10 years or so. Those Gospels do seem to indicate the fulfillment of a mission, don’t they?

It is, of course, impossible for anyone to invent a single saying worthy of Jesus. Much easier to coin a phrase worthy of a human genius like Shakespeare! “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” Jesus said, “but my words shall not pass away.” Once we have heard those words, they become part of us. They seem so familiar that we may think they are trite, but they are not. They are eternally new, even when we have heard them all our lives, and they always reward meditation on them.

Some day when you have nothing better to do, try improving on the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Don’t all religions agree on that? No. In most religions — see the Iliad, the Koran, and the Psalms, for example — it is normal to pray for revenge. Forgiving and praying for one’s enemies are among the hardest duties of a Christian. Being “nice” is far from the same thing as being a Christian; after all, Jesus was not tortured to death for urging good manners on his disciples.

Joe Sobran, 1946-2010

Folks, I generally avoid using the term “sodomites”**–it too easily plays into the hands of anti-Christians–but who am I to make a politically correct edit on the late Joe Sobran, one of the greatest conservative writers of modern times? This essay by Sobran is even more applicable today than when he penned it in 2003, following the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s creation of a newfangled “right” to homosexuality-based “marriage.”

I particularly like Sobran’s passage on liberalism:

But liberalism itself is a continual digression. Nobody can divine its next trend. Even its most profound critics, including John Henry Newman, have been unable to anticipate its particular fads. It may, or may not, embrace pedophilia next. On what principle can any perversion be ruled out?

Such is the nature of God-defying, sin-as-a-civil-right modern “progressivism.” And now the Sexual Left–having legally destroyed the meaning of marriage with the eager help of the U.S. Supreme Court–has moved on to “mainstreaming” and mandating accommodation for: (trans)gender rebels–think men with fake boobs and a penis invading female restrooms; sadomasochism; men becoming human “dogs”; and “polyamory” (anti-fidelity).

As for pedophilia, that lobby is still gearing up–mimicking the successful, manipulative tactics of the “gay liberation” movement by portraying themselves as the aggrieved “victims” of an inconvenient “orientation.” (See this “support group” for “Minor Attracted Persons,” or MAPs.) Of course, we know who the real victims are.

If only more conservatives who possessed the moral clarity of Joe Sobran! –– Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera

** P.S. I will grant that “Sodomite”–linked to the abominable act that demanded God’s horrific punishment–is more accurate than “homosexual,” a 19th-Century semantic invention that itself has been declared anathema by today’s LGBTQ activists. (They prefer “gay” for men and women–which we put in quotes because it’s essentially self-serving propaganda.) Homosexual (as a noun)–though used clinically at first–came to imply a special personhood to de facto homo-sexual sinners, i.e., an innate or at least inherent–even proud!–self-identity based on his or her inclination toward same-sex deviance. Logical (and biblical) thinkers must never acquiesce to such a false identity–unless we also are prepared to label and confirm people as (inherent or inborn) liars, “pornos,” gossipers, drunks, etc., according to their besetting sinful thoughts and behaviors.

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