Jesse Jackson Says Bush Would Leave Jesus Homeless

This I have from NewsMax.com--and who else would pay out rope and let Jesse Jackson embarrass himself like that?

Here is a direct quote:

In the last [Bush] budget, we cut housing again, and that was Jesus' dilemma. In Bethlehem, his family ended up homeless...Rome was a wealthy country that left Jesus and Mary and Joseph, in a sense, homeless. He was born an at-risk baby.

All right, Reverend Mister Jackson, it's 'fess-up time. What seminary did you go to? Your ignorance of the Bible, or at least the impression of ignorance that you give, amazes me. It's enough to doubt that you ever were allowed inside a seminary.

For everyone's information, I will quote my fellow physician Saint Luke on the precise circumstances of Jesus' birth:

And it came to pass in those days that an order went out from Caesar Augustus that the entire [Roman] inhabited world would be registered. [Greek apographo I am registering someone, counting him in a census, whatever.] And this first enrollment was done when [Publius Sulpicius] Quirinius was governing in Syria. And everyone went to enroll, each to his own city or town. And Joseph also went up, out of Galilee and the town of Nazareth, into Judea and the city of David called Bethlehem, on account of his being of the house and lineage of David, to enroll with Mary his betrothed, who was pregnant at the time. And it happened while they were there that the time came for her to deliver, and she delivered her first-born Son, wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the upper room. [Greek kataluma a guest room.]

That's from Luke 2:1-7, which I have translated straight out of the original Greek. (Many thanks to my pastor for granting me a year's instruction in Roman-era Common Greek.)

Now I'll give you all some further readings-between-the-lines: Bethlehem, and indeed all the cities of the Jews, were packed solid. Augustus was very clever when he picked this particular time to take his grand census: it was right during the Festival of Tabernacles, which always falls on the full moon of the seventh month of the Hebrew year. (This was September 16, 5 BC according to the Julian calendar.) Joseph probably showed up in Bethlehem and sought out his nearest relatives--who had already crammed people into every nook and cranny in every spare room on the upper floors of their house. So Joseph and Mary had to make do in the stables on the ground floor--which would be the ancient equivalent of having to sleep in the garage. That word kataluma is often translated as "inn," but if that has you thinking of the kind of modern commercial establishment that men like Kemmons Wilson and Howard Johnson made famous in this country, then you've got it all wrong.

Now I don't expect most people to know about that. But I do expect a man of the cloth to know it! And if Jesse Jackson is going to shoot his mouth off, trying to politicize our remembrance of the Nativity, then at least he should do his homework!

And while I'm on that subject: I can think of no man less qualified to speak for or about Jesus than Jesse Jackson. Other more qualified and patient investigators than myself have already chronicled his various and sundry frauds and extortions--and indeed fraud and extortion are a way of life with him. I'm not talking about what you traditionally mean by extortion, involving physicial assaults or any such thing--I'm talking about sheer political or juridical blackmail. And when that man starts comparing our President to someone's evil concept of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Octavianus, Emperor of the Romans...well, all I have to say is that if Jesus were alive today, and were to confront him, He might begin by overturning his desk and continue by chasing him with a cat-o'-nine-tails, shouting, "How dare you turn My Memory into a cheap, mendacious political statement? I am about to spit you out of My mouth!"

Rush Limbaugh spent some of his last two hours on the air for 2004 basically laughing at Jackson, particularly for ignoring what Jesus became, and what He means to so many people in this world to this day. If I'm not laughing, it's because I shudder to think of a man who purports to be a minister of the Gospel speaking so cavalierly of One Who, when He returns to earth in glory to judge the quick and the dead, will definitely tolerate no nonsense! But why am I even surprised? Jesse Jackson has no respect for the President, or even for the abstract concept "President of the United States." And similarly, he doesn't seem to believe that Jesus is Real. I know better than that, and I suggest that Jackson needs to get his mind right [Greek metanoia a change of mind or heart, or "repentance"] before it's too late.