De Imitatione Christi

Comments by a US Republican politician and sometime pastor to the effect that the people of Gaza should be treated as a surrendering power have elicited predictable levels of shock and awe from those who haven't read their Bible. "Exactly what Jesus would do, right?" was one response, apparently not altogether untinged with hostile irony, to the congressman's assertion that the violence in Palestine and Ukraine should be made more violent still, preferably using funds now being wasted on humanitarian aid.

In fact, of course, raining fire and brimstone on the unworthy is exactly what Jesus would do, as your humble correspondent has repeatedly pointed out. As reported in the Gospels, Jesus spent almost His entire ministry boasting about the torments to be inflicted on those who failed to hear Him, and a rather large percentage of the parables have no other moral but the horrid things that will happen to those who don't obey. Indeed, so blatant was the Saviour's genocidal agenda that His Father in Heaven had Him named after Moses' successor, whose humanitarian scruples certainly qualify as proto-Christian.