>Living Like Jesus, Voting for Obama

> Picture credit : http://english.sina.com/p/1/2008/0709/170758.html

3 Days. In three days our country begins its recovery.

This picture is of Tai Shan, a panda at the Smithsonian Zoo, celebrating his third birthday earlier this year. The fruit circle, cut to make the numeral, is made of water and gelatin. Tai Shan is the first surviving panda born at the zoo, and still lives with his parents in the National Zoo Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat. If you are going to Washington over the next few days, maybe you can visit Tai Shan.

Rev. Ed Dobson made pledge to live for a year like Jesus (Story). Dobson was one of the founders of the Moral Majority in the 1980’s, now he is vice president for spiritual formation at Cornerstone University.

“The one-time architect of the religious right is in hot water with some conservatives over his statement that living like Jesus during 2008 influenced him to vote for Barack Obama — his first presidential vote for a Democrat.”

“Dobson acknowledged he has been criticized for linking his Obama vote to Jesus. While disagreeing with Obama on abortion, Dobson said the Democrat was closest to the spirit of Jesus’ teachings of compassion and peace.”

And while we are on the subject of compassion and peace, how about Kay Warren, the “purpose-driven wife” of now-controversial pastor Rick Warren, reminding us of this:

She spoke at Judson college in Marion, AL, and praised Obama for leading the way on HIV testing. She compared today’s AIDS epidemic to the biblical references to leprosy.

“I challenge you to find anyplace in the Bible where Jesus asks how someone became sick,” she said.

Warren, or Jesus for that matter, was not concerned about people’s “lifestyles,” to use a divisive term not used in his day. He cared about ministering, healing, bringing the downtrodden and the outcasts into the fold.

If only more of the churches that claim to follow Jesus would actually do so. You’ve got your angry, judgemental philosophy (and God) or your compassionate, loving philosophy (or God).

I will choose to follow the one Ed Dobson is following this year. The loving, compassionate One.