iLook China

More than two billion Christians believe Jesus Christ was the son of God and is God.

About 13 million Jews see Christ differently. Some Jewish scholars note that though Jesus may have used the phrase “my Father in Heaven” (cf. Lord’s Prayer), this common poetic Jewish expression may have been misinterpreted as literal.

In fact, Rabbi Jacob Emden considered Jesus a righteous man, who brought the light of faith and morality to the world, but not as a Messiah.

One and a half billion Muslims, on the other hand, see Jesus as a savior and a reformist. Mission Islam says, “Jesus is known to the Muslims as ‘Issa – this is the name for Jesus that we have been given in our scriptures.

“To Muslims, Jesus – or ‘Issa – is a savior, a reformist, the Messiah (the anointed one), the ‘Word of God’. He was elevated to heaven. He could cure the ill, raise the dead, fashion inanimate objects and blow life into them, all by the Will of God.

“We believe that the one who disbelieves in Jesus is not a Muslim, because the person who disbelieves in one of the prophets disbelieves in all of them. So Muslims believe in Jesus and in his message. His message was one with all the other messengers. In the Qur’an, it is said that God never sent a messenger to mankind except that he was sent with one warning: Worship Allah alone.”

There are even atheists that recognize Jesus Christ as an important historical person. In Atheists for Jesus, we learn that Ken Schei has a goal to rescue Jesus from the Religious Right then from the Bible.

Schei says, “I have come to have a great deal of respect for the teachings of Jesus. My respect for Jesus is not based on the Cross, but rather on the Mount—not on His death and supposed resurrection, but on His teachings as exemplified by the Sermon on the Mount.”

Now that I have established the wide variety of people and beliefs that recognize the importance of Jesus, John 8:7 in the New Testament says, “So when they continued asking him (Jesus), he lifted up himself, and said unto them, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’.”

With John 8:7 in mind, what are we to say of critics that continue to cast stones at Amy Chua, the Tiger Mother.

At Amazon.com, in some of the one-star reviews, critics often cast brutal stones heavy with opinions at Amy Chua accusing her of child abuse, being a narcissist, a psychopath, a liar and a backstabber all because Chua spent hours each week with her daughters setting high expectations and following through sometimes using insults and threats to achieve her parenting goals.

China is another example of critics casting stones, and the Western media often casts these stones at China without telling the whole story.

One example of a “stone thrower” is an anonymous Blogger that writes Understanding China, One Blog at a Time—An American in China. This Blogger mostly writes criticisms of China such as the most recent one, “Irrational Chinese and Crazy Nationalism”.

This anonymous Blogger often judges all of China based on his or her personal experiences while living and working there and this Blogger has attracted fans with similar opinions that enjoy criticizing China without much evidence and/or understanding of China, its people and its history to support those opinions.

Would Jesus Christ have approved of these individuals that so easily cast stones?  If He were here today, what would He say?

Discover In Defense of Tiger Mothers Everywhere

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.