Tuesdays with Morris

I ran across this quote while doing some reading this morning. The source of the quote sort of took me by surprise. Now, don’t cheat and look ahead. But, see if you can guess who said the following:

“If the positive element of Christianity is the love of one’s neighbor, that is, caring for the sick, clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, quenching the thirst of the parched, then we are true Christians!”

Sounds pretty good! I mean, we need Christians to take this “love of one’s neighbor” seriously. We all need to do all we can to care for the sick, cloth the poor, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty. It’s the whole “putting our faith into action” thing.

However, the source of the quote seems to contradict the whole message of Christianity…the whole concept of loving one’s neighbor would seem foreign to the person that made the statement.

2 Corinthians 11:14-15 says, “…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”

You know, I believe there are a lot of Christians out there, who by words or actions, totally mis-represent the message of Jesus. Heck, most of us probably mis-represent the message of Christ from time to time. If I saw that quote, I’d probably guess it came from Falwell, Robertson, W talking about our Christian nation, Dobson, or Benny Hinn. But, the quote didn’t come from any of these usual suspects.

The quote came from a 1939 speech given by Adolf Hitler. Knowing the source of the quote really makes that passage from 2 Corinthians come to life. Of course, I tend to think of my “usual suspects” list when I read that passage too.

Anyway, I guess my point is that we need to be careful and examine what we hear and consider the source.