POLITICS: Senator Chaudhary told to 'know Jesus'
Minnesota State Senator Satveer Chaudhary was re-elected recently, one of many South Asians who entered or remained in office. One would think the public would have moved on, but now the email concession from his opponent, Rae Hart Anderson is making news. (WCCO, via Hindu Press International)
Anderson told Chaudhary, a practicing Hindu, that he needed to get to know Jesus.
The race of your life is more important than this one--and it is my sincere wish that you'll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He died for the sins of the world, yours and mine--and especially for those who accept His forgiveness. His kingdom will come and His will be done--on earth as it is in heaven. There's more....I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???
Read the whole email/sermon here.
A few days ago, the Hindu American Foundation criticized Texas Governor Rick Perry for agreeing that non-Christians would go to hell:
According to The Dallas Morning News (November 6, 2006), Gov. Rick Perry, after attending a sermon with nearly 60 Republican candidates on Sunday, November 5, 2006 said that he concurred with the Rev. John Hagee’s comment during the sermon, in which Rev. Hagee said, “If you live your life and don’t confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I’m going to say this very plainly, you’re going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket.” The Governor told reporters that, “In my faith, that’s what it says, and I’m a believer of that.”
Continuing the message...since it appears here! Jesus Christ is LORD of America...because of His mercies we are not consumed. His mercy is new everyday. Praise God, Who lives and is LOVE incarnate.
Yes, God is angry with wickedness everyday...but He waits for that last soul who says, "Help me, LORD Jesus...fill the emptiness in myself. I'm thirsty, and can't get any satisfaction out of my life, so far.
Jesus states, Come unto Me, you who are tired and heavy with your burdens of life, and I will give you rest. Learn of ME, for I am humble and meek and I can give rest to your soul. [Many Christians are not just like Jesus...but learning of Him.]
Believe, cling to, rely on the LORD Jesus Christ, and you will be saved....by God's own power. Read the Gospel of John and see for yourself. Ask and look and God will find you for Himself. Still, God won't force anyone to believe and receive His living Spirit. Only He can make a Christian out of a human, out of a sinner. Christianity and Christians reveal His own transforming power. Romans 12:1-2, see the New Testament...on line. I like the Amplified Bible, myself.
The Bible states: There is one God and one Mediator between God and mankind, the Man Christ Jesus...Who gave His life as a payment for sin...sins of the whole world, and especially of those who believe and receive His offer of a life trade. This is what Christians believe...Christians that have been adopted...not just those who have joined a church. You can sit in a church and remain a sinner, you can sit in a garage and not be a car. Christians are God-made, not American-made! No human can create a Christian...God does it and you know that you've been changed from death unto life by the Spirit of God. It's a 'wow' moment. It's way better than life without hope, without love and without faith in the trustworthiness of God--Who gave us His Word.
He [Jesus] Who knew no sin became sin for us, so we humans could become righteous, like Jesus, continually cleansed by the life and blood and advocacy of Jesus Christ. He's our lively, living Attorney in the court of heaven. See the Gospel of John in the New Testament and decide for yourself who's telling the truth.
Not by works of righteousness that we have done, are we rescued, but by the righteous act of Christ Jesus, by His dying, by His paying for sin in full...completely...for all people, for all time. But the choice is ours...we're made in God's image to choose, not to be pawns moved by fate or indigestion, or our fears or our lust or our peers. It's one to one...man to God....our choice. WE GET TO CHOOSE GOD OR NOT....
The cross of Jesus is foolishness to those who have no eternal life in them, but to those who are being saved by Him, the cross marked by blood and shame and injustice has become the power of God. The cross gives us freedom to belong to perfection--God's own family. Because Jesus lives in Christians He has created and adopted, Christians do live forever in His presence. They have passed from death to life, by the power of God.
A relationship with the LIVING GOD is not a philosophy or a good idea....it means being family with the Creator of the ends of the earth, Who faints not and isn't tired--Who never sleeps and is totally aware of every persons choices--the hairs on our head are numbered, as are the stars of heaven. We count with God in minute detail.
To God, Himself, be the glory for saving us. We can't reach Him so He descended to help us and show us the way home to the Father. Christ bridged earth and heaven with the cross of death and produced life that would forever make death 'a door' to more life. Of course there is hell and heaven. Hell is for those who reject the free gift of God, eternal life earned by God the Son, Jesus. How ironic, His death strongly conquered death. While death
passed upon all people, it's temporary. [All people sin and all fall short of perfection if they try to be righteous in their own good works--man's work has flaws...it's never good enough to be called perfect.]
So what we couldn't do for ourselves, God did for us, out of love for us. He came to this world. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, God's Son. Talk to Him...He knows the hairs on our heads and the thoughts beneath the hair! He loves us unconditionally, while we fight Him, He loves us.
Heaven is for perfection...those with sins forgiven. And who doesn't need forgiveness, sometimes...many times?
Christians are people who have a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ.
Christians are not self-made men and women.
Jesus is God in a human body, experiencing earth life for 33 years as a man...tempted in all ways like us, yet without making one wrong choice. Perfection among us...for 33 years. He was hated for being good...and for disputing the religiosity of His time. He said God looks at the heart, not the good works of mankind which are like 'filthy rags' until the person trying to be good becomes a new creation...or born again with incorruptible seed...God's own conception of a new eternal person through Jesus life, death and resurrection. Christ's tomb is very empty....
Sincere best wishes....Rae
Posted by: Rae Hart Anderson | November 20, 2006 at 12:36 AM
Folks, this Ms. Anderson and her self-righteous pietistic ramblings were spared from Minnesotans such as myself thanks to Sen. Choudhary's thumping victory. Whether this exclusivist evangelical mindset was defeated in this election, or whether it was just a happy by-product of an election rejecting Iraq misadventures, I don't know. But the Hindu American Foundation went on record against three candidates this year with similar public views--2 of whom lost.
http://hafsite.org/media_press_release_anderson.htm
Hindu Americans Protest Call to Convert to Christianity by Republican Candidate in Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (November 21, 2006) – Hindu Americans, still reeling from an election season that saw high profile Republican Party candidates scorn adherents of minority faiths in the United States, were treated to another attack on pluralism from a state senate candidate in Minnesota. Republican Rae Hart Anderson, who was defeated by a margin of nearly 40% in her bid to unseat Sen. Satveer Chaudhary of District 50, wrote a rambling concession email over a week after the election in which she called on the senator to convert to her Christian faith as she said he needed to be “forgiven.” Sen. Chaudhary is a practicing Hindu.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which has a full-time staffed office in Washington, D.C. to promote human rights and religious liberty issues in government, contacted the Minnesota Republican Party office Monday. The foundation demanded that the GOP in Minnesota repudiate Anderson’s correspondence as she was the GOP’s chosen candidate to represent the northern suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul. At the time of this press release, no response had been received from the GOP office.
“The race of your life is more important than this one--and it is my sincere wish that you'll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,” wrote Anderson in her email. “Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???”
Anderson continued on the same message for another five paragraphs beseeching Sen. Chaudhary to convert without discussing the electoral race they had just completed. Local print and broadcast media picked up the story of the conversion call and the email was roundly derided in the blogosphere. In response to an inquiry from the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis, Anderson’s campaign manager said, “Chaudhary is not Christian. He needs to find his soul.”
“Hindu Americans are active participants in the political process, and over a dozen Hindus were candidates in national and regional races throughout the country this year,” said Suhag Shukla, Esq., legal counsel of HAF and a resident of St. Paul. “Anderson obviously hid her overt bigotry until after the election, and Hindus can only wonder how they would have fared had the election results been different and their senator considered their faith inferior at best, and outright evil, at worst.”
HAF had already condemned similar ultraconservative and exclusivist remarks made by other candidates this year. Congresswoman Katherine Harris (R-FL) stated in late August that "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," and Republican Governor Rick Perry of Texas publicly agreed with a pastor onstage after he asserted that non-Christians are going “straight to hell with a non-stop ticket.”
“Republicans have been among the strongest voices backing HAF on Capitol Hill on their issues, and many Hindu Americans are loyal supporters of the GOP,” said Ishani Chowdhury, the Executive Director of HAF who is not related to Sen. Chaudhary. “But at HAF, we are distressed by the intolerance and disrespect for Hinduism and other minority faiths displayed by a few prominent Republican candidates this year in pandering to the right wing Christian conservative vote—a clear and present danger to the pluralistic ethos our founding fathers valued so much.”
Anderson’s insinuations of her religion’s superiority took on new meaning in light of events earlier this year in the Minneapolis suburbs. The main Hindu temple, situated on nearly 30 acres, was heavily vandalized in the spring by a group of rampaging youths. HAF members expressed concern that when politicians demean and dismiss their faith and heritage without reaching out to understand its precepts, Hindus and their institutions become easy targets when the prevailing mood is of intolerance.
The Hindu American Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3), non-partisan organization, promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism.
Posted by: Aseem Shukla | November 26, 2006 at 01:54 PM