Does Jesus smokes?

by kiawin

A response of in Christ, in Malaysiakini.

The recent Makkal Osai incident have spurs different reaction from different groups of people (including political party, religious bodies etc.). Some took this as an opportunity to raise their concerns, some took this as an opportunity to sabotage.

If you ask me, for I’m a Christian, what would my reaction be? My answer is rather simple – though it is rude for anyone to make fun of Christ Jesus, I don’t find the need to react in punishing them. A simple caricature that portrays Jesus who smokes does not justify the degradation of my Christ Jesus image in my heart. In fact, I don’t think anyone who have a sane mind would think Jesus Christ would smoke.

To be theological, the act of smoking does not mean sinful – it is the reaction of smoking that is sinful. Smoking brings harm to our body (everyone agrees on that), and my only disagreement of smoking is because God have asked us to take care of our body well. This means – over eating (gluttony) equally sinful just like smoking :)

On the contrary of how media and government have shown their dissatisfaction against Makkal Osai, hereby I represent a niche group of people to state our stand in acknowledging the insignificant level of importance in persecuting the news publisher. One day, one month, one year, it is not important.

Ironically, we can see from the decision of government as this issue is rather “inconsistent”. If you think back, previously – we had the similar issue with the Mohammed caricature. My point here wasn’t meant to say that I want a longer suspension* for this company (in fact earlier I already said it is not important). What I’m trying to say here is that, there’s no consistency on the government side. I wonder why.

My point is, should a country’s ministerial decision be inconsistent? I seriously doubt so…

Celebrating 50 years of nationhood. Let’s do our part in making a greater future ahead :)

* edit: replaced the word ban with suspension.