While I was in Ireland, I found a very interesting article about Jesus in the Sunday Tribune. Unfortunately I could not locate it anywhere online, so I am going to take several posts and just copy it here, in case anyone else is interested. It is from Sunday, March 28, 1999, and was written by Joe O'Connor.
"In Managua, Nicaragua, in August 1985, I conducted an interview with Thomas Borge. Minister of the Interior, leader of the hardline Marxist wing of the Sandanista party. Commandante Borge was the only government minister I had ever met who kept a kalashnikov in his office desk (at least, the only one prepared to admit to so doing). Another thing that surprised me about him was that one whole wall of his office was completely covered with crucifixes. Many were vivid and garish, made of coloured glass or bright stones. Christs in native Indian costumes beamed down over the filing cabinets, grinning like babies, rays of lights streaming from their open hands. There were Christs crucified in the ermine robes of emperors or popes. There were women Christs, black Christs, yellow Christs with oriental eyes. Some were battered and broke, with limbs and heads missing, ancient twisted bodies agonising in oak and black ash. There were blue and red Russian icons. There was an abstract white steel cross in a black steel circle; there was a Christ in jeans and a punk rock T-shirt, with syringes jabbed into his bleeding wrists and feet.
I asked the commandante which one he believed in most.
'Oh, I'm a complete atheist,' he shrugged, 'so of course I believe in all of them.'" |
