Jesus May Welcome You to Hawkins, Texas, But He Shouldn’t

So Hawkins, Texas, put a sign on their East Front Street, seen above, which says, “Jesus Welcomes you to Hawkins.” The sign has been there since 2011, but only recently has become a center of controversy.

Even though, of course, we have no way at all of knowing if Jesus actually does welcome you to Hawkins for the simple reason that we have no way of asking him. Given Jesus’ generally negative views of Gentiles as “dogs” and “swine” I am not sure this is an assumption we should make.

They – the mayor, city council, and some citizens – seem to think this sign shouldn’t be offensive to anyone.

According to KMOO-FM, Hawkins Mayor Will Rogers, a Democrat, said, “The sign was a community project. The City Council unanimously approved the sign and the Hawkins ISD shop class built the sign. Many private donors helped to pay for the sign.”

That’s nice. Lynchings are a community efforts as well. That doesn’t make them right. That Rogers is a Democrat only goes to show that Democrats can also misunderstand how freedom of religion works.

Watch courtesy of ABC affiliate KLTV:

KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News

“Citizens should voice their support,” Mayor Rogers said. “Even if you don’t look at Jesus as a religious leader, you have the humanitarian aspects of his life while he was here to consider.”

If we are looking for humanitarians, there are plenty to go around. Only one of them has the world’s largest religion based on his teachings and death. Mayor Rogers is being disingenuous.

It was, as it happens, a Hawkins resident, who reported the sign to The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which then sent a letter to the Hawkins City Council.

So no, it wasn’t a bunch of mean-spirited out-of-town atheists who took exception, but one of the town’s own citizens, who apparently wasn’t feeling the whole “Jesus thing.”

This happens. In my own experience, many Christians assume everyone else must be a Christian as well, or is surprised that anybody might have differing opinions, or might resent things like proselytizing, or having religion shoved down their throat at work by employers. Or having to drive past a sign every day that has a god you don’t believe in welcome you to town – your town – each and every day.

According to KLTV, some residents like the sign, saying it represents their community. Sure, it represents their community from their perspective, if they’re Christians. But how about people who are not Christians? Or those Christians who have a more inclusive view of the world and of belief systems in general? How about, say, a Muslim or a Jew living in Hawkins? Or an atheist? Or a Heathen like me?

The FFRF reasonably suggested the city council consider how people would feel about a “Mohammed welcomes you to Hawkins” or “No god welcomes you to Hawkins” sign.

You know that wouldn’t go over well. Not in Texas of all places, where God put an end to a long drought with destructive flooding.

Still, the mayor has plentiful excuses why Jesus belongs on that sign, and in this case, he said Jesus isn’t even a Christian thing:

“Jesus represents billions of people, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that sign. I don’t think it goes against our constitution. Jesus is part of every major religion in the world, so you can’t pin one religion on Jesus.”

Well, I hope somebody gets on the horn to the Republican Party and lets THEM know. They haven’t been clued in to that aspect of Jesus life for decades.

“To me and many others,” insists Rogers, “Jesus is not a religion, Jesus is in every religion across the globe. He’s in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. He represents love and kindness.”

Jesus is a part of every major religion in the world, huh? And not only every major religion, but every religion period.

No. He’s not.

First of all, all religions have equal rights under the Constitution, not just the major ones. What happens otherwise is called the tyranny of the majority, a little something the Founding Fathers were very concerned about, and one of the issues the Constitution itself was meant to address.

But let’s take a look at that claim:

According to ReligiousTolerance.org (The CIA World Factbook gives different percentages but the rankings remain the same), the world’s major religions are,

1. Christianity – 33%
2. Islam – 19.6%
3. Hinduism – 13.4%
4. Non-Religious – 12.7%

Wait, what?

We haven’t even gotten to Judaism (let alone Buddhism, Sikhism, or Wicca, or to my religion, Asatru), and we’ve already hit the non-religious category?

I’d just like to point out here to Mayor Rogers that Jesus is nothing in Judaism but a false messiah. The Jews rejected Jesus (and for sound theological reasons) as Christians were for centuries eager to remind them, calling them “Christ killers.”

In Hinduism, Jesus is a guru. He is not a god. Hindu religion takes a very non-Christian view of Jesus. As does Islam, where Jesus is again not a god, but a prophet. Buddhism rejects Jesus Christ – in other words, the idea that Jesus’ death on the cross had any meaning. In 1989, the Catholic Church – through the office of the Inquisition – rejected mixing Buddhism with “the majesty of God revealed in Christ, which towers above finite reality.”

Evangelicals say Buddhist meditation is “of the devil.” In none of these conversations is Jesus a neutral topic.

In other words, you cannot finesse Jesus into general acceptance by all. Let’s face it: Thomas Jefferson’s Jesus was not David Barton’s.

Rogers and others should consider that by 2050, Pew Research Center projects that Muslims will equal Christians in numbers. We aleady know that the number of Christians is declining in the United States, and that the number of “Nones” is increasing.
Jesus, to put it bluntly, is less the future than the past to many people, like it or not.

For secularists in the United States, you certainly can’t say Jesus is front and center, or, for atheists, much of anywhere else.
The most important point to be made here is that Christianity is a religion founded not BY Jesus, because Jesus was dead, but ABOUT Jesus. It is the only religion that can say this. Jesus is very Christian-specific.

Certainly a sign like Hawkins’ may reflect the majority view, but as was pointed out by the Founding Fathers, the majority view should not crowd out the minority view. They have rights too, and those must be protected.

If want to truly be inclusive, what’s wrong with a sign that says, simply, “The People of Hawkins Welcome You”?

Photo: Longview News Journal

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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