Cowboys and Christians

I have never given names to my stuff, not even my boat. I don't know why, I just never got into the habit of it. My muzzleloader, which you have christened "Old Betsy", is the one with the cracked stock. I have two other deer rifles, one of which I haven't used in years. That one was my father's, so I would never sell it. It's a classic lever action, which is what the Rifleman had, although his was all souped up. I don't know if one exactly like that ever existed in the real world. I think the creators of that series were trying to put a different spin on the cowboy image, which had already been done to death. As I remember it, the Rifleman wasn't a cowboy, he was a farmer and a family man, so he needed something different than the iconic six shooter. Nevertheless, he shot like a cowboy and fought like a cowboy, but his heart was pure as the driven snow, like all the other TV cowboys of the era. Those were the good old days, when everything was black and white. About the time they came out with colored TV is when this country started to go to hell. Coincidence? I think not!

I believe the Anglicans, which are called Episcopalians in the U.S., also put the "St." in front of Paul's name. The King James Bible refers to all the authors of New Testament books as saints, and that one was translated by Englishmen. My old tattered Revised Standard Version from Elsdon does not, Paul is just plain Paul. The folks at Elsdon usually called him "Paul the Apostle", although he wasn't one of the original twelve. Everybody had only one name in those days, usually followed by the name of his home town or his profession. Paul was originally Saul of Tarsus, but he changed his name to Paul after his conversion experience. I doubt that anybody called him "St. Paul" in his lifetime, I'm not sure when they started doing that.

Christians are frequently criticized for not living up to the teachings of Jesus, usually by people who don't even believe in Jesus themselves. I don't know what to say about that. People are people and they do what they do. All the other religions say to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, Christianity is the only one that says to love your enemy and turn the other cheek. In the real world, following all the teachings of Jesus would be extremely difficult, unless you only come in contact with others who are trying to do the same thing. That is precisely the main message of Christianity, nobody is good enough to deserve salvation, but it's available to everybody through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Don't feel bad if you don't understand that, I think there are a lot of Christians who don't understand it either. Maybe they're better off for it, about the time I understood it was when I stopped believing it.