A popular 21^st Century mantra for Christians attempting to construct a workable ethical framework for living is to ask “What Would Jesus Do?”

Tony Campolo illustrates the technique in this exchange:

“My problem is I want to do what Jesus would do.” “Could you get in a plane, fly over an enemy village and drop bombs?”

I said, “I could get in the plane. I could fly over the enemy village. But when I was about to release the bomb, at that moment I would have to say, ‘Jesus, if you were in my place, would you drop the bombs?'”

And I remember the colonel yelling back to me, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Everybody knows Jesus wouldn’t drop bombs?”

The problem is, this is the wrong question to ask. I have spent more than 40 years earning a living by programming computers – an essentially worthless endeavour other than its fortunate side effect of providing me with an income to support myself and my family. I fell into what passes for a career accidentally; had I said to myself 43 years ago, would Jesus spend most of his waking hours writing obscure digital code that would result in millions of people banging their heads on computer screens in frustration, I would have to have answered, “no”. That would have left me with another childhood ambition: being a train driver. Obviously, Jesus would not be a train driver, so I would be left with my only other ambition – to be a tramp.

In the context it is used, WWJD is a stupid question. So when someone like Campolo uses it to justify or condemn a particular action, I am immediately suspicious and inclined to do the opposite. And that is exactly my reaction to the BNP when they answer the question by  saying Jesus would vote for the BNP; if I did not already have enough reasons for not voting for the BNP, that would be the clincher – although it’s academic, since I live in Canada.

Michael Nazir-Ali has been unable to resist the temptation to wade into the BNP WWJD idiocy:

When we talk of a society built on Christian values, it is often misunderstood as a reference to intolerance, of exclusivity. The ultimate expression of this tendency comes in a campaign billboard, unveiled in March, which quoted scripture out of context, then posed the question: “What would Jesus do?” The answer given was simple: “Vote BNP.”

This was a clear example of using Christian-sounding words to promote a profoundly anti-Christian agenda. No one should be taken in by it. The policies advocated by the BNP are contrary to our belief that all human beings, regardless of race or colour, have a common origin and are made in God’s image.

Michael Nazir-Ali is right, of course, but if Jesus would not vote for the BNP, who would he vote for? I remember, many years ago, Malcolm Muggeridge was asked for his opinion on the abysmally low voter turnout at general elections. He gave a typical Muggeridge response: he said that people who don’t vote are the flower of the population. Although I can sympathise with his answer and understand why he gave it, I would not be prepared to defend it. Nevertheless, it gives us a clue as to whom Jesus would vote for: I think he would forget to vote altogether because he wouldn’t think of it as something sufficiently important to warrant his attention.

It’s instructive to ponder the whips with which a navel-gazing super-power chooses to flagellate itself. In this particular case it is the printing of bible passages on Bush’s Iraq briefings:

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was sold as a fight for freedom against the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

But for former U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his elite Pentagon strategists, it was more like a religious crusade.

The daily briefings about the progress of the war that Mr Rumsfeld gave to President George W Bush were illustrated with victorious quotes from the Bible and gung-ho photographs of U.S. troops, it has emerged.

A photograph of Saddam Hussein included a quotation from the First Epistle of Peter: ‘It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.’

The religious theme for briefings prepared for the president and his war cabinet was the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a committed Christian and director for intelligence serving Mr Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the days before the six-week invasion, Major General Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers for the briefings to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle.

But as the body count rose, he decided to introduce biblical quotes.

However, many of his Pentagon colleagues were reportedly opposed to the idea, with at least one Muslim analyst said to be greatly offended.

A defence official warned that if the briefing covers were leaked, the damage to America’s standing in the Arab world ‘would be as bad as Abu Ghraib’ – the Baghdad prison where U.S. troops abused Iraqis.

Since Christopher Hitchens supported the Iraq war, one wonders what he will make of this. The curious thing is not the fact that it happened – something that is really only mildly surprising – but the fuss its discovery is creating.

The fear appears to be that, in spite of the fact that the US was at war and embroiled in all the horror and mess that accompanies war, the last thing it could afford to do was offend those who are being bombed – or liberated. Could America’s standing in the Arab world be any lower? After this, I suppose Obama will have refine his ingratiation technique and bow to the Saudi King – even lower.

Saddam’s gruesome little tyranny was secular not religious so billing the Iraq war as a crusade, bible verses or not, does not hold water; the mixing of politics and religion is often a recipe for disaster, but those who are most prone to do it – the religious left – will be the noisiest critics of this discovery.

I wonder if anyone would be surprised to find verses of the Koran on the plans that led up to 911?