…One cannot help but wonder what Jesus would think of today’s religion that bears his name, let alone the other two monotheistic religions that emerged from his homeland.

Certainly there is no peace on the troubled earth that we call the Holy Land. Nearly a quarter century ago, I produced a television documentary I called “Holy Land, Bloody Ground,” for which I journeyed to the Middle East. If the ground was bloody in 1982, it is saturated in blood today, and all three monotheistic religions have a hand in the carnage.

We kill, they kill, we all kill in the name of God. Christians are squeezed from the birthplace of Jesus by militant Zionist Israelis on one side and Islamic militants on the other. Ironically, Christian fundamentalists are egging this on in hopes that it will trigger the Rapture, when the chosen will have box seats as unbelievers are barbequed by a righteous God.

Not to be outdone, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad favors an Islamic version of the End Times in which he nukes Israel and prompts the return of the Mahdi, a prophet of particular importance to Shiites.

In Iraq, devastated by a war prosecuted by right-wing Christian politicians in league with neoconservative Zionists, an Islamic theocracy is likely to result, widening divisions within the region and putting women back in their proper place behind veils and walls.

Even in this country, sometimes cited as the most religious in the Western world, the body of Christ is torn and tossed from one extreme to another. … More: The Seattle Times: Opinion: What would Jesus do about religion’s evolution?