Of course not. In fact, he might forgivingly wait to find out if he had the option to press 11 for Aramaic, the language he spoke before America lured him across the border with the promise of a crummy job on the down-low.

So might not even a lengthier menu please Jesus? His gospel was aggressively inclusive, ultimately coopting the whole Roman Empire. Ironically, this only led to years of compulsory Latin, a famously intolerant language, especially in the hands of scientists and clergy.

How about the new dollar coins which don't bear the words, "In God We Trust"? Would Jesus accept those coins?

Undoubtedly he would prefer to recycle and barter, but if he were at a garage sale and they wanted cash for a velvet Elvis, Jesus would know the deal. He would nod to his boy Simon the Zealot, who would slip out the purse and plop down Godless gold dollars. Jesus was profoundly contemptuous of money, that false god in which so many trust, so why would he want it to bear homage to his Dad? He flew into a rage over the sight of moneychangers in the Temple, and later, it was money that paid for his betrayal.

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," he said once, making it clear that he and God want something else entirely from us. (What he wanted from the fig tree he cursed for not bearing figs in March, we can't be sure.)

Poverty, disease, acts of God? Jesus would so be eschewing the organized heavy machinery with which Americans love to "make war" on these problems, in favor of a more laying-on-of-the-hands-but-with-contraception-and-prophylaxis approach. He would be opposed to abortion, but instead of playing a blame/shame game with people about it - or infidelity, or promiscuity, or immaturity - he would want women and their doctors to make up their own minds, and try to deal humanely with the consequences.

Jesus would hardly own a car or burn carbon prodigally, even using an old push-mower to cut the grass. He would walk or bike, always keeping local, as he did back in the day. He would live next to married swingers and faithful same-sex couples in glass houses and kid them, saying, "I'm still without sin, so don't make me cast the first stone!"

Yet Jesus would always be the first to admit that while it wasn't technically a sin, he made an error in not recruiting at least six women for the first dozen apostle slots. "Verily, they would've had enormous barriers to overcome," he'd aver, "but that would've made them even better apostles. And certainly more fun to preach with at the beach."

Jesus would only shake his head at the fundamentalists of all religions, and scoff at the idea of creation science. "Pops always acts and speaks in heaps more nuance than just a literal sense," Jesus would chuckle. "He left us the record of evolution over millennia to show how specks way smaller than a mustard seed could grow into thousands of related species of creatures and souls, far more wild and wonderful than a mere honking mustard tree."

What about the war in Iraq? There's no question, Jesus would've enlisted in the Special Forces immediately following 9/11. The Special Forces of Love, that is. Instead of going after the Taliban and Osama and Saddam and Iran and everybody else's Muslim brother's uncle, Jesus would've flown back to the old country and started furiously tearing up bread and fishes and healing people, turning oil into wine, petrodollars into pita and hummus, and in general not starting a war for profit - or prophets - without exploiting and enslaving our brothers the way Americans usually do.

Indeed, there is apparently already a growing problem with Americans getting through the Pearly Gates, according to a recent article in the afterlife journal, Heavenly Spectrum. Analyst John Prine reports patriots are lining up to see Peter, only to find out admission requires more than a degree in English Supremacy, or Flagwaving, or Godly Moneyspending.

"They're already overcrowded from your dirty little war," explains Prine. "Now Jesus don't like killin', no matter what the reasons for, and your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore."

Tell us what you think. Write Spectrum at editor@mcckc.edu.

Copyright 2007 Metropolitan Community College