Religions > Atheism > If You Read the Gospels, the Religious Right is Most Often Wrong
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"johac" |
| Date: |
01 Dec 2004 01:37:23 AM |
| Object: |
If You Read the Gospels, the Religious Right is Most Often Wrong |
According to this article, the Christian Right is neither.
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Published Monday, November 29, 2004 by the Free-Lance Star /
Fredricksburg, Virginia
If You Read the Gospels, the Religious Right is Most Often Wrong
by Rick Mercier
Was Jesus a big winner in the last election?
You'd sure think so. If the pundits and Religious Right zealots are
correct, the Son of God scored a knockout victory on Nov. 2. We've had
it drilled into our heads that something known as "moral values" was
decisive in the election. Some worked-up commentators have even said
we're on the brink of a second Great Awakening.
All this hype about the God talk swirling around in our culture prompted
me to do a little research (a big departure from how I usually prepare
for writing a column). I cracked open my Bible and started rereading the
Gospels.
And you know what? I can't see what all this sanctimonious values
rhetoric has to do with Jesus. I've compared what I read in Gospels with
what I've been hearing from the Religious Right, and I've concluded that
the holier-than-thous must have traded in their red-letter editions of
the Good Book for red-state versions that omit most of Jesus' teachings.
The truth is, if you depend on the Christian right for your theological
sustenance, you probably won't recognize the Jesus of the Gospels.
Jesus was quite a troublemaker. In fact, I'm thinking the Bush
administration would have a special place for Jesus were the swarthy
Nazarene to take up his ministry today in the U.S. of A.--in a cell with
other Middle Eastern men awaiting deportation.
Let's recall what the Jesus of the Gospels espoused. "When you give a
banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you
will be blessed, because they cannot repay you," the sandal-wearing
rabble-rouser was known to say.
That sounds pretty good, but it makes you realize that JC would never
have reached "Ranger" or "Pioneer" status in the Bush fund-raising
machine.
Then, of course, there's Jesus' encounter with the rich ruler who said
he was a righteous man because he'd followed the Ten Commandments since
his youth (though he gave no indication that he'd ever erected a
monument dedicated to them in a public place).
Jesus told the ruler: "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that
you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven; then come, follow me."
When the ruler started looking glum, Jesus responded with his famous
kicker: "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom
of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
Holy class warfare! No wonder Republicans have switched out the Jesus of
the Gospels for a low-rent moralizer preoccupied with what other people
are doing with their bodies.
I've no intention of turning this column into a Sunday school lesson, so
I'll ease up on the Bible quotes. But go ahead and read the Gospels for
yourself, and see if you can reconcile the Jesus you encounter in those
texts with the Jesus the Religious Right wields as a battle-ax.
If you're a thoughtful, independent-minded person, I'll bet you read the
Gospels and wonder: Where in America does this Jesus dwell?
Where in America is the Jesus who sides with the poor and the outcasts?
Where in America is the Jesus who disdains those who wear their
piousness on their sleeves? Where in America is the the Jesus with the
prophetic voice, the radical who dares to tell the powerful what they
don't want to hear?
Is he in the pews that fill every Sunday morning with the smug and
complacent? Is he in a political party that fights for tax cuts for the
rich while neglecting the needs of decent, hard-working Americans? Is he
among the "God-and-country" demagogues who push an idolatrous
nationalism and who see military service as the supreme form of
sacrifice?
Your questions might not end there. You may observe that other things
are missing from our fashionable "moral values" rhetoric.
You may, for example, notice the absence of any critique of an economic
system that turns Jesus' birthday into an opportunity to jump-start
consumer spending. Or any critique of corporate control of the public's
airwaves, which helps ensure the culture is saturated with sexuality and
violence that appeal to the lowest common denominator but generate huge
profits.
Where is the righteous conservative Christian politician who makes these
things campaign issues, who talks about them as moral issues?
I have no doubt that the Christian right and their leader, George W.
Bush, are sincere about their faith. But I also have no doubt--to
paraphrase one of America's pre-eminent theologians, Stanley
Hauerwas--that sincerity has precious little to do with Christianity.
This "moral values" talk doesn't do much to sustain Christianity,
either. The phrase is as banal as the hacks (of both the political and
journalistic variety) who are busy fetishizing it.
For political operatives, the phrase's beauty lies in its meaningless.
It can be made to mean anything, and, in a culture with no meaningful
moral narratives, it can be turned into a cudgel that's useful for
political ends but has nothing to do with any coherent religious
tradition.
In the spiritual vacuum that exists in this country, the Christian right
is well-positioned to argue that its menagerie of fears and
chauvinisms--piled into a box labeled "moral values"--constitutes a
serious moral narrative. It doesn't, but the Religious Right's
contribution to the denigration of Christianity will continue unabated
until other Christian communities come up with a compelling alternative.
The trouble is, our society seems to lack the kind of exemplars who
could build that alternative. What we need are the spiritual descendants
of Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day, people who are willing to
endure the enmity and scorn of the political establishment and
mainstream culture.
Maybe those people are out there, but I don't see them. That's why I'm
not optimistic about the survival of the Christian tradition in our
culture. What many view as a great spiritual revival looks a lot to me
like another stage of rot in American Christianity's corpse.
Can the cadaver rise up? It doesn't seem hopeful. In contemporary
America, the Jewish Palestinian whom many call their messiah has become
just another Middle Easterner to be ignored or reviled.
---
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1129-24.htm
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently
in theVirgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened
nation?-Garry Wills, New York Times 11/04/04
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