| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"The Last Liberal" |
| Date: |
29 Nov 2004 11:57:12 AM |
| Object: |
WARNING! God says Religious Right is Wrong! |
If you read the Gospels, the Religious Right is most often wrong
Religious Right? It seems more like the religious 'wrong'
Date published: 11/28/2004
RICK MERCIER
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/112004/11282004/1577602
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.
RICK MERCIER is a writer and editor for The Free Lance-Star.
Date published: 11/28/2004
---
http://lastliberal.org
"But when the divine part began to fade away, they then behaved
unseemly and grew visibly debased, full of avarice and
righteous power." --- PLATO (427-347 BC)
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/
.
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| User: "Ike" |
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| Title: Re: WARNING! God says Religious Right is Wrong! |
29 Nov 2004 08:21:21 PM |
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"The Last Liberal" <desertphile@cchr.ws> wrote in message
news:3119r0F35152bU1@uni-berlin.de...
If you read the Gospels, the Religious Right is most often wrong
Religious Right? It seems more like the religious 'wrong'
Date published: 11/28/2004
RICK MERCIER
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/112004/11282004/1577602
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.
<snip>
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.
Why should that make you not optimistic? You like Christians so much, go
talk to some.
--
Freedom of thought entails no "Intellectual Property".
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