Zing!
Sullivan gives the pious both barrels:
It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus said his kingdom was emphatically not of this world, defends religious war where Jesus sought always peace, and backs torture, which is what the Romans did to Jesus.
And obsesses over abortion, which is hardly mentioned at all in the Bible and requires creative and selective interpretation to conjure a moral opinion on the subject. And opposes taxing the rich to heal the poor.
Look, the New Testament wouldn’t have made it far if we didn’t have Paul to gloss over the Gospels and bring things back around to Old Testament style shepherding of unwieldy and sinful humans. Jesus survives as the model of a very nice person, but he was quickly morphed into a carrot to keep people out of Hell. Now Americans have turned Christ into an ATM and mega-churches kindly keep their flock poor and devotional, relieving them of their corruptive moneys.
It’s important to note that Andrew refers to “Christianism,” the conflation of rightwing politics with Jesus’ completely unrelated teachings, which gets practiced at least more loudly than Christianity in our society. But it’s defined itself as the real face of Christianity, wrapped in the American flag. It’s easy not to belong, but less easy to be heard. Many simply eschew any label at all, keeping their prayers private and their deeds under the radar. Some people embody the conflict, possessing both the virtues and the vices of Christianity, pious at times and deeply principled at others. Yet our balance is precarious, and wisdom is scattering thin and far.
On that note, let the War on Christmas begin!
-jb
November 30th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I love what Barry Goldwater said about the Christian take over of the Republican party back in ’94.
“When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”
December 1st, 2009 at 7:41 am
And considering the fact that Lutherans and Catholics would be considered “liberal” to these radically right people shows you just how Old Testament they are. And as far as the money making ventures, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, and the like tend to gloss over the whole Mark 11:15–19, 11:27–33, Matthew 21:12–17, 21:23–27 and Luke 19:45–48, 20:1–8 parts of the bible. The story of the money changers at the Temple in Jerusalem appears in all four Gospels so it must have been a pretty important lesson.