I am in constant amazement at the American Bible belt and the steadfast beliefs that underpin their faith and so often spill over into right wing politics. One of the constant sources of fascination is Jesus Christ himself and how the Christ in the bible has so little to do with the faith and attitude of ultra conservative Christians.
Jesus Christ whether you believe he was real or not, is the story of one of the truly great social reformers. He was anything but conservative. In a time and in a place that was suffering under the oppression of The Roman Empire and all which that tyranny encompassed, Christ stands out as someone who saw the situation and had the balls to stand up to it. In short, he was what we would describe these days as somebody bucking the system. The very enemies of Christ are those who are in authority and attempting to rule by fear and force. He indeed had a special loathing not for his Roman oppressors, who were simply doing their job but for the ruling Jewish class, as opposed to the general populace, who were so effectively carrying out the wishes of the Romans. We saw it during the Second World War among the occupied countries of Europe of those French and Italians citizens who actively decided to back the Germans. After the war these collaborators were considered, and rightly so traitors, cowards and opportunists and were dealt with harshly by their fellows citizens for being basically scum. Should Iraq and Afghanistan go tits up the same thing will happen to those who have actively supported and profited from the US occupation. Christ saw many of the moneylenders, Pharisees and generally those who profited from Romans as repugnant and those who assisted in the oppression as worse. Christ was a great believer in freedom in a time when there weren’t too many freedoms on offer. Yet what Jesus Christ was espousing would have got him nowhere in the Republican Party. He certainly didn’t advocate that the slightest misdemeanor see a person locked up for an eternity in a privately run prison as it appears to be in the majority of “hosanna” states that boast of unnaturally high incarceration rates and even more brutal death row figures.
Imagine Christ as one of the keynote speakers at the Republican convention spewing forth “the meek will inherit the earth” You would be able to hear a pin drop and slow rumblings, quickly followed by absolute outrage at “turning the other cheek” to one’s enemies and “blessed are the peacemakers” There is a moment of – what the fuck? – if ever there was one. Eric Prince of ‘Blackwater’ and his equally conservative sister would be looking to rescind their massive donations after that. Followed up with “Love your enemy” – these four statements alone would brand him a liberal and having twelve guys trailing around after him would probably have him pegged as gay. I could well imagine “family values” also being further tested introducing the former prostitute Mary Magadelene as his PA. The press would have a field day. Yet Christ is the cornerstone of faith based politics and prayer meeting the norm of the Republican Party. It is from this massive Christian base much of the money and votes come from. Needless to say it is where many of the most Draconian Republican policies also emanate.
Woody Guthrie stated it years ago in his song “Jesus Christ” – if Jesus preached what he preached in Galilee they would lay Jesus Christ in his grave.
Ain't that the truth?
Would Christ support the current subverting of the second amendment, standing by watching 100 000 of his fellow citizens being killed or wounded every year in gun related incidents. Devout Christians from the Bible belt certainly support this wholesale slaughter of US citizens. Not only do they support it, they will fucking shoot you if you try and amend the laws or have them watered down in anyway, shape or form. Therefore I cannot ever imagine “The meek inheriting the world.”, “Turning the other cheek” or “Loving or forgiving one’s enemies” will be Republican policy any day soon: Certainly not with the devout Palin on the hustings.
Let us have a squizz at a few other policies of Christ that appear to be running counter to the current republican mood and its Christian and big business supporters.
Christ was particularly scathing of the superficiality of materialism. Imagine launching into that one at a Republican convention. If the jury was out that Jesus was possibly a liberal he would have left them in no doubt after that. The ‘superficiality of materialism’ – pardon the pun but Good God! The Republican Party and indeed Western Society that is personified by America are driven by the superficiality of materialism. Most Republicans are having trouble coming to grips with climate change and the Kyoto agreement; they would be falling down in a dead faint at one of their own condemning the ‘superficiality of materialism’. Expect donations from Halliburton and the Carlyle Group to be a little shrunken after that outburst. If the convention organizer hadn’t been tar and feathered by this stage it would probably happen shortly after Jesus Christ gave the now booing crowd a bollocking for “condemning those who would judge others” arguing that they too would be judged. Considering that the evangelical Christian right are some of the most paranoid, xenophobic and indeed intolerant of people, this statement would hit the floor of the convention like a flat brick in a still pond. Describing the Christian Republican right as judgmental is hardly doing justice to just exactly how fucking judgmental they actually are. One only needs to hear their opinion of Obama as a “Muslim”, “terrorist” and of course “liberal” to realize you are not dealing with the sane. You are dealing with some of the most outrageous bigots on the face of the globe. Fundamental Muslims are also bigots but unlike the Christian right of the Republican Party who believe themselves to be somehow tolerant and thus come across as not just mad but utter hypocrites; the far right Muslims are consistently non-apologetic and unwavering in their bigotry and their chauvinism.
Many born again evangelists will happily talk in tongues and believe in faith healing. They will espouse prophesy whch usually ends up with them sitting happily next to God and the rest of us roasting in an eternal hell. But waiting in an emergency ward of a public hospital without health insurance with a dreadfully ill child - that is an eternal hell. Christ was a great advocate for the rights of the poor and the healing of the sick. Christian supporters of the Republican Party would happily allow their party to have most Americans pay through the nose for their medical care and allow their public health to either fall into disrepair or into the merciless hands of HBOs and the insurance companies. Christ would not be a happy man with that policy.
The dominating factor of the Bush presidency has been 9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in search of “terrorists.” I could not even contemplate that the Christ of my Sunday school carpet bombs the citizens of these countries. Yet here we are seven years later and it is still a slippery balancing act of image between a hippie looking Jewish carpenter teaching us to recite,
“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
And a Jesus who behaves like Rambo murdering with righteous, patriotic rage with not just God on his side but a nuclear arsenal. What a standing ovation Christ would have received after that – he would have been lucky to get out alive. And if that wasn’t enough to put him on every Christian republican’s hate list, chucking the money lenders out of the Church probably would have sealed the deal. The look on Pat Robertson’s face as some maniac starts condemning the overt fiscal nature of the Church – every TV evangelist would want him arrested and given a lethal injection.
Added to all of the above of being tolerant, humble and caring Christ quite frankly would not have a snowball’s chance of even being in the Republican Party. He would without a doubt be considered almost too liberal for the democrats which is more of an indictment on American attitude per se rather than Republican. It has always fascinated me how being branded a “liberal” is in the US an insult. Why is it insulting not to care for guns, to celebrate the rights of individuals to actually be individuals, to not support spurious wars, to want a health, education and social security systems that caters for your less privileged and to care more that the person is a good person rather than a black person or a gay person or a female person or a Islamic person. Why is it such a bad thing to want thousands of people to be housed who are currently living under bridges and within the urban nooks and crannies of crumbling cities.
However it may not matter who wins this election although I obviously hope that it is Obama rather than the Republican ticket which is quite frankly repugnant to most caring people and certainly most international people. But the reality of getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan will probably take longer than a single term. Saddled also with the economic downturn and the underpinned factors of that slide – including seeing the US manufacturing hub sent off shore, let’s be honest here, winning this presidency could be a poison chalice that even Jesus Christ couldn’t come out smelling roses. It will be a very ugly time over the coming term no matter what. Obama will find himself in office doing back flips over electoral promises. Money simply will not be there to carry out the programs. Removing the US successfully from Iraq and Afghanistan will be even more difficult. The right will say I told you so, that he was unsuitable. The left will argue that he could have done no better. I argue that neither candidate can really win however with Obama at least you have a leader who appears to hold values that are not based solely on fear, security, holding ground, terrorism and military strength but actually paying attention to education, health and dare I say, happiness and hope of its citizens.
In the meantime Jesus Christ would never be welcome at a Republican Convention. In fact he wouldn’t have anything in common with such humourless fascists who insist that the only way to be free is to kill your enemies and your enemies are basically all those who do not share those extremely narrow beliefs of yours and the utter intolerance and fear those differences create. What a paranoid, dull world that is advocated by the far right Christian whose faith based ideology excludes so much more than what includes.
Americans have an opportunity to show the world that they disagree with the last eight years.
For Christ sake, VOTE OBAMA.
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Ah well, the Americans elected Obama and now the right wing are starting to get angry that they have a black man in power. Maybe they didn't notice it before, maybe they had their noses stuck too far up their own ani to spot it.
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Some Christians got it right. We aren't all mindless idiots. Obama isn't a saint. McCain isn't Satan (well, maybe, Palin ...) It's not all black and white.
I just looked at the two men. Neither was evil. One was a bit of a hothead, the other was calm. One had Palin on his ticket, the other didn't. One shot from the hip, the other seemed to make well thought out decisions, plus he was smart. Very smart. People smart.
I voted for the smart guy. You see, God gave me a brain, so I use it. Yes, I can.
Fascinating essay.
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A bit long. Jesus told me how to vote and I voted for the Blessed Holy Sarah Palin. She is a saint and anyone who disagrees is a ****.
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In West Virginia, these Bible-Belters were hard-working, salt of the earh Americans ... In San Francisco they were clinging to their Bibles and their guns, as you have said.
Mispoken, as in Snipers and acorns, is the watchword for the years ahead. -
Definitions of the English Language
seem to change about the way the leader's of this country changes it's laws to suit their current scam. The FRC (far right christians) are the satan they preach as the omnipotent evil. Praise Jesus!
We do not have smart bombs that only kill bad people, so direct 'clean' hits are NOT possible. We have spilled oceans of blood in the name of Jesus Christ, God and the Holy Ghost/Spirit.
We have destroyed many families, children's childhoods, countries, cultures and caused the extinction of many species, and continue to do so, all in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Halalooya, Amen.
Our Mother Earth is showing us her damage, like an 'idiot light' in a dashboard instead of gages. It's too late when the idiot light blinks red as your car blows up at a stop light. God bless America. Praise the Lord!
Our constitution is not titled "Holy Bible", King James Version, in Jesus' precious name, amen. Praise the lord.
The definition of forgiveness is NOT EQUAL to absolution. And all those who kill in the name of God, any God, will suffer their debt, as their time will come to spend eternity with those they have murdered, mutilated and caused to have miserable lives and horrible deaths. Halalooya, Amen.
At the time of this review of your work I am listening to the Obama's victory party and know that he has a lot of work cut out for him to clear the debts of many hundred years. It will not be easy. It will not be cheap. It will cost all of us, everything we have internally and externally, but the true light, not the glow of 'bombs bursting in air', will eventually see the truth and we as the human race will be able to rise above our bigoted hypocracy and hatred to the higher ground of integrity and honor. Blessed it be~
)O(
DragonBlue
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GOODONYA David!
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A+
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for review
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Obama as a “Muslim”, “terrorist” and of course “liberal” Fact check that please...I agree to everything up to this statement. His name was not Barak at birth, but changed at some point in his muslim practice, there are ties between him and american terrorists, and the democratic party at large has ALWAYS held the "liberal" title.
okay, on with it...bigots, I agree...but they are on both sides of the aisle and color...balance I think, wrong, but balanced.
But waiting in an emergency ward of a public hospital without health insurance with a dreadfully ill child
WTF? in case you haven't noticed, health insurance hit the canvas after Hillary had her closed door meeting with congress about it...take three of these and call me in three days...if you're alive. Most of the preventative testing went away after the first lady went over the line of her constitutional authority..which nobody objected to since the system was already polluted with law suits driving costs over the limit....truth
okay...on with it again...Christ would not be a happy man with that policy
Wholeheartedly agree...I think Jesus would rather heal us all, and that right quickly...too bad doctors don't know how to heal like He did.
Okay, this is deplorable -carpet bombs the citizens of these countries.
I have been alive for forty seven years, have watched endless video about WW2, WW1, and Vietnam. What happened in Afghanistan and Iraq was certainly NOT
NOT
Carpet bombing.
This was the most surgical war I have ever seen. Targeted strikes down to the doorknob. We did it CLEAN. THEY hid behind mosques and hospitals to shoot at our children...don't go anywhere near carpet bombing...I remember a certain pharmaceutical factory struck in the middle of the night by the Clinton administration that nobody questioned....to go from there to carpet bombing is insane.
ok, onward...Rambo...
The point missing is that God will do what God will do...To let God create judgment as we forgive, not that we forgive to create God's judgment...that's perverse and accomplishes nothing, God corrects without slaughter, and people get it when He is finished, when we touch it, is FUBAR from the git go...agreed?
more of an indictment on American attitude - here here, NOW you're talking...
Liberal vs. Conservative in a nutshell...conservatives want all those things listed too, they just don't want to constantly charge those who have figured it out to pay for it, they want to educate those who haven't yet as to how...conservatives don't oppose these things, they oppose the notion that intentionally non productive persons should demand them from people who "do not ask what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country" It is the grandest insult for a capable human being to ignore responsibility while at the same time thrusting responsibility for their own negligence on another human being, already burdened by their own existence. THAT is what the pharisees did.
doing back flips over electoral promises. Money simply will not be there to carry out the programs. - agreed...money won't be there PERIOD if we don't quit throwing good money after bad...bail out who? why? What??? Credit spending? Who EVER said that was a good idea?? It wasn't Greenspan, I'm certain of that.
Hold on - remember Ruby Ridge? Waco?
kill your enemies and your enemies are basically all those who do not share those extremely narrow beliefs of yours and the utter intolerance and fear those differences create
What happened to the director of the CIA during the Clinton administration..."drowned in a lake while fishing" The director of the CIA in the twenty first century can DROWN IN A LAKE WHILE FISHING???
The DIRECTOR OF THE CIA???
hmmm....ok, I'm over the top now, but I'm just citing news stories that nobody cares about...the whole thing is duplicitous. ALL of it.
I'd like to vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE, but the truth is that both are just rubber stamp figure heads for the machine that has been built over the last fifty years, a bureaucracy that doesn't care who the president is, that doesn't care about us, that doesn't care about this country, the only thing that the current government cares about is RETIRING BEFORE THEY LOSE THEIR JOB. It's not about elections, it's about protections, and those are all bought and paid for by OUR tax dollars, and nobody cares.
That's why I'm a conservative, a non affiliated voter who is just as sick as you are with affiliations that mean NOTHING.
JESUS CHRIST!! When will the truth be told about my country?
answer: in fifty years, when the freedom of information act kicks in...
alternative answer: I have no clear memory of what I just said...
whatever
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I wish this could be heard by millions. Especially the stil still undecided attention seekers who are so undecided that they are considering voting for the repugnant party. I would have much rather heard this speech than "Joe the Plumber" rant on about something so insignificant that I can't even remember. If they think for one second that this Joe guy represents all aAmericans and that we should listen to him cause he is one of "us " give me a break. My name aint Joe and I aint no plunber!!! Anyway, you could not have done this speech on a national stage because you would have been taken off at there mere mention of Jesus as a liberal, which of course he is! Now many so called christians would have you believe that Jesus hates particular thing when in fact Jesus hates nothing it's not in his nature. You think he took that beating on Calvary to hate anything? No but because he so loved the world.... Fear is what the republican party has based it's premise on for far too long...remember the whole cover your windows scare, the nuclear bomb scares, the sucicide bomer scares, now the scares that Obama would sit down and talk to these other leaders why be scared of that. It is an oppurtunity to hear what they have to say instead of MAKING IT UP. We all know that Bill C was kicking it with the muslims and keeping them happy thats why we were not bombed until W got in there thinking he going to just walk in someone else house and change the way they do things and on top of that take whatever they want from the house and use it for their own, cuz they need it. I love this speech and hopefully some undecided freaks will heed to your message..I'm done!!!
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I apologise most sincerely
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David . . . This is one of the most gut wrenching collection of truths I have read in a long, long time! Thank god somebody has the balls to state the obvious on this website. You have nailed so many of the delusional beliefs of fundamentalism to the mast of your essay. And ya, you are so right . . . Christ was the hippie/freak /anarchist of his time, a man of great passion and flesh and blood and not the falsely deitized holy image created by clubs of narrow minded men. They did him in because he was a threat to the social system of his time, it appears even the Romans were hesitant to have his blood on their hands. Thank you for sharing this brilliant piece of writing and thought, but watch your back . . . you know what they have done to the right thinking shit disturbers of our recent past . . .
Marc
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You forgets the sermon on the Mount and the Socialism inherent in the sharing of the bread and fishes.
Oopsers.
also! in your next most excellent essay you might examine the fact that in the evangelical movement the focus is on the charismatic leader who uses Jesus as an instrument in order to assert his own opinion---
...I am of the opinion that Jesus warned of these when he said...
"Many will come in my name..."
15" Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
which might lead one of gentle nature to conclude that they are spokesmen for the anti-Christ, if one were of a religious bent.
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
"21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
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When I opened this I didn't intend to comment, but I have to! This is wonderful!
Indeed Jesus was a Liberal! In his day, he challenged the government and the church. Today he would be outraged!
Bravo!
Marianne
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Made me think of WWJD, David... a good question indeed! Jesus stood for and still stands for a religion of love. Brilliant discourse here... many should read this - both about the politics and WWJD!
~ Nicolette
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Brilliant! Thought provoking and satirized enough to lend humor to a very serious event and events.
(around after him would probably*have* him pegged as gay. I could imagine “family values” also being tested introducing)...just a word missing here, other than that I enjoyed every paragraph. C
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Oh You might find in most Gideon's or King James...it's Mary Magdalene not Madeleine
she was the singing nun I think LOL
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