One of the strangest alliances I have found
is that between Religious Conservatives and the Republican Party. Historically
the Republican Party has accented individual freedoms over society issues. They
reflect the rugged frontiersmen who want to do things on their own without
outside (government) interference. Nobody, in their estimation should be about
messing with individual freedoms.
And yet we see the Christian right wantsing
to enforce their principles upon the country whether they like it or not. They
want to make anti-abortion the law of the land as they define it. Is that not
an invasion of private freedom? They want to outlaw gay marriages and again is
that not a private freedom? These and issues like them stand in direct
opposition to conservative principles and yet the Republicans embrace them
because it is expedient politics. Or, they are in bed with the devil (unbelievers),
so to speak. It is also a sign of our times that we live in a time of moral expediency
versus moral values based upon principles and overall integrity.
We see it in business all the time where
the bottom line overshadows all other issues. Businesses, ethically, are to
create goods and services for a public and needs these. But business ethics
have gone by the way of the dinosaur and seem irrelevant to the majority of
business models.
With that said, the major issue I have is
with the religious right and their practice of Christian morality. I had a
young woman ask me at one time how can anyone be a Republican and a Christian.
I told her they are believers is Jesus as Lord, therefore Christians, but I
think they do badly in applying the teachings of Jesus. They have a marked
propensity for negative versus positive images and actions of God as expressed
in the Trinity. I especially quarrel with the interpretations of the teachings
of Jesus.
For instance over the years conservative
Christians have believed: 1. Jesus disapproved of playing cards, drinking any
and alcoholic beverages, dancing, singing, wearing bathing suits, watching
movies; 2. Jesus didn’t want pianos and organs in churches; 3. Jesus
disapproved of ice cream treats on Sundays (so we call the Sundaes); 4. Jesus
disapproved of masturbation and homosexuality; 5. Jesus disapproved of family
planning (birth control) and abortion; while they believed in slavery and
segregation. And, of course, they could always find scriptures to back up their
views.
This is so twisted I cannot get my head
around it in views of the teachings of Jesus to love God and each other
unconditionally. I do believe and see in scripture Jesus getting very angry at
narrow minded legalistic practitioners of his religion, i.e. the Pharisees and Sadducees
who believed and acted much the way modern conservative Christians do. I do not
find Jesus advocating rugged individualism but emphasizing the common good for
all people, caring for them in all ways. In other words Jesus seems to a
liberal to me then and now. Admitted the cultures then and now are much
different and Jesus did not deal with every issue we have to deal with today.
But he did lay down solid good outlines in his commandment to love each other
as we love ourselves and in the teachings of the beatitudes.
I believe that Romney and Ryan and most
Republicans are Christians by their professions. But I have a lot of difficulty
with their practice of those Christian principles which seem to ebb and flow
with the polls. I also have a lot of the same problems with Democrats, but at
least historically they seem more aligned with the Christian principles I know
and believe in.
IMO, the conservative Christian 'bloc' is basically the southern evangelicals; usurped by the 'southern strategy' and manipulated by ralph reed
ReplyDelete..harsh perhaps, but my view.
Expanding just a bit, the evangelical-GOP link is covered more extensively in the unquestionably prescient Kevin Phillp's 'American Theocracy'. It is a sobering read, so I'll just quote from the review:
ReplyDelete"Phillips is especially passionate in his discussion of the second great force that he sees shaping contemporary American life — radical Christianity and its growing intrusion into government and politics. The political rise of evangelical Christian groups is hardly a secret to most Americans after the 2004 election, but Phillips brings together an enormous range of information from scholars and journalists and presents a remarkably comprehensive and chilling picture of the goals and achievements of the religious right.
He points in particular to the Southern Baptist Convention, once a scorned seceding minority of the American Baptist Church but now so large that it dominates not just Baptism itself but American Protestantism generally. The Southern Baptist Convention does not speak with one voice, but almost all of its voices, Phillips argues, are to one degree or another highly conservative. On the far right is a still obscure but, Phillips says, rapidly growing group of "Christian Reconstructionists" who believe in a "Taliban-like" reversal of women's rights, who describe the separation of church and state as a "myth" and who call openly for a theocratic government shaped by Christian doctrine. A much larger group of Protestants, perhaps as many as a third of the population, claims to believe in the supposed biblical prophecies of an imminent "rapture" — the return of Jesus to the world and the elevation of believers to heaven.
Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism." Source
"They want to make anti-abortion the law of the land as they define it. Is that not an invasion of private freedom? "
ReplyDeleteNot at all. It is not a "personal freedom" to be able to kill the young, exactly as it is not a "personal freedom" to be able to rape at will. Abortion, a violent act forced on other human beings is a violation of personal freedom.
You are correct on the gay marriage matter, though.
Interesting, the way folks are so intensely interested in the pregnancies of women they don't know...and children they
ReplyDeletewill resent helping.
Jesus was an unabashed liberal railing against the Pharisees, the Religious Right (RR) of his day.
ReplyDeleteThe RR is an authoritarian movement which aims to exert more govt control over all aspects of sex, reproduction, and marriage. Abortion, birth control, gay marriage, it's all the same agenda to them.
"Jesus was an unabashed liberal"
ReplyDeleteI don't see him demanding that Caesar tax the people even more, speaking out in favor of abortion or gay marriage, saying one word about the need for universal healthcare. Jesus didn't argue for Caesar forcing people to pay large sums of money to fund wealthy endeavors like Sesame Street. He never argued for the need to have government control the media. Or anything about the right to keep and bear arms. Or anything about issue after issue I check starting with the major issues that divide liberals from conservatives.
"Render Unto Caesar" which can possibly be read as an admonition to give the rulers money when they demand it, is really the only part of the liberal agenda you find from Him.
Now, of course, these same thing can be said about Jesus and conservatives. You won't find much if anything of the conservative agenda there, either. No pro-gun, no ban gay marriage, etc.
And your specific argument? One could have just as easily equated Jesus with an angry tea-party conservative as with any sort of liberal.
---------------
"The RR is an authoritarian movement which aims to exert more govt control over all aspects of sex, reproduction, and marriage. Abortion, birth control, gay marriage, it's all the same agenda to them."
This is only partially true. On many issues which you did not name, the RR consistently supports anti-authoritarian policies. Abortion? Yes, the RR opposes it. But here they take the stance of liberty, against the abuse of government power by those who would strip away a person's right to live without being wantonly killed by someone else on a whim for convenience.
Even on gay marriage, the lines are muddied. The great liberal president Obama campaigned against gay marriage in 2008, and only recently changed his mind on it. He was never in the RR.
---------------
BB said: "Interesting, the way folks are so intensely interested in the pregnancies of women they don't know...and children they
will resent helping."
I have yet to meet any such person among fellow conservatives.
To lift Jesus up from a 3rd rate country and place him down in America and as American is bizarre and inappropriate. It is entirely proper to take his principles which are clearly liberal and apply those principles is appropriate. For those who cannot see the difference you remind me of the committee of blind men speaking with authority on the nature of the elephants while holding onto various parts of said elephant. We need people with eyes wide open, seeing the entire picture to speak with eloquence and understanding rather than just cheering whatever elephant or donkey they find fondness for.
ReplyDeleteI don't see anything clearly liberal about his policies. He said so little about the need for the government to control and direct and run our lives. Very little at all.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Republicans and conservatives politicize Jesus. You have followed in their footsteps. In my earlier comment, and here, I repeat that it is, to borrow a couple of your words, "bizaree and inappropriate" to match Him in such a way to modern fleeting political ideologies. Whether you do it, or Pat Robertson does.