Jesus Was a Lefty
There has been some talk about this lately, and I get the feeling it's starting to happen. Somehow American religion became dominated by televangelist-style rhetoric of the narrowest sort, obsessed with sin and especially with other people's sins. Maybe it wasn't dominated, exactly, but that's how it started to look. And now it's shifting.
Wow, hey, just a minute, I remember that -- that was in the Bible, wasn't it? That's pretty radical, a preacher actually quoting Jesus.
Quick little wrap-up of the history of how we ended up in the present-day abyss:
It should be a simple thing. Open The Book. Read what He said. Live by those words.
(CBS) At a church in Washington, hundreds of committed Christians met recently and tried to map out a strategy to get their values into the political debate.
But these are not the conservative Christian values which have been so influential lately. This is the religious left.
"Jesus called us to love our neighbor, love our enemy, care for the poor, care for the outcast, and that's really the moral core of where we think the nation ought to go," Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches told CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell. Religion Taking A Left Turn?
Wow, hey, just a minute, I remember that -- that was in the Bible, wasn't it? That's pretty radical, a preacher actually quoting Jesus.
"Jesus never said one word about homosexuality, never said one word about civil marriage or abortion," Edgar said.
...
We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry," Campolo said. "To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics."
The Christian left is focusing on:
- Fighting poverty
- Protecting the environment
- Ending the war in Iraq
"Right now the war in Iraq costs us $1 billion per week," said Rev. Jim Wallis, a Christian activist. "And we can't get $5 billion over ten years for child care in this country?"
Quick little wrap-up of the history of how we ended up in the present-day abyss:
Three decades ago liberal religious leaders had a powerful influence on politics.
In the 1960s and 70s they led demonstrations against civil rights abuses and the war in Vietnam. But when those battles were over, the movement seemed to lose energy, while the Christian right had become well organized and committed to having its voice and concerns heard.
It should be a simple thing. Open The Book. Read what He said. Live by those words.
posted by JimK at 3:34 PM
17 Comments:
digger said...
Disagreeing about gay marriage, or even disagreeing about the curriculum, is just disagreeing. Associating gay men with child molesters is prejudice, and evidence of bigotry. Does everybody understand the difference?
Robert
Straight men and gay men both molest children woman straight and lesbian molest children. Bi-sexual molest children. According to the FBI one in three girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they reach the age 18 56% of those victims will be abused before they reach the age of 12 years old. From 1978 to 1995 major gay rights organizations held as one of there planks the goal of abolishing the age of consent laws in this country. Pedophilia and pederast have both been described in medical journals as a sexual orientation. And papers have been written about the theory that these people are born this way. If you want to discuss the sex education of the children of Montgomery county, and the problems that they will face in school and growing up in the USA than I think that this should be discussed. And I don’t buy the prejudice ploy or the, you’re a bigot stance. Lets let the facts speak for themselves.
I always enjoy hearing these reports of a resurgent Religious Left, though mostly because it only highlights just how out of touch old mainline religious leaders are with the reality in the pews...
Bob Edgar, Jim Wallis and whoever else is interested might want to consider what Charlotte Allen (Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.") has to say on this subject, her op-ed, titled,
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins
Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary
for the date July 9, 2006
Saving the best for last, this is the final paragraph of Allen's op-ed,
So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.
In other words: never take advice from the losing side.
Jim
Good topic of discussion. Obviously, we can't pigeonhole Jesus into our contemporary American political structure. Indeed, reading the gospels, it seems his disciples are encouraging him to get involved in politics while he resists, saying his kingdom is not of this world.
What basis do you have thinking Jesus would be in favor of government action to end poverty or environmental issues?
Orin does have a point. One reason the religious left has declined is because mainstream churches have steadily declined in membership while evangelical ones have grown exponentially.
anon said, "Straight men and gay men both molest children woman straight and lesbian molest children. Bi-sexual molest children"
Then why does the mantra seem to be if you are gay you are also a pedophile? As if only gays are pedophiles....
Jeff
Anonymous writes,
Orin does have a point. One reason the religious left has declined is because mainstream churches have steadily declined in membership while evangelical ones have grown exponentially.
While I thank you for the compliment, and while I have read and observed this social phenomena, I think Allen put it the best that any have for a while, and that is why I wanted to share with the others here what she had to say.
Yes, the old line Christian denominations are losing members, some to Immortality, others still leaving in disgust. Oddly though, this group continues to believe that evangelical churches kick people out (if you doubt that, check out one of their tv ads here,
http://stillspeaking.org/default.htm)
No, there is no pushing an "ejector button"...a church teaches, for example, that the homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with Scripture. Individuals then make their own decision whether or not they want to attend that church (yes, there are a few isolated incidents, but for the most part this process is self-selecting), and contribute their time, talent and money to that church.
I do not know Jeff, it might have to do with the fact that. From 1978 to 1995 major gay rights organizations held as one of there planks the goal of abolishing the age of consent in this country. You can believe what ever you want. You can believe that the earth is flat. You can go around telling everyone that the earth is flat and you can find people who agree with you. But it does not matter how many people you convince that the earth is flat. If everyone thought that the earth was flat. I would still know that it is round. Just like I know that boys are born boys and girls are born girls.
Anon,
Can you provide a citation for your assertion that "major gay rights associations" urged eliminatio of age of consent laws prior to 1995? Not just the names of such organizations, but the text of such alleged statements?
Also, I suspect that the question of HOW we go about dealing with the plight of the poor cannot be found in statements attributed to Jesus. But my understanding is that his words made it pretty clearthat it is incumbent on us to address that plight effectively .
As much as I agree with most of what Rev. Edgar says,I do not agree that it is enough to say simply that we should end the war in Iraq. The question of what we should do NOW in Iraq is different from the questions of whether the President's decision to choose that war was a terrible mistake and whether his conduct of the war compounded the mistake. Many who thought (or have recently concluded) that both the decision to start this war and the stratgies during the first years were disastrous are not at all certain that we can prevent further disaster by setting a date certain for American withdrawal. It is the measure of the President's terrible decisions that we have no good options, and that every possible option will likely make the situation even worse.
For example, if we leave before the Iraqi government can keep the peace, that government will most likely ask their Shi'a compatriots in Iran to bail them out, leading to a horrific slaughter of Sunnis (and maybe Kurds) and an expansion of fundamentalist Iranian Islamic power.
But if we commit to staying indefinitely, the Iraqigovernment will forever be dependent on us -- eventually resulting in its collapse, with the vaccuum filled by either AlQaeda or Iranian terrorists and Americans beating a humiliating retreat or engaging in a full-scale war of Empire that will further inflame the Islamic world against us and further cut us off from our own allies -- not to mention a massive loss of American soldiers and treasure in a war we can neverfinally win. Moreover, such a war would make it immeasurably less likely that moderate, friendly regimes would emerge or survive in the Islamic world.
Had we kept our eye on Al Qaeda in 2002 and in the ensuing years, rather than going to war in Iraq, we would not be in this mess.
David
The International Lesbian and Gay Association is a world-wide network of national and local groups dedicated to achieving equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people everywhere.
Founded in 1978, it now has more than 400 member organisations. Every continent and around 90 countries are represented. ILGA member groups range from small collectives to national groups and entire cities.
ILGA is to this day the only international non-profit and non-governmental community-based federation focused on presenting discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation as a global issue.
Now anon, you did not address your statement of "From 1978 to 1995 major gay rights organizations held as one of there planks the goal of abolishing the age of consent in this country."
Names please and quotes, etc., from them advocating such.
And I guess you never bothered to read the article about the child in Florida entering Kindergarten right before you said again "Just like I know that boys are born boys and girls are born girls"?
How about reading the blog COMPLETELY?
Anne
Here is a different take on the Religious Left confab held recently in Washington DC,
"Pentecost 2006" was the Wallis convocation, a joint affair last month of his Sojourners magazine and "Call to Renewal" political organizing arm. Pentecost, of course, is when the Holy Ghost fell upon the New Testament church in Jerusalem.
But there was no speaking in tongues at Mr. Wallis's Pentecost. Instead there was a lot of tongue wagging, mostly at Republicans. Poverty is not a family value was the theme.
Like most religious left outfits, Mr. Wallis's groups want to disengage churchgoers from concerns about abortion and homosexuality and refocus them on poverty and the environment. Mr. Wallis, the old Students for a Democratic Society hell-raiser from the 1960s, has tempered his rhetoric. But he still looks to the federal welfare and regulatory state as the source of secular salvation.
BTW, Orin's unattributed quote comes from the ultraconservative American Spectator.
JimK
"Anon,
Can you provide a citation for your assertion that "major gay rights associations" urged eliminatio of age of consent laws prior to 1995? Not just the names of such organizations, but the text of such alleged statements?"
You've got at least a couple of anons now, David. Anon-original didn't make the above statement and I don't know which side is correct. I await the resolution between you two. However, onward:
"Also, I suspect that the question of HOW we go about dealing with the plight of the poor cannot be found in statements attributed to Jesus. But my understanding is that his words made it pretty clearthat it is incumbent on us to address that plight effectively ."
I think Jesus would say we should do what we can to alleviate suffering, one form of which is poverty. This is what he consistently did. Jesus and John the Baptist, his cousin, did denounce Herod for immorality and hypocrisy, however, but never suggested that he should be feeding the poor, that I can recall. I do think they denounced some of the abusive taxation policies of the period which over-burdened (or created) the poor. The question, though, is whether reducing poverty is the role of government or individuals and whether governmental action could ever succeed in doing that and, further, will simply redistributing wealth actually accomplish this. The American experiment of spending billions since LBJ to combat poverty doesn't seem to have been very effective. Still, I would think faithful Judeo-Christians could have opinions on both sides.
"As much as I agree with most of what Rev. Edgar says,I do not agree that it is enough to say simply that we should end the war in Iraq.
......
Had we kept our eye on Al Qaeda in 2002 and in the ensuing years, rather than going to war in Iraq, we would not be in this mess.
David"
Glad you recognize what a tragedy simply pulling out would be. You're probably right that mistakes were made at the inception of the war but it's hard to say what. I have many ideas but it's all second-guessing at this point. My view is that Iraq was unavoidable this time, although, personally I think we should have stayed out of Gulf War I. Anyway, faithful Judeo-Christians could have both views, I would think.
Anybody up for a discussion about biblical positions on environmentalism?
Original
If you google "bible environment", you find a wealth of sources.
I would be more interested in what the bible says about disabled people.
rrjr
Jim writes,
BTW, Orin's unattributed quote comes from the ultraconservative American Spectator.
LOL! Thanks Jim....I was in a bit of a hurry and figured most would figure it came off a vast vight ving conspiracy website. Yes, it originated from the conservative (as opposed to "ultra"...what is ultra anyhow?...oh, yeah, I forgot, it is a conservative group that is simply too far out of the mainstream...phew, glad I figured that out) magazine The American Spectator. I picked it up off the WSJ op-ed site, OpinionJournal.com, where they had "reprinted" the piece.
wELL oRIN, iN ttf'S nEVER-nEVER LAND, tHERE aRE twO tYPES:
uLTRACONSERVATIVES AnD sOCIOLOGICAL sChOlARS!!!
Original,
The WWJD approach to public policy is a useful one. One that we both agree should be done with a certain degree of humility.
I do have an observation on your comment that Jesus would not have expected Herod to deal with poverty and that he may have negative things to say about taxation. The regimes of Herod and the Romans were kingdoms/dictatorships. There was no sense of the government being an extension and creature of the entire community. So taxation by its very nature and source would be deemed oppressive. And there would be no expectation of government programs for the greater good -- only for the good of the ruling class, which held power solely by force of arms.
In a democracy, in contrast, the government should be "of the people, by the people, and for the people" (A.Lincoln). So our expectations can and should be greater.
For a brief moment, beginning in 1964 and really ending when the money shifted to th War in Viet Nam in 1966, our national community decided collectively to attack poverty. But with the war, the efforts flagged, and disappeared during the Nixon years. So we do not yet really know how effective concerted government action can be.
David
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