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Sisters of Mercy
Townhall.com ^ | October 19, 2014 | John Linder

Posted on 10/19/2014 6:37:25 AM PDT by Kaslin

It was February 1993. I had been a Member of Congress for one month and noticed that a visit by someone from the Washington DC Presbytery was on my schedule.

I expected that they saw that I was a Presbyterian and were coming to acquaint me with the Presbyterian churches in the area. I was wrong.

Three ministers in clerical collars arrived. I welcomed them in to my new office and we sat around the coffee table.

The white-haired gentleman opened the conversation rather bluntly. He stated his name and said, “I am responsible for the Family Leave Act and Motor Voter.”

An African American lady identified herself and said, “I’m responsible for South Africa and apartheid.”

The elderly white lady gave me her name and told me what liberal issues she was responsible for but, frankly, I wasn’t listening.

I said, “And which of you is responsible for salvation?” They looked at each other, then me, then they abruptly rose, thanked me for seeing them and walked out the door.

I thought of that visit when I saw the story of the midterm election guide produced by the Sisters of Mercy of Silver Spring, Maryland. They have analyzed the coming election and have assembled instructions for voters to consider.

Their web site says that their “critical concerns” were Earth, Immigration, Nonviolence, Racism and Women. Salvation isn’t on their agenda either.

The Sisters of Mercy are referred to as “walking nuns” since they spend their time on the streets in communities rather than teaching in Catholic schools or isolated in prayer. You might say they are paid community organizers.

Their 16-page guide asks voters to base their votes on, among other things, how concerned the candidate is about the wealth gap, climate change, immigration reform and wasteful Pentagon spending.

The Conference of Catholic Bishops often instructs us on war and peace issues. I may have missed their pastoral advice on salvation, but I doubt it.

The Catholic Church, in which I was raised and in which I was an altar boy for a decade, is a perfect example of “From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.” They not only live under a thoroughly Marxist regime, for the most part they think it would work for the country.

It is not only Catholics who assume wisdom over secular matters. The Protestant clergy weighs in regularly too.

Forty years ago I was campaigning for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. The Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion was only months old and was a volatile issue. I was the guest at a coffee in a lady’s home when a Protestant minister told me that legalized abortion was the single most important issue in her life.

I suggested that since she had graduate training in helping the lesser schooled, such as me, find salvation I hoped her sights were set higher than on aborting babies. She said that she had expected she couldn’t support me when she received the invitation for the coffee and her instincts had now been proven correct. She left.

Those with exalted positions in a given field often come to believe that they are gifted in other areas. Barbra Streisand and Harry Belafonte are uniquely talented singers whom I have enjoyed listening to for 40 years. They don’t know as much about the climate as I do and I’m not interested in their amateur views.

Laura Ingraham summed up my thoughts perfectly in a book she wrote 8 years ago. The title of the book is Shut up and Sing.

I also couldn’t care less what Ben Affleck thinks about Islam. I wonder if he has any idea how many times the world has confronted Islamic jihad in the past 14 centuries.

I do not understand why one who has gained celebrity in religion or entertainment concludes that they should instruct the rest of us on political issues. I am even more confused by politicians who are in thrall to them.

During the high inflation of the 70’s and 80’s many farmers went deeply into debt to buy more land. As inflation was finally brought under control a lot of them, who were in over their heads, lost everything.

Several movies were produced about their plight and Congressional Democrats, wanting to show their solidarity with the farmers, held a hearing. Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and Jane Fonda, all of whom played the role of distressed farmer’s wives in those movies, testified before the House Democrats' farm task force on the emotional toll the financial stress took on those families.

It is easy to see how the American people can become cynical about politics when politicians are more interested in what celebrities think than their constituents. And their constituents are not role-playing. These matters affect their lives.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: celebrities; nuns

1 posted on 10/19/2014 6:37:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I miss John Linder in Congress. I think his Fairtax plan would really help clean up and streamline the Federal behemoth.


2 posted on 10/19/2014 6:44:13 AM PDT by outofsalt ( If history teaches us anything it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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To: Kaslin

I became good friends with my pastor in California when I lived there. During one of our hunting trips the subject of his sermons came up and I mentioned to him how I liked the fact that he did not preach politics, but salvation. (He and I were pretty closely aligned politically).

He told me that if he did his job correctly, people would know how to vote.


3 posted on 10/19/2014 7:14:39 AM PDT by Glennb51
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To: Kaslin

Hey now, hey now now, sing this corrosion to me...


4 posted on 10/19/2014 7:33:19 AM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (Ephesians 6:12 becomes more real to me with each news cycle.)
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To: Kaslin

Interesting. I was educated by the Sisters of Mercy. That was the 60s. Now they walk around neighborhoods. Sheesh.


5 posted on 10/19/2014 8:02:46 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard III: Loyalty Binds Me)
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To: Glennb51
He told me that if he did his job correctly, people would know how to vote.

I was raised by activist, leftist academics, not entirely, though nearly devoid of matters of salvation. I, too, became an activist Democrat until my late 20's when my fellow Democrats nominated Walter F. Mondale as their candidate against Ronald Reagan's re-election. He and his running mate, you may recall, were, to me, shockingly intolerant of Christians in politics, and said so. I couldn't support the ticket, and resigned from a semi-public official position, quietly so as not to offend my extended family.

Then President Reagan came to town and I listened to his speech ahead of the pre-convention Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, that summer. He humbly said, among other things, "politics and religion are, of necessity, related."

I realized I was in the wrong Party and the elites now in charge of the national Democrat apparatus represented a 'clear and present danger,' and I voted for the president's re-election.

Ever since, I've made a study of those things neglected in my education, at a heavy personal and professional cost. I realized there's no such things as 'no religion,' because that fantasy is, itself, a religion.

Again and again I've had to return to Ephesians, to understand the deeper, seemingly endless spiritual wrestling match we are engaged in, and I did not get into this battle to vote for the same hamburger on the other side of the street, as they say. It's left me with little tolerance for those who treat politics as some sort of league play, trading their heritage for sport, who change parties as easily as a player moves from the American to the National baseball league.

And it's left me with less regard for Republicans who don't want to fight Democrats, specifically, and the worldview of the Left more generally.

There is a time for every season under Heaven, for knowing when one should not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good, and when dying for the perfect to defeat the wrong becomes the only choice possible.

6 posted on 10/19/2014 8:29:28 AM PDT by Prospero (Si Deus trucido mihi, ego etiam fides Deus.)
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To: miss marmelstein

So was I, and I don’t remember any of them walking neighborhoods.


7 posted on 10/19/2014 9:14:27 AM PDT by SelmaLee
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To: To Hell With Poverty

My favorite band.


8 posted on 10/19/2014 11:13:27 AM PDT by Mr. Blond
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To: Kaslin
Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and Jane Fonda, all of whom played the role of distressed farmer’s wives in those movies, testified before the House Democrats' farm task force

WTF?

9 posted on 10/19/2014 4:17:53 PM PDT by Impy (Voting democrat out of spite? Then you are America's enemy, like every other rat voter.)
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To: Mr. Blond
Ah, you should see The world's End !
10 posted on 10/19/2014 5:20:28 PM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (Ephesians 6:12 becomes more real to me with each news cycle.)
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To: To Hell With Poverty

It’s on my queue, thanks.


11 posted on 10/19/2014 10:58:21 PM PDT by Mr. Blond
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