Posted on 03/28/2012 8:52:15 AM PDT by kathsua
I recently watched an old episode of my mom's favorite television show, the "Billy Graham Crusades". Dr. Graham surprised me with some of his comments about the Biblical city of Sodom. He said that greed was one of the sins of the people of Sodom. According to Ezekiel 16:49 - "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."
Many members of the Republican Party have a problem with this same sin. So why do Christians in the Republican Party encourage this sin by supporting low taxes for those with high incomes? Why do Christians support Republicans who don't believe in helping the poor?
Sodom isn't the only Biblical location whose residents were punished by God for mistreating the poor. The Israeli prophets warned the leaders of Israel about the consequences of mistreating the poor before wealthy Israelites were taken into captivity and the land left to the poor.
Ezekiel 22:12 - "you take interest and make a profit from the poor. You extort unjust gain from your neighbors. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD."
Amos 4:1 - "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
Amos 5:11 - "You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine."
Luke and other gospels carry a statement by Jesus about the problem facing the rich. " Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Luke 18:24-5
Preachers often suggest the camel analogy is about something large going through a tight opening. The analogy is more likely a camel saying like the "straw that broke the camel's back" or what happens if someone lets a camel get its head inside a tent. People of that era likely used the task of getting a camel through the eye of a needle as a way to determine how difficult the task was.
The problem with getting a camel through the eye of a needle is the shape of the animal and its sometimes uncooperative nature. The long neck, legs and hump means the task isn't simple even with a very large needle. Keep in mind that a needle has a long portion connected to the eye.
Christian Republicans need to recognize that abortion and sexual morality aren't the only moral issues in politics. Mistreatment of the poor and how the rich acquire wealth are at least as important. Christians need to move away from the greedy Republicans who believe the rich should escape the taxes needed to fund government.
Big Government takes over what Christians should do. Then, the Christians no longer have to be Christians. I don’t think God wanted it that way.
Not sure how taking more and more money from others, who have already given far more by their own free than you would personally even consider, is virtuous. I guess I’ll never learn to think like a Democrat.
Wickedness had reached a peak. One of the great things about the Bible in reading and studying is there are many, many instances of it referencing earlier happenings that sheds new light on them. Layers upon layers of understanding are there to be discovered with deeper study. MO.
exactly my point - perhaps I didn’t communicate it as well
In any case, your whole case is bogus. People with high incomes already pay the lion’s share of the taxes. Half the people pay effectively no income tax at all.
The highest income people are business people. Increase taxes on businesses, and you increase the price of the product. You may think the rich are paying it, but actually you pay it when you buy the milk at the store. There is no way to insulate yourself from the effects of high taxes. Tax the oil companies: you pay the tax at the gas pump. When they raised diesel taxes, groceries went up because everything moves by diesel.
You can’t raise taxes on the rich without raising costs for the poor. It can’t be done.
The best defense against poverty ever invented is a family and a job. Everything you do that encourages those two, reduces poverty. Everything you do that undercuts those two, spreads poverty and increases the intensity of it.
Regarding Christian Republicans not "caring" about the poor, I would say that they realize it's not the responsibility of government to do it. There's no such things as coerced charity. And leftists see government as a tool to relieve them of the responsibility to be charitable, and as has been shown over and over again, leftists tend to be less charitable as individuals.
For too long, government, big business (GE anyone?), and "big finance" (GS anyone?) have had a corrupt relationship. That can be fixed, but unfortunately, it can be laid at the footsteps of everyone in politics. People really should be seeing some serious prison time for what they've done to the country, but the problem is that the people who make and enforce the laws are in bed with the law breakers.
Mark
Why limit this to Republicans? Democrats are just as bad in terms of crony capitalism.
Jude 1:7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 1:7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
On what basis does the writer deem that Republicans mistreat the poor? Our government is almost 15 TRILLION dollars in debt. We have had Republican Presidents and Congresses. Seems they have not shorted the poor on other people money!
That's total nonsense. Statistics show that conservatives are much more generous to charitable causes than are liberals.
Unlike liberals, we just don't believe in letting the government take the money by force and apply, steal it or waste it as they see fit. Nowhere in the Bible does God suggest that taxing your neighbor is charity. Charity is a freewill choice and therein lies the rub. Libs are all about their own free choice but contemptuous of granting the same to their neighbors.
And please do some study, regarding Sodom. The shallow attempts to reboot God's moral view is tiresome. Read the text (Genesis 18 - 19) then read Leviticus 18 and 20.
This is not to say that Sodom's ONLY offenses were sexual but to try to hand-wave them away is sophistry.
First, thanks for posting this. I consider it a kind of review question for life’s final exam.
I will answer that my becoming a Republican was based on my realization that allowing people to flourish and enjoy the fruit of their labor encouraged more labor, and this in turn produced greater innovation, wealth, comfort and happiness for everyone— especially the poor.
I would rather be the poorest of the poor in this country than a ‘wealthy’ person in some other countries.
This is a pragmatic position, but I think it’s a wise and benevolent one. It’s said that Adam Smith tackled this problem in the last major effort of his life. He died before he could complete it and much of this work was destroyed in accordance with his wishes. It’s a shame we don’t have more of his thoughts on this.
We are obliged to others, and embattled as we are, are prone to resort to less able thinkers — Ayn Rand for example— for our replies to our critics.
“Ezekiel 16:49-50 declares, “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me...” The Hebrew word translated “detestable” refers to something that is morally disgusting and is the exact same word used in Leviticus 18:22 that refers to homosexuality as an “abomination.” Similarly, Jude 7 declares, “...Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.” So, again, while homosexuality was not the only sin in which the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah indulged, it does appear to be the primary reason for the destruction of the cities.”
http://www.gotquestions.org/Sodom-and-Gomorrah.html
As others have pointed out, the problem with Democrats is they want to tell God, “We are good people. We gave OTHER PEOPLE’S money to the poor...”
What?Are you out of your mind, Christian Republicans? Why don’t you examine yourself and get the log out of your eye, you sanctimonious ass.
The Christian message is clear: you should freely give to the poor. But when the government does it, it is not “freely given”.
If you think that you should give to the poor, do it. I agree. But the bottom line is this:
The conservative thinks he should give to the poor, so he does.
A liberal thinks he should give to the poor, so he creates welfare and FORCES tax payers, via the power of the gun, to give to the poor.
See the difference?
Wow are you ever confused!
It is a Christian duty to care for the poor.
Do you generally feel that the Government can and should fulfill your Christian duty on your behalf?
Did the Jesus you believe in say “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s - and Caesar will render unto the Lord on your behalf.”?
“How should God approve of the taking from Peter, and giving this robbery to Paul, in the name of Christ?”
Some in the GOP, especially libertarians, hate government so much that they refuse to recognize the scriptural mandate to governments to help the poor. Marron's post #2 is an example.
The same characters typically also hate taxes so much that they refer to it as "theft at the point of a gun", instead of recognizing the scriptural mandate to pay taxes to those whom taxes are due.
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