Screwtape Returns: Taking Jesus Back From the Republicans

Author's Note: The following is a continuation of a series I wrote from May, 2003-November, 2004. More information is available at http://www.adamsweb.us/screwtape.html. The first 22 Screwtape Reports, along with 10 never before published reports will be released in book form shortly.

To: Democratic Members of Congress, Liberal Clergy, Opinion Leaders, and Activists

As I returned from an extended vacation, I was deluged with letters asking how we mitigate the Republican advantage with Christian voters. I think the solution is simple. As other Democrats have said, "We must take God back from the Republicans." There is only one way to do that, and it is through Jesus Christ.

Christian Conservatives rarely talk about Christ in their public speeches, they talk about "God" or providence or "The Lord." The reason for that they wish to be inclusive of all Americans who have any belief in God. That, and the fact that if they even end a prayer "in the name of Jesus" our allies in the press will go ballistic.

What we must do is borrow that phrase from the tacky bracelet, "What Would Jesus Do?" and use it to death. By saying, Jesus would do something often enough, you'll convince enough Christians of the fact. Here are some examples.

"Jesus wouldn't launch a war for oil against the Iraqi people. Jesus wouldn't have appointed Alberto Gonzalez Attorney General. Jesus would spend more government money on the poor. Jesus would want everyone to have free health care. Jesus wouldn't back a Constitutional Amendment banning Flag Burning."

Now, we can do this with a variety of issues, but we all have to paint a good picture of Jesus. Jesus was a tolerant, loving, nice guy who cared about poor people. With that understanding, we can make any arguments we want that fits that picture and Christians will listen.

Thus, we can shift Christian concern away from issues like abortion and gay marriage to issues such as reducing poverty through government programs and more money for schools, because that is what Jesus would want.

There are several things must be avoided, particularly by the clergy. The most important thing is to not actually paint a full picture of the life of Jesus in your sermons and liturgies. Use scriptures that emphasize those statements most favorable to our vision of Christ or avoid using scripture altogether. Study books about the historical Jesus written by liberal scholars, not the Bible itself.

The Bible paints a very different picture of Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible is complex, unpredictable, and surprising. In dealing with the issues of his day, he was not a liberal or a conservative, nor did he just try and straddle the fence. He said what he believed and inflamed both the right wing Pharisees and the left wing Sadducees. He talked of forgiveness and mercy, but his first word as a preacher was "Repent."

In a beautiful scene he saved the woman caught in the act of adultery and then made a very harsh intolerant demand on her by saying, "Go and sin no more." The Bible also has Christ saying He is the only way to Heaven, which would put New Jerusalem in violation of Federal Civil Rights laws for religious discrimination in a public accommodation. For these reasons, keep as far from the Biblical account of Christ's life as possible. Remember two quotes of Christ from scripture and that will suffice. "Judge Not" and "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Be certain not to quote these in context.

The other thing to be careful of is that you properly assign the commands of scripture. Moral commandments against no-fault divorce, or the ten commandments are strictly for Christian religious people who believe in them. Commands to take care of the poor are not for the church, but rather for Federal Welfare agencies and their bureaucrats. The original biblical context of the command doesn't matter, whether it was spoke to Christians or to civil society, they must be assigned in such an order as to suit our agenda.

If we can convince the great mass of Christians to adopt our vision of Christ as a first century touchy feely hippy who came to be tolerant and create welfare programs than I think we'll have this culture war won. The Evangelism and the teaching of the exclusivity of Christ will decline. In many mainline churches where this vision has been adopted, people have become increasingly tolerant of other views and lifestyles, and less attached to their own Christianity and even some of its major tenets like the resurrection.

Christ as a historical figure becomes less believable when stripped of all complexity and depth. The crucifixion becomes hard to swallow as we try and imagine a sugary nice guy being dragged to the cross. After that, Christ becomes just another moral philosopher along with Confucius, Buddha, and others. What Christians have traditionally considered "the Good News" becomes meaningless and empty.

The good news for such disoriented souls is that there is hope! There's something that can bringing meaning to their lives and change to society. Chairman Dean and I would be more than happy to welcome you as committed volunteers for the Democratic Party.

Neither Jesus,nor God belond to any political Party. The
Republicans campaign on traditional American values and reflect the Bible based morality much closer than the Democrats.Unfortunatly neither Party seems to live moral
lives especially in D.C.And the Party of Deception,Divisions,and Destruction (the Democratic Party)
seems to neither campaign nor live according to the clear teaching of Scripture.

A Christian cannot ignore the Gospel's message that helping the poor is incumbent on a Christian. Where the Libs fail to get it is that Christ expects each individual to do his or her best to follow Christ. It will score no points in Heaven for a person to vote to take someone else's wealth and give that to the poor. Christ calls on each of us to sacrifice and nowhere in the Gospel describes mandated income redistribution as the correct path.

Libs who've read Scripture will point to the parable of the camel through the eye of a needle as showing Christ's demanding action for the poor, but that action is left to the choice of the young man, not for someone else to take his wealth. Also they may point to the story in Acts of Anannias and his wife, who are struck dead because they have not shared all their wealth with the community. But their crime was lying about it. Claiming they had given their total estate when they had held some back. Had they honestly stated what they would give and what they would hold back there would have been no need for punishment.

Christianity, even though it thrived in faith communities of believers was about an individual's committment to following the Gospel and Jesus Christ. Christianity and being a true Christian is an individual committment about one's own life. Not a committment to making others live in a matter they do not themselves choose.

IT'S SARCASM PEOPLE !!!

From his website:
http://www.adamsweb.us/screwtape.html

C.S. Lewis realized that many Christians did not understand how the devil operates and thus often found themselves unable to combat Satan's devices. For that purpose, C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters in which he wrote a series of letters from "Screwtape", a high ranking demon, addressed to his young nephew. In the letters, Lewis provides the readers with incites into the methods demons use to lead people away from God, distract them from what matters most, and lead them to Hell.

In the 21st Century, most conservatives do not understand the way liberals think or the strategy that's being used to defeat conservative ideas and remake society as the left sees fit. Because of this, I'm writing "The Screwtape Reports" which are from Dave Screwtape, a Democratic political consultant advising various political leaders and groups on how to achieve political success. The reports exposes Democratic thinking and provides you insight on how the Democratic Party is seeking to defeat us. It is also my hope that from these letters, we may somehow realize steps we can take in order to beat the Democrats, and save the Republic we love.

I do not know how long this series will go. C.S. Lewis reached a limit on the number of letters he could write because of the sheer effort required to think at that level. I'm certain there's probably a similar limit on thinking like a Democrat.

My personal opinion is that if Jesus were alive and "in the flesh" in today's USA, he'd probably be as obscure as he was in his own day. He'd probably be in some backwater small town healing the hillbillies of alcoholism, and would probably not even vote or pay any attention to politics. Today's liberals - and probably a lot of conservatives as well - would dismiss him as a religious fanatic, would look upon him as just another annoying streetcorner preacher.

When liberals hear Jesus condemn "the rich," they think he's talking about someone else. But many liberals are rich, and most middle class Americans and Europeans are in many ways richer and more priviliged than the rich of Jesus's time.

In my opinion, "rich" refers not only to wealth, but to the attitude that used to be called "the pride of life," i.e., the attitude of the ego that is satisfied with the world as it is, who is confident of its own imagined invulnerability and success and status in the world, who craves after material possessions, who has no sense of the tragic side of life, and who has no sense of the need for salvation.

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