Maybe he was more like this radical Republican
"Let my people go" and all that... But that was Moses, huh?
Posted on 05/10/2006 6:28:01 AM PDT by bondjamesbond
A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda
Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.
The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?
Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?
So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.
That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
Those last five words tell you everything you need to know about where Andrew is coming from. He wants us to love the sinner AND the sin. Sorry Andrew, I have no right to judge you because I am a sinner also BUT I have a duty NOT to "respect my neighbors choices" when those choices involve living a life of sin. The Christ of my Bible tells me I must reject sinful choices with my heart and soul. Jesus will always help you out of your sin but he will never help you in your sin.
Sullivan is one of the most thoroughly dishonest guys you'll find in the blogosphere. He tries to pass himself off as a conservative, but he shilled hard for Kerry in '04.
I tend to doubt that the guy has ever voted for a major Republican candidate.
"Someone should do a movie on the ACTUAL history of our Christian heritage. It's WHY we have been a blessed country."
Do you know that the 1st Archbishop of the US, John Carroll (yes, Catholic), dedicated the (new) country to St. Mary, Mother of Christ?
Maybe he was more like this radical Republican
"Let my people go" and all that... But that was Moses, huh?
Very soon it will be every Christians problem. In much of Europe, after the revolutions of the late 19th and early 20th century, Christianity was regulated to "only behind closed doors". Europe was very deliberately de Christianized.
Jesus never spoke of democracy and advocated paying taxes ('give to Caesar...').
Not sure what that makes Him.
Christians are such hypocrites about religion and politics. The Dead Hippie they worship would NOT be invited to speak at the GOP convention... unless he was contributing a buttload of cash.
"If Jesus were alive today, 99.99% of FReepers would label him a "liberal". He spoke of equality, love, compassion, tolerance, and peace."
That's baloney, you imply conservatives believe in inequality, hate, uncompassion, intolerance and war!
I don't see any evidence Jesus preach for equality in a communist sense. Since conservatives are more fecund and charitable, I don't see a shortage of love on our side. As far as compassion goes, welfare is NOT a compassionate system, it strips humans of humanity. As far as intolerance, there is no evidence Jesus was tolerant of sinners, though he was forgiving. And I don't think Jesus would believe in leaving Saddam Hussein in power.
So, all in all, you stand refuted.
Actually, Jewish law in biblical times allowed people to eat their fill out of any person's field. Pocketing food and walking away was considered stealing, but eating was not.
Jesus supported this idea as well:
"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" -Matthew 6:26
I didn't know that. That is interesting. There is a ton of history tho, like that, that people should hear about. The naming of many of our first cities, the prayer in the capital, the reverance!! It's being plucked away, bit by bit.
No wonder this country is in such trouble!! The ACLU (communists) planned it this way, and they have done a masterful job at deceiving the masses.
Except for the fact he was surrounded by sinners. But yeah, other than that there is no evidence....
See my tagline, Lunatic.
Another sample of Jesus' "judgement" was His wrecking of the sellers at the Temple.
And for that "punishment", He didn't even follow up with a "go and sin no more"! He showed just anger.
He didn't say he WANTED taxes - He meant Rome's taxes were not of his affair!
There is nothing in His statements saying "taxes are good!"
"welfare is NOT a compassionate system, it strips humans of humanity."
Basically stated, it treats all as perpetual little children.
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Going the extra mile to be offensive, I see.
The "Dead Hippie" is alive, you know.
And it is the Democrats who are completely beholden to megabux donors, not the Republicans.
"'Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.'"
Huh? HOW does this condone taking other people's things? It's JUST about *God* PROVIDING!
BTW, IOW, that means the patron saint of the US is St. Mary - the greatest of all saints!
God isn't a Republican but Satan is definitely a Democrat.
You keep equating Christians and Republicans... that's not a correct thing to do. Many Christians, myself included, are Republican only because the platform is closer to our values than the alternative. The problem is that most of the politicians don't follow the platform.
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