Posted on 10/21/2015 7:06:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If I could change one thing about Christianity today, I would make Jesus the God of the poor. If this sounds as if I've forgotten all the passages about the meek inheriting the earth and camels going through the eye of a needle, some explanation may be necessary.
Whatever the Bible says about the poor being blessed, their blessing may rest entirely on the fact that Christians today aren't placing them under any obligations. They're blessed because they do inherit the earth, but only in the sense that they don't have any rules to follow, and only because they don't have a God to give them any rules. The earth is theirs because it's theirs to squander. The Western middle classes are only here to build it.
Consider the Golden Rule. The overwhelming majority of us have heard sermons about how capitalists who succeed ought to be more giving to failing socialists and Muslims and Africans; but I've never heard a sermon about how socialists who fail shouldn't be coveting and stealing what belongs to capitalists.
I'd love to hear a sermon about the latter. I'd love to hear Pope Francis get on a pedestal and tell the poor to stop raising taxes on the productive because we should imagine ourselves in the richer man's shoes. This sermon would be a strange and twisted kind of fate. It would be almost as if when Jesus said do unto others as you would have them do unto you, He might have actually been speaking to all of us instead of the wealthy minority (who are always easy targets for an unusually demanding sermon).
The fact that I've never heard a sermon about Mexicans respecting the American border as Mexicans expect the Guatemalans to respect the Mexican border is also suspicious.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Two thousand years ago....99.9999-percent of people existing on the Earth....were marginally getting by. Anyone who participated in Christianity in the those days....were poor. So, I don’t get where exactly this essay is going.
“I would make Jesus the God of the poor.”
Jesus as the God of the poor in spirit or the poor in material things?
And remember that ‘the meek’ meant those that were humble, not ‘wimps’ as is often thought today.
Exactly. The majority of Bible verses used by liberals to support the “poor” are referencing the “poor in spirit”, e.g. those who know the worth of their own spiritual efforts is nothing, or another way of saying those who are sincerely humble with regard to the value of their ability to do good things absent God.
I get what the author is saying, but he’s saying it a bit awkwardly. It is not a tenent of Christian teaching that the poor should be able to vote themselves government largess, or that the government should support the poor. It is not charitable or merciful for people to support government transfer payments and welfare. You aren’t a good person because you vote for the guy who wants to expand Obamacare or Food Stamps.
Conversely, over the long span of history, Capitalism, while it can be brutal at times, has lifted the mass of humanity out of poverty. It is a revolutionary good more so than pretty much anything else in human history. And yet it is despised because, in the short term, it results in economic dislocation.
Disagree: Lydia was a business woman; Zaccheaus was rich, Joseph of Arimathea was rich; Philemon was most likely well off; doubt if the Apostle Paul started off poor. Christianity’s appeal is that is attracts those of all classes, education, race, gender and ethnicity.
Jesus loved all, He had a special love for those cast aside by society, but even the rich need someone to reach them.
The rich get a pass because they can pay lobbyists to get congress to declare their unethical behavior to be legal.
The poor get a pass because the people feel sorry for them.
The middle class gets left holding the bag.
What insanity.
This is pretzel logic
And “I’ve never heard a sermon about how socialists who fail shouldn’t be coveting and stealing what belongs to capitalists...”
The catechism alone which strictly cited the bible is full of tgis. Where to start?
And where’re the Church cooperates with government in taking money from taxpayers, acting as if government knows better than the individual to determine where money is best used, it perverts the idea of virtue, not to mention disregarding separation of church and state. Where is there ‘social justice’ for ex.in my giving my closely budgeted money to planned parenthood or to the ungrateful nasty illegals cutting in front of me at the 15 item checkout pretending they can’t count speaking foreign language using tge EBT card I provide them ?
2401 The seventh commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one’s neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods. It commands justice and charity in the care of earthly goods and the fruits of men’s labor. For the sake of the common good, it requires respect for the universal destination of goods and respect for the right to private property. Christian life strives to order this world’s goods to God and to fraternal charity.
2403 The right to private property, acquired or received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise.
To your point, I think it was t so well a few weeks back with an essay tge theme of which was all men are born into poverty. It’s up to them to become prosperous
Beyond tgat tgis article is simply illogical It’s unreadable in its incoherence
I hate this rich/poor divide, especially in the church. Read the book of James, and tell me there should be such a divide. Or, how about how Jesus treated his wealthy disciples — oh, yes, he had some! How about Matthew the tax collector?
Bingo, well said.
I have no idea why Western rationalist materialists fawn over (non-white) poor people, who are their cultures' version of the "redneck." Any poor person who cooperates with these alien philosophies should be ashamed of himself.
I take poor in spirit as meaning one is supposed to...or happier to follow Christianity first money second
There’s no virtue in my mind in having no money. The people I’ve known who are not good managers of their own money can be nasty jealous of wealthy people without admitting it. That’s not virtue. That’s envy. Period
Where I’ve known people who are wealthy who are very generous. But tgey manage their finances.
A widow whose husband and herself has provided for her to live in her home well into her nineties has been much better able to care for the needy in her community than one who takes money for her mortgage from her children for instance. And i have specific people in mind
It’s tge same economics which BTW the catechism (misinterpreted or un read by many) says about giving to illegal aliens. It is misappropriation and depletion of resources
I hate the rich poor divide too. I despise hearing from people who mismanage their money pretending there’s virtue in having no money.
It’s envy and love of money. It is the opposite of being poor in spirit. It equates money with God
If the writer hasn’t heard a sermon regarding the poor maybe he needs to take a look at the sermon on the mount
I get what he’s saying... very shrewd.
“Poor in spirit” also means .. spiritual emptiness .. no connection to God/Jesus.
Or .. people who are not saved.
If you’re saved, you have no excuse. God wrote you a book and gave you all the information you need to have a happy and prosperous life.
But some, try to join poor .. to Christians .. and the scripture which says, “I wish above all that you might prosper.” Why were Christians to be prosperous ..?? SO THEY COULD HELP THE POOR AND NEEDY. And, thereby, lead more people to Christ.
Well said. Even the rich, the Big J treated with respect as long as they treated others well.
Fine article. It condemns the fact that it is “politically correct” to criticize the wealthy and the successful, and to make a virtue of poverty.
And add Abraham, Job, Solomon.
It’s very, very simple:
God loves, exalts, can work with the poor in spirit, humble, meek - those who’s attitude of heart, no matter WHAT they possess or don’t possess in life, know FROM WHOM ALL THINGS COME. PERIOD. (Again, read Job: ‘The Lord giveth, and The Lord taketh away’).
It’s not MONEY that is evil - it’s (as the verse states) the LOVE of Money that is the root of many kinds of evil. Even the poor can have a lust for money and things that displace them from God. (They’re just not learned in keeping it/making it).
Having said that - sure - Jesus said with God ALL things are possible - even the Rich entering Heaven - but that Lust of the Eyes, Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life seem to distract easier with the Rich.
This Poor-are-better thing to me is just a manipulation and covetousness.
If a man refused to work, then he was not to eat.
Jesus chastised free-loaders for wanting free hand outs rather than wanting the things of God (John 6).
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