Wow- what a pander bear. Quota church attendance. Why not meet with all your constituents by hosting a community party at the park or something more secular- that would be more in keeping with your party's separation of church and state meme, would it not? I know just about all politicos do the church appearance thing but it really is annoying and in my humble opinion, it's rude if you have no spiritual interest in joining their church and you are just using the religious event to promote yourself or as a fundraiser. Since you do this every Sunday it seems probably you don't make an equal effort to attend churches that are not demographically-correct. If you were genuinely interested in the faith and not just in making political brownie points I would suggest you try to visit a "more diverse" selection of churches so as to get a better idea of what Christians are about.
Unlike many politicians, I stayed for the entire service including the sermon. Some of the preachers were quite inspiring; others were very ordinary.
Obviously if you are there for political reasons you get more opportunities to kiss up if you stick around to shake hands after the service when everyone is in a good mood. They're more likely to remember your name on election day that way, right?
As a practicing member of the Jewish faith, I don’t pretend to be an authority on the New Testament.
You could try reading it sometime. Reading the NT directly instead of learning about it through some individual's personal filter may open your eyes.
My late wife, Kathy, a lifelong member of the First United Methodist Church in Latta, S.C., accompanied me to most of these services during our eights years of marriage and we would often discuss the minister’s message after the service. She knew her New Testament.
There's a lot to "know" there- much more than you think, enough to occupy scholars for ages.
Kathy would often point out to me that a careful reading of the New Testament made it clear to her that Jesus would have been a Democrat had he been alive today.
That comment makes it really clear you understand nothing of what you've heard- or else those preachers weren't preaching very well. Perhaps your wife needed glasses- as Christians who believe in the resurrection we don't think of Christ as "dead," much less as a member of a political party.
After all, he preached about helping the poor and the peaceful resolution of disputes.
He preached about love and freedom and truth. He did not preach that government should steal from one group and award the loot to another. It's true He did preach to give to Caesar what is Caesar's- he did so knowing that Caesar would spend the money not on the poor but for its own purposes, to maintain Rome's glory and power through both good and evil means, including violence. Instead of fretting about Roman imperialism, Jesus demonstrated that we are to love one another, meaning we'll help the poor in person with joy, not needing government to force us to do it. Jesus didn't demand that Rome provide loaves and fishes, nor did He demand it of the local government. He saw a need and dealt with it without government intervention or commissions or funding; but while he saw a momentary need he didn't give the people all the fish and bread they could eat from cradle to grave at the expense of others. People were expected to resume their lives and go back to work.
Ouch, truth hurts, doesn't it? If you're looking for Democrat religious figures, maybe you choose Mohammed- he was all for class warfare and taxation through force. OK, so he didn't get the concept of feminism...
You're wife's arrogant and close-minded exclusionary beliefs tend to imply that other political parties are against helping the poor and against the peaceful resolution of disputes. She deceived herself, and you in that way, and I suppose it's a way of demonizing your political opponents. While Democrats believe they want to help the poor and often say they believe in the peaceful resolution of disputes we see by their fruits that increase poverty, break up families, and spread discord. Forty years of Democrat rule and all they produced was a steady stream of poverty and lawlessness and excuses. They want to abort and euthanize the poor, not give them the means of lifting themseves out of poverty. They try to take God out of every issue, but after the primaries when they no longer risk losing their base they they try to stuff God back into their party before election day in the hopes of picking up more votes. Democrats promote ideological, cultural and literal suicide and need to hide that fact every November. They want to muzzle the proverbial oxen that thresh the grain so they can steal more of the grain, then make the oxen keep working until he drops with nothing to show for his labor but promises.
Too many politicians of both parties are inclined to be like the servant who squandered his master's wealth instead of the one who made his master prosper. Many politicians have forgotten even that they are servants- but the Dems even think they are gods, able to run our lives better than we can.
In her view, Jesus had little in common with the current day religious right with its preoccupation with abortion, gay rights and stem cell research.
Your wife believed Jesus is in support of the murder of infants? At least the Romans gave Christ a trial- when's the last time an aborted child here in the USA was given a court hearing before his or her execution? Your party even demands more rights for foreign terrorists than for American infants. Did your wife believe that Jesus defined marriage as something other than the union of man and a woman in spite of everything the Book says? Did your wife believe that Jesus would approve of rabbis being required to teach children about anal sex? Would He approve of replacing the commandments with something more PC? Did your wife forget about that whole Soddom and Gamorrah hand-of-God smackdown event in the Old Testament- did He apologize for it or offer restitution? Would He approve of the censorship of His message because he offended some people or because he questioned their faith? Did your wife think Jesus is OK with murder just so long as we do it to "harvest" human life to keep old worn out sick liberal money fountains like George Soros ticking ? Did she ever think of what would have happened if Jesus' mom Mary had an abortion or had the fetal Jesus sold off to a bioengineering firm to be processed into a patented stem cell line? That whole leaping in the womb deal with John the Baptist would have been pointless if he "wasn't human yet" and didn't recognize the fetus in Mary- did she miss that too? Did she think the Guy who told us to sell our cloaks and buy a sword would think that making people defenseless was a good idea? Did the Guy who healed the sick, even brought people back from the dead think euthanasia is a grand idea? Can you picture Christ in one of your vile Progressive/Hamas/Hezbollah/RedDaiperDoperBaby/Nambla/neonazi/PETA/CodePink/Communist/anarchist/Aztlan riots, smashing windows and burning cars with lightning bolts and trying to throw AIDs-infected blood or molotov cocktails at the cops?
Instead of pretending that Jesus should be molded into the low standards of a political hack be it Democrat or Republican, how about we concern ourselves more with trying to live up to His standards?
And now along comes a wonderful new book by former Congressman Bob Edgar, which makes much the same point in great detail with ample citations to scripture. His book, “Middle Church – Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right,” is a must read for all people of faith.
Oh, please- there is nothing Bob Edgar's book can do to direct you towards virtue that cannot better be accomplished by a study of the Bible.