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Christ the Radical
Jesus Christ would not have many friends in contemporary society. That is the conclusion I reached reading through the gospels.
This might seem hard to believe. America is a religious place, at least compared to other western democracies. A Pew study last year found that ninety-two percent believe in God, and sixty-three percent say they believe in sacred scripture as the word of God.
Scripture is often invoked in our politics too. Opponents of gay marriage love to quote Leviticus—“you shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable”—to justify their position. For their part, religious liberals like Christ’s declaration that “whatever you do to the least of these you have done unto me.”
But in their zeal to invoke Jesus, liberals and conservatives alike have neglected much of what he taught during his life. For example, Christ didn’t have great things to say about the materialism that is so rampant today. When a rich man asked what he had to do to become perfect, Jesus replied that he needed to sell all of his possessions and follow him; the rich man wept for he had many possessions.
Christ then says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to go to heaven. Some economic conservatives might be inclined to accuse anyone else who said this of stirring up class warfare. Many Americans would likely leave a church where the pastor told them that their constant pursuit of wealth made it harder for them to gain entry into heaven.
On sexual morality, Jesus would be far out of the mainstream today. He said “whosoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” All the young men who look at porn would mock someone who told them that their movie collections made them adulterers.
Jesus would appear just as out of place in discussions on divorce. He said “whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her.” Today, around half of all marriages end in divorce. It’s probably fair to say that these people don’t consider themselves adulterers. They would resent anyone who told them they were. To be sure, there is debate about whether there are some just causes for a divorce. However, it is hard to believe that Jesus would think that half of all marriages have such a just cause.
It drives me crazy to see the Bible selectively invoked like it is. Many of the people who use religion to make their judgments about gay people have said not a word against people who watch porn every night on their computers. They don’t spend nearly as much time complaining about how couples who divorce are undermining the institution of marriage. We aren’t supposed to pick passages we like to follow, and ignore passages that challenge our behavior.
Hypocrites ready to use the Bible to condemn others would benefit from another one of Christ’s ideas: let he who is without sin cast the first stone. When subjecting our behavior to Christ’s rigorous standards, it becomes clear that there aren’t a lot of people qualified to be throwing stones around these days.
The Jesus of the Bible clearly defies political classification. He was neither liberal nor conservative. But he was radical. Probably too radical for most of us.
-Marcus Gadson
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The End of the Religious Right?
Mark Sanford and John Ensign are just the latest in a long line of conservatives espousing family values who’ve been caught having affairs. The amount of apparent hypocrisy in the Republican Party has caused many to ask if evangelicals will stop their one-sided support of the Republican Party in disgust.
Conservative evangelicals have gotten precious little for their support of Republicans in the past thirty years. Abortion remains legal. School Prayer is not allowed. Intelligent Design is not taught in public schools; evolution is. The only scraps they’ve been handed were ephemeral bans on embryonic stem-cell research and gay marriage. Still, on their biggest issues, Republicans have failed to deliver.
This is not true of the other factions in the Republican base. National security hawks and neo-conservatives got a military buildup against the Soviet Union, and an invasion of Iraq. Fiscal conservatives got large supply side tax cuts from Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Case in point: in 2005, although opposition to gay marriage had helped reelect George Bush, he spent his political capital trying to reform social security, not amending the constitution to ban gay marriage.
This is truly sad because evangelicals have paid a steep price in return for nothing. They have identified fervent Christianity with one political party in the eyes of many Americans. The result has been to turn off people who are politically moderate or liberal who might otherwise be open to religion.
Besides being counterproductive, the idea that people of faith should all support one party is just wrong. One Christian can legitimately look at scripture and church teachings and feel moved to support a party which works hard to eradicate poverty and help the least among us. A Christian could be dovish on war—“blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
And of course, there is no doubt that another Christian can conclude that abortion contravenes God’s will, and is a moral evil to be stamped out, and want to support a pro-life party. I understand too, how a person of faith could read Joshua’s declaration that “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart,” and believe that abortion is not just one issue among many. Concern over the one million abortions a year can never be dismissed as trivial.
It is largely forgotten that there is a long, proud progressive tradition in American religion. Martin Luther King and many of the participants in the civil rights movement were inspired and sustained by their strong faith. They saw their faith as providing a mandate to fight for justice and improve the human condition. Conservatives have never had a monopoly on faith and values.
I do not call for the formation of a new religious left to counter the influence of the religious right. Tying religion to worldly politics surely cheapens religion. There is no way to know whether Jesus would have been a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t know whether he would support a public option for universal healthcare, or a cap and trade scheme. The Jesus portrayed in the Bible would likely have harsh words for both parties and Americans of all political persuasions.
So, when applying faith to politics, we could do with a little humility. Said Abraham Lincoln: “my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Members of the Religious Right and would-be members of the Religious Left should keep that sentiment in mind before they dare invoke God in support of their political philosophy.
-Marcus Gadson
Read Marcus’s blog at http://thegadsonreview.blogspot.com/
Bill Clinton: Christians And Jews No Longer Majority In U.S.
Former President Bill Clinton told an Arab-American audience that the U.S. is no longer dominated by Christians and Jews. He also said Americans need to be “mindful” of the changing demographics that led to the election of president Obama.
Former President Bill Clinton has told an Arab-American audience of 1,000 people that the U.S. is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is dominated by Christians and a powerful Jewish minority
In a speech to the group on Saturday, Clinton said that given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here, Americans should be mindful of the nation’s changing demographics, which led to the election of Barack Obama as president.
We all know Bill Clinton has a tough time telling the truth and this is another example of that.
People were pissed off about the economy and tired of the Iraq war, that’s why Obama was elected. It didn’t have anything to do with Muslims, Hindus, or changing demographics.
It had to do with an articulate guy who ran a great campaign.
The U.S. is overwhelmingly dominated by Christians and Jews and will be for the foreseeable future.
Thankfully, the U.S. has one of the smallest Muslim populations in the world.
I realize the left would love to destroy the Judeo-Christian foundation this country was built on, but they still have a long way to go.
-Chris Jones
God, And The Death Of Atheism…
The ice may be starting to break up. The sun peeks through the clouds. Here and there and once in awhile. But, for the most part, the partisan fogs remain..
This night is never darker than during political “honeymoons”; when, layered onto normal “exceptionalism”, we Americans indulge ourselves in the deliberate “bubble” afforded to “new” administrations. This simply exacerbates our intellectual problems, further prostituting scholarship, journalism and honest criticism.
Until the rush of gush over Obama recedes, it is highly unlikely that there will be any market for independent thinking We must content ourselves now with some subject not corrupted by partisanship; with something less scintillating than the blow by blow descriptions of inanity which currently suffice for dialogue, and seize upon some low key and innocuous concepts among which we may abide while awaiting the resumption of serious discourse.
How about God?
Maybe we can clear out some of the underbrush surrounding that subject, some of the detras du stupidity, and be prepared, like good scouts, to effect real change when, and if, a new millennium actually dawns. First, let’s get rid of those colossal bores, those monuments to the limitations of intelligence, the Mensa masturbators: The atheists.
Lost in a mass of mental machinations, this well meaning, but galactically stunted, group bars the way to understanding by throwing up a polarizing distraction. This chimerical device asks us to decide whether or not God exists, (As if there was any question), sucking us into a debate having no possibility of leading anywhere.
Claiming that God cannot be proven by secular reason or scientific method, the argument then proceeds to ignore all scientific evidence as well as common sense.
Remember, neither history nor anthropology are theological pawns. No excavation, academic or archaeological, will uncover evidence of substantial human habitation without also discovering something everyone agrees can be called religion. This evidence extends into pre-history, and continues forward with no breaks until the present day. In short, religion and human history are inseparable.
Second, and much more succinct, is this: Human Beings are the only species in the universe to feel a spirit world beyond nature.
In short, human spirituality is as inseparable from the human condition as romance, art, emotion, or idea.
What may have begun as an attempt to lead lightning, regulate rainfall, bring back buffalo, or any other manipulation of the fickle fingers of fortune, has been filtered through the ages by all the other qualities that distinguish our species. Some of these aren’t very nice.
Among these are our equally essential need to control, brand, centralize, compete, and expand. We are attracted, as to shiny objects and fireworks, to rules and dictum; to what is written in stone. We love to organize. Add to this our equally unique mastery of technology, and the present condition of human spirituality is readily understood. In the same way that chain stores have pushed the independent to oblivion, our natural tendencies have created a narrowed assortment of official religious conduits to choose from. Reduced to five or so brands, “major” religions dominate our God ideas the same way the seven sisters dominated oil production, in the same way that major brands seek to dominate any market. When added to this already potentially violent aspect of our natures, sacredness and piety simple amplify the deadly consequences of competition.
This is what “atheists” really are objecting to; Not God. Because the evidence of our essential and universal spiritual qualities is so simple and obvious to all, its sublimity does not satisfy the desire to over-intellectualize. Where some might build castles, throw the perfect pass, or polish twenty inch chrome wheels, this sort of vanity demonstrates its prowess through the fancy, if ultimately self-serving, process of over-complication. Confident that we are dazzled by such prodigious and athletic mental gymnastics, they dwell comfortably within the notion that nobody will notice that their arguments rest entirely on ignoring the two fundamental truths listed above; truths which even the most average second-grader can understand.
Thus blinded, they then proceed to make their impossible argument. Not realizing that the idea of God represents the evolution of authentic human investigation, no less than art, psychology or science, they reject the universal truths underpinning this search because they have objections to particular contemporary explanations. This is like saying that because we cannot explain its origin, the universe does not exist.
Our current explanation for our spirituality, the modern story, is what we call God. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, idea we come up with. Science proves, and history has recorded, that God, that mono-theism, was not our first answer. In the “west”, which includes all three religions of Abraham, we all supposedly worship the same God; the God of Moses, invented by the children of Israel a few thousand years ago. But for more thousands of years, there were other ideas.
In the great cradles of civilization; in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Greece and in Rome they were religious too: Yet they worshiped different spirits. When we view the idea of our God ontologically, that is, which came first- humanity or God, it is clear that humanity preceded God. God, as an idea, is a human invention. God is the idea which explains our spiritual relationship to life.
For atheism to assert that God does not exist, that God is not real; it relies, in the name of reason, on the proposition that ideas are not real.
Is evolution real? How about freedom? Beauty?
Oh, they say, truthful ideas can be proven by a scientific method, whereas theology is unsubstantiated. Science can only prove any idea through abstraction. Two plus two is a scientific certainty, but only an abstract representation. “Two”, like God, is a human invention.
There is much need for criticism of those who seek to control, brand, market and centralize our ideas about our nature. In fact, there is no end to the details they’ve got wrong. Foremost, is the idea that we already know it all; for it is those that make the religiously narrow argument that our idea of God is complete who are in fact arguing that the idea of God is dead, while it is those that doubt the perfection of any human idea who are actually arguing that the inquiry into the idea of God must be kept alive: To perfect is to preserve.
Much confusion arises from the silly notion that God created the idea of God.
We mistake the result of our inquiry with its need. Even while we must accept God as we accept any other idea, when we reject some particular aspect of this idea, or even the entire story, we do not disprove that human beings are essentially spiritual. Even if some idea of God is dead, as are most such ideas, we have said nothing about the underlying condition which prompted such ideas to begin with- human life.
To argue that God does not exist is to argue that humanity does not exist. Our spiritual selves are as real as all our other qualities. The ideas produced through spiritual inquiry are as real as any other idea. Ideas are real.
Finally, for those that say that religion is irrational- I say “so what”? What on earth ever possessed people to expect rational behavior from human beings? There are no rational human beings. Rationality is an abstract idea- JUST LIKE GOD.
The best of the religious, the humble, say God is love. Does love exist? Is love rational?
So, don’t tell me love is dead. What’s dead, is the useless idea of atheism.
R.I.P.
-Richard Hirshhorn
Video: Rev. Wright Flares Up Again
Video: Pastor Ted Haggard Blames Childhood Sexual Abuse For His Scandal
I certainly don’t wish the man ill, but I just don’t buy it. A person doesn’t just engage in gay sex out of the blue and then go back to normal again with some help. I believe Ted Haggard is gay and living in denial. Moreover, I think his wife is also living in denial about his sexuality. You don’t just suddenly go on a weekend bender and have sex with a male prostitute if you’re straight.
Pew Survey: 92% Of Americans Believe in God Or Universal Spirit
It looks like yet another setback for America’s tiny minority of athiests. According to a new Pew survey, 92% of Americans believe in God or universal spirit. It also found that 58% of Americans say they pray privately every day, and California is the least religious state in America.
Video: Obama’s Church Strikes Again
Barack Obama’s church is back in the headlines again. Only this time it’s not Rev. Wright that’s causing the controversy. Instead it’s Father Michael Pfleger who was the invited guest pastor last Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ.
His sermon was filled with much of the same anti-white, racist rhetoric that Rev. Wright’s are, but the unusual thing about Pfleger is that he’s a white Catholic Priest.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to sense a pattern at this particular church. A pattern of racism and radical ideology that Barack Obama and his family sat through for 20 years.
Take a look:
Wright Was Right, Then Wrong Again
We are currently enjoying day number two of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright media blitz, and it gets a little worse at every stop.
I watched Rev. Wright on Bill Moyers the other night and was impressed. Keeping in mind that Bill Moyers is a dishonest hack who’s just trying to get Obama elected, I still thought Rev. Wright showed an impressive intellect and made some very good points.
I was even prepared to come in this morning and write what could be perceived as an apology for some of the unfair criticisms I’ve made about Wright. I do think some of the YouTube clips were taken out of context and many in the media have rushed to judgment on the man.
Then Obama’s “crazy uncle” gave the keynote address at yesterday’s NAACP luncheon. It was slightly hysterical, but otherwise a very entertaining speech. The man is about as charismatic as anybody I’ve ever seen.
Then the wheels came flying off the “reconciliation train” so to speak this morning. The good pastor gave a shortened version of the previous day’s speech, this time to The National Press Club and then (much to the chagrin of the Obama campaign I’m sure) he answered questions.
It turns out all those YouTube clips may not have been taken out of context after all. Rev. Wright may just be the anti-American race hustler I thought he was.
His demeanor in front of the press club was arrogant in the extreme. His attitude was dismissive, racist, and dare I say ‘elitist’.
When asked about his comments just 5-days after 9/11 about America’s “chickens coming home to roost” he defended the words.
…“Jesus said do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.”
When asked if he loves America, he responded:
”I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic?” he asked. “How many years did (Vice President Dick) Cheney serve?”
Instead of taking responsibility for his own statements, Rev. Wright accused the media and other critics of “attacking the black church”.
“The most recent attack is on the black church, it is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright, it is an attack on the black church,” Wright said.
When asked about his relationship to Louis Farrakhan he was again unapologetic:
…So what I think about him, as I’ve said on Bill Moyers and it got edited out, how many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall? He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century. That’s what I think about him.
Probably the most outrageous thing Rev. Wright did was defend his belief that white people created the AIDS virus as an act of genocide against people of color.
I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven’t read things, then you can’t — based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.
In fact, in fact, in fact, one of the — one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non- question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.
So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable.
He also defended his comparison of Roman soldiers who killed Jesus to the U.S. Marine Corps. if you can believe it.
The Roman oppression is the period in which Jesus is born. And comparing imperialism that was going on in Luke, imperialism was going on when Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that the whole world should be taxed. They weren’t in charge of the world. It sounds like some other governments I know.
That, yes, I can compare that. We have troops stationed all over the world, just like Rome had troops stationed all over the world, because we run the world. That notion of imperialism is not the message of the gospel of the prince of peace, nor of God, who loves the world.
He was asked many more questions which you can both read and watch by following the link to the transcript and video.
While Rev. Wright loves to point the finger at so-called “white America” and “rich white people” who run the country, it is he who should be looking inward at the hypocrite and race hustler within himself.
At one point in today’s presentation in response to a question, he said that America is the only country that has refused to “apologize” for slavery and for the injustices done to black people.
He said we can never bridge the divide or begin the healing until we as a nation (white people) apologize. The harsh reality is that most divides have already been bridged, unfortunately pastor Wright never got the memo.
What I mean is that the issues which divided the whites and blacks of Rev. Wright’s generation don’t divide today’s young people. Socio-economic inequalities still exist in some places for sure, but that’s not because of racism. Some areas may still be effected by the racist policies of the past, but white people are not preventing blacks from getting ahead.
People in my generation (18-36) don’t even think about race issues. We’ve moved beyond racial issues of previous generations, but people like Rev. Wright want to keep pulling us backward.
Jeremiah Wright is no different than Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or Louis Farrakhan. All of them make a living trying to convince black folks that “white devils” are still trying to keep them down. He speaks bitterly of continued black oppression to a congregation that until recently included Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama.
Yet the irony of that completely escapes him.
Wright is a hypocrite, because while giving speeches about “rich white people” he’s building a multi-million dollar mansion in a gated community that is 97% white.
Rev. Wright is an arrogant, racist, bitter, and divisive individual who cares more about hearing himself thunder away on television than about black people.
If he really cared about black people he wouldn’t be sabotaging the chance for the first black man to be elected president.
He knows that his ridiculous and offensive statements are going to hang Obama out to dry, but he doesn’t care.
Pope Benedict XVI Touches Down In America
From the AFP:
Pope Benedict XVI arrived here Tuesday for a six-day visit during which he hopes to heal the wounds from a decades-long sex scandal which have disfigured the US Roman Catholic church.
US President George W. Bush prepared an unprecedented welcome for the 80-year-old pontiff, becoming the first US leader to greet a visiting head of state at the airport.
Video: Actor Jason Beghe Call Scientology ‘Destructive’ and a ‘Rip-Off’
Take a look at this interview with actor Jason Beghe about Scientology. He was a Scientologist for more than 14 years, but recently left the ‘church’ and is speaking out against it.
In case you don’t remember who Jason Beghe is, he played Demi Moore’s love interest in G.I. Jane.
This clip is supposedly a teaser for a long upcoming interview with Beghe about his former religion.
Texas Standoff: Police Attempt Raid On Polygamist Compound
It looks like Police are finally going to bring the lawless Fundamentalist Mormons under control. For years these people led by imprisoned child rapist Warren Jeffs have lived outside the law in their compound in Texas. Stories of child rape, child weddings, and children giving birth to children, have been trickling out of the this cult for years.
For some reason people get hot under the collar about illegal immigration, because it’s a violation of federal law. Fine, I can go along with that, but if we’re going to enforce that federal law then we should enforce the federal law against polygamy.
So thankfully, the Police are finally taking a hard look at the kind of show these freaks are running down in Texas. State Troopers attempted to serve a search warrant after being alerted about a marriage between a 15-year old girl and a 50-year old man. The 15-year old allegedly gave birth 8-months ago which is even more cause for concern.
Yesterday evening, child welfare officials removed 52-girls from the compound and by Saturday evening a total of 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed by authorities.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.
The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high, gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. The sheer size of the temple is enough to make even the most ostentatious Saudi Prince blush.
The FLDS has been led by everyone’s favorite pedophile/messiah Warren Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.
Basically the FLDS is multi-generational Disneyland for pedophiles that the authorities have allowed to flourish under the guise of “freedom of religion.”
In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.
The Jeffs trial and subsequent investigations into these wingnuts has shown “freedom” and “religion” are about the last things going on in this place.
I hope the Feds shut this place down and put all the leaders in the damn clink where they belong. Then Maybe the 137+ kids who’ve been imprisoned by this cult will at least have the chance at a normal life.
For the moment at least, the child molesters in charge are refusing to allow authorities to search the compound and negotiations are under way. After the disasters are Ruby Ridge and Waco, Police are not taking any chances and preparing for the worst.
-Chris Jones
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