Sharing is bad.
I only have a few minutes to write this before I jet off to my next engagement, but I was reading an article from Google news last week about McCain and Palin accusing Obama of “wealth redistribution”. Basically they’re attacking Obama because his policies encourage the wealthy to share their money with the less-fortunate. People like Ghandi or Jesus might want you to believe that sharing is good, but the Republicans know that when the sharing starts, America will go straight to Hell. Why? Because “… it [sharing] is one of the tenants of socialism!” (McCain at a rally).
Not that Democrats are awesome at dutifully “following God” (not that they necessarily should), but I tend to hold the “moral majority”, the “Religious Right” to a higher standard being that they claim to represent God. However, as an independent voter, I’m free to believe God wasn’t just pulling my chain when he said things like “the only religion I’m [God] interested in is to look after orphans and widows” (James 1:27) or “What you do to the least of these you do unto me”.
Quite honestly, were it not for the abortion issue (I’m personally against it but I respect people of differing opinions–especially since I don’t have a uterus) I would honestly find it very difficult to justify voting Republican at all.
In my examination of politics and the Christian faith, I feel comfortable concluding that the summation of excuses conservatives use against things like well-fare (sp?), war, gay rights, drug policies, immigration, etc seem to be rooted in hate and the justifications they provide are often “practical”. By this I mean that it is impractical to give money to 90% of homeless people when only 10% really put it to good use (I’m just using arbitrary numbers). Or that it’s more practical to “use force to make people behave peacefully” (note the irony) than it is to genuinely reach out and have patience (heaven forbid we turn the other cheek or anything crazy like that) with our enemies.
I find this to conflict with the Christian faith which states that God was born in a barn, spent a good chunk of his life being homeless, talking/living/eating with the crazies and the rejects of society, and hanging on a Roman cross like a criminal out of crazy, compassionate love for mankind. I would think it would be within the power of an Almighty God to come to earth as a powerful king with powerful armies and force the world to believe in Him, but that wasn’t what he did. In fact, Jesus rejected this method explicitly during the temptation in the desert.
Basically, all of this is to say that I feel the “godless liberals” do what Jesus would do a lot better than the Religious Right. But I think we all know bad things happen when Christianity becomes “popular” [cough]Crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, war, etc[cough].
Just some thoughts.
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You wrote that in a few minutes? Impressive! Very good read! I’m still torn on the election, not that my vote will mean much as it looks, but your views on the church are nearly spot on with mine.
Wow Craig - great article!