Suckers for Jesus

I came across this article through a posting of a yahoo group I belong to, and may I say this is brilliant.

They say it's always good for a writer to state his biases and well here is mine. Yes I am a Christian, the born-again variety and yes I've tried to be right wing. But goodness, I never felt comfortable being one of those 'religious right' types. You may gather from my rants during the election I am not a friend of liberalism. Actually I'm not a friend of the Liberal party of Canada which believe me is NOT a liberal organization. It is a tired, corrupt worn-out organization that has managed to bamboozle the electorate through fluff and scare tactics into getting themselves elected yet again, but enough of that.

The premise of the paper is to ask the question why are Christian fundalmentalists, which make up the religious right in the States a part of the neo-conservative movement? There is a listing of the groups making of the neo-cons and truly it is frightening. In fact the groups listed, the libertarians, free market absolutists and plutocrats are as far from the philosophy of Jesus, if not in opposition to, as possible.

One quote that I thought was interesting is this one"The Right has, in effect, established a separate and distinct definition of "liberal," so that it is effectively equated with "libertinism" - sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. In addition, the Right's use of "liberal" connotes the stifling of religion, welfare cheating, profligate government spending (as in "tax-and-spend-liberals") and even, in the hands of such uninhibited ranters as Ann Coulter, treason.
". Here is the key, the 'secular' right knew which buttons to push, they painted the liberals as being pro-abortion, pro-gay, anti-private schools and soft on crime. So by pushing these buttons, they were able to, as the next paragraph says:" In short, this redefined “liberalism” serves well as an embodiment of “evil” to the religious right. And when this sense of “liberalism” is associated, through constant repetitions, with the Democratic Party – well, you know the rest
". So the Democrats are the embodiment of evil. So what sort of agenda does the Republicans push, well, pro-life, but only of unborn children, forget about who live in the third world, or even those who live in the ghetto.

In other words, by pushing a few topics they, the secular right are able to get their way. You have to understand the bible, it is a document with a very strong sense of social justice. The writer points this out and certainly the case could be made by quoting prophets such as Amos and others. Certainly Jesus made not attempt to hide his anger against those who exploited the poor, even going so far as throwing the money changers out of the Temple.

If you are a Christian I invite you to read this article, it will get you thinking. You will ask yourself 'what would Jesus do'. What would He do? Perhaps he'd march to the White House and throw Bush out.

Peace