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So-called 'Christians.' They've hijacked my religion.
The response to Katrina is highlighting the absolute baseness and toxicity of the views of the so-called 'Right' (who are anything but that). Look here and here and here. At first I couldn't write at all about this disaster, because I couldn't find any words, but since reading some of these reports, I can't keep silent.
First off? There is really no such thing as a “right wing Christian.” It’s an oxymoron. It’s not possible. There are only right wing so-called "Christians." None of them are the least bit interested in what Christ said you are actually supposed to do yourself; they obsess instead about what other people are doing and how they can stop them from doing it. Except to the extent that they can use religion to control the private behavior of others, they are principally concerned with belief. They honestly believe---and I know what I am talking about because about half of them are my relatives---that as long as they believe that "Christ is my savior" and "witness" on his behalf, that they are personally exempt from any adverse judgment. They truly believe that all "Jesus" (they're all on very chummy terms with him) cares about is what's in their heads and in their "hearts" and not whether their "Christianity" leads to, you know, Christian action and Christian forbearance.
They're wrong. What was that he said? "By their fruits you will know them."
So the real problem is that they don't understand the religion that they are so anxious to shove down the throats of the rest of the world. As the man said, a diseased tree is going to yield diseased fruit 100% of the time.
I hate the way that they are hijacking my religion. I don't mind being considered a namby-pamby bleeding heart mawkish soft-shelled squeamish God-bothering liberal, because at least that's consistent with the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself, which we are told is one of the two commandments "on which hang all the law and the prophets." I can live with being despised for being too tolerant, too ready to forgive, too ready to excuse. I am sure I'm wrong sometimes, but I'm comfortable with erring on the side of compassion.
But I cannot understand---or accept---how the religion of Christ has been taken over by people whose whole religion consists in judging and excluding those who don't believe the 'right' (in their minds) creeds.
To listen to the vile rhetoric spewing from the invariably-wrong ‘far right’ would turn Christ’s stomach. Seriously, some of the people who greet the disaster that has befallen us as a sign of the upcoming ‘Rapture’ and can’t wait to meet the man and shake him personally by the hand would be in for a rude awakening. That’s if they were right about that, and they aren’t, because they are always wrong. They are always, always wrong every time they mete out more sanctimony and more condemnation because they are not supposed to be doing that.
The Christian response in this sort of crisis is compassion, empathy, compassion, empathy, sympathy, and a deep longing to help. It’s saddening when people who are desperate behave basely instead of nobly, but they are desperate. They are wrong, but they are also us. You can't set up a false dichotomy of us/them, when you created and participated in the culture that created the poor underclass that couldn't escape the city and that also lets retail stores stock guns and ammo.
And you can’t sit on the sidelines and condemn others, especially the poor. It may be idealistic, it may be unrealistic, it may be nearly impossible, but if you're going to follow the teachings of Christ, forgiveness, understanding, and compassion trump the rule of law and expediency every single time.
For those of you who know this, and feel inclined to jeer, don’t think for a minute that what you’re hearing from these pious, canting, self-satisfied hypocrites---okay, this is me judging them and that's wrong too, but I am very upset, as the excess italics attest---- is in any way related to, or supported by, the Gospels. Don’t think for a minute that the same man who told the other convicted criminal hanging on that other cross that they would meet in Paradise would endorse shooting looters or treating more lightly the sufferings of the poor of New Orleans than the sufferings of people like themselves “because the poor didn’t have so much to lose.” (I actually heard a hoity toity Methodist say that.)
I'm not even going to utter the obvious and tragic truths that explain why it is that we are presently in a situation where our own National Military is apparently being instructed to "shoot to kill" and why teenaged boys armed with guns are roaming the streets of a ruined city threatening other pathetic terrified citizens. How did we come to this pass? That's what any liberal in the country would call a "no-brainer."
It’s easy for people sitting comfortably on the sidelines to sit in judgment calling for martial law. It’s just SO EASY. Which is exactly why a Christian---I mean a real one who respects the actual teachings of Christ--- would not do it. The expedient solution is never the right one, though it's generally the Right one. They are all about "wiping out" crime.
I shouldn’t judge the so-called Right so-called “Christians” either. I am trying to temper my anger and to be just in my speech. But this is my blog and this is my opinion and if I don’t utter it I am going to expire from holding it all inside. And then I won’t be able to do anything to help.
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4:34:41 PM 
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