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Jesus is "the Christian Left."
According to this Washington Post article, progressive Christians are starting to mobilize to push back against the religious right. There are plenty of people as sick as I am at their hijacking of our religion to push political agenda that we're all very sure the Man Himself would never have endorsed.
[quote from Washington Post article by Thomas Ferraro]
Some, like the Rev. Robin Meyers of the United Church of Christ in Oklahoma, marry gay couples and seek to reduce abortions while rejecting calls by the right to outlaw them.
"I join the ranks of those who are angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian," declared Meyers, who has written a new book, "Why the Christian Right is Wrong.
According to scholars, the religious left has become its most active since the 1960s when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy -- black and white -- were key figures in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.
[quote from Washington Times article by Thomas Ferror ends]
The bad news is that the religious left is, mirroring the Democratic party, exceedingly loosely knit, lacking the awesome skills of the Right in creating a narrow, monolithic point of view with which to address voters. I guess I'm just glad that the dissent is finally being raised and that progressive Christians who take Christ himself literally are asking Christians to take another look at his priorities.
[quote from Washington Times article by Thomas Ferraro begins]
Those on the right say they are not worried by the left's activism. Richard Land, president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, said, "The religious left is a shadow of what it was in the '60s."
"I'm quite confident that in the struggle for hearts and minds, we've got a lot more boots on the ground than they do."
Amid the war of words, some clergy are making a point to steer clear of labels. Rev. Jim Wallis, who heads a faith-based group in Washington called Sojourners, has been widely viewed as part of the religious left. Yet he rejects the name and preaches the need to bring the nation to "a moral center."
"I'm an evangelical Christian who thinks that justice is a biblical imperative," said Wallis." The monologue of the religious right is finally over and a new dialogue has just begun."
[quote from The Washington Times article by Thomas Ferraro ends]
I don't think that "the left"---i.e., Democrats, because nobody is allowed to be moderate or centrist anymore---should worry so much about the single voice/single agenda problem or rather, I don't think that there is anything we can do about it. Since the Republicans have adopted the "If you're not with us, you're against us" politics of exclusion, it follows that those who are not are going to be branded as 'the left' regardless of how centrist/moderate their actual politics. [As I said during the egregious Joe Lieberman flap, Democrats should not require all members of the party to speak with a single vote. We need to be the party of inclusion, as always. If the other side prevails because of their unity, we need to find better ways to get our message out there and our supporters mobilize, not just do as they do.]
The same applies to smaller parties within the party, including any coalition of Christians who want to bring the strayed sheep back into the fold (as it were). The key is to take seriously Christ's denunciation of the all-too-human propensity to preen oneself on one's superior righteousness and to indulge in judgments adverse to the welfare of one's neighbors.
The "good news" that the Gospels conveyed was that the poor, oppressed, and neglected are worth as much in the sight of God as the lawyers, priests, and other dignitaries who prayed aloud or who indulged in public displays of righteousness.
I know I've said it before, but I can't stop wondering how the Christian Right has missed these passages from the Gospels. Maybe they are using a different version of the Bible or maybe they need to update from the King James Bible ("the true word of God," according to a bumper sticker I saw recently) so they can understand what they're reading. (I can remember someone telling me as a child in sober earnest that the Jesus requires corporal punishment, and why? "Suffer the little children to come to me.") I often wonder if members of the Christian Right aren't just skipping over the stuff that doesn't fit in with what they already believe or that's really hard to do, but maybe they just don't understand the language of King James.
Some passages that can't be repeated too often:
You have learned that they [the Hebrews] were told: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth." But what I tell you is this: Do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn and offer him your left. If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. Give when you are asked to give, and do not turn your back on a man who wants to borrow.
You have learned that they were told, "Love your neighbour, hate your enemies." But what I tell you is this: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors; only so can you be children of our Heavenly Father, who makes his sun rise on good and bad alike, and sends the rain on the honest and dishonest. If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? And if you greet only your brothers, what is there extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much. There must be no limit to your goodness, as our Heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds.
Matthew, Chapter 5, New English Bible (1971 ed.) at 8.
Of the fundamentalist Right wingers who claim to take the Bible "literally," how many are pushing a set of political agenda that actually aim to accomplish what Christ specifically instructed his followers to do? It's hard. It's very hard. Christian love and Christian charity (same thing really) isn't a walk in the park; it requires you to remember all the time that even the human beings that seem lowest and most depraved may have a value for God that you can't see and that you need to act accordingly.
It's always been clear to me that when Christ talks about sin, he is telling people to look inside themselves and straighten out that mess and to refrain from the presumption of judging the moral worth of others. I've spent a whole lifetime trying to learn how to do that and yet I continually fail. But---to borrow a line from Salinger---at least I know I'll pay like hell for any judgment I mete out. And at least I really am taking Christ literally. I believe that he meant exactly what he said. I don't see any ambiguity or any need for context.
I take this passage to require something more from Christians confronted with the problem of evil than the usual knee-jerk aversion. It means that there are no easy solutions to dealing with evil because when you look at the serial killer, you must look beyond the deed to the wounded, shattered, broken soul inside and do the best you can to forgive. It means you have to get right down there in the gutter with those who've injured you most and so that you can see what it's like for them and what brought them there. If you see the molested, abused child who has grown up to be a child molester, you have to force yourself to put aside your loathing and horror and try to some common human sympathy.
It's the hardest thing in the world. It also means that deciding how to treat criminals becomes much harder. If punishment is merited, you also ought to think about rehabilitation. You have to try to give love (charity) even to those who in strict human terms deserve your loathing. You must try to see the humanity of those who do wrong and leave judgments to God. (And you're kind of precluded by that from standing outside the state prison holding up signs saying, "Die like a dog" and so forth).
Another thing about Christian love/charity: you keep it to yourself.
[W]hen you do some act of charity, do not announce it with a flourish of trumpets, as the hypocrites do in synagogue and in the streets to win admiration from men. I tell you this: they have their reward already. No; when you do some act of charity, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing; your good must be secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Matthew, Chapter 6, NEB (1971 ed.) at 8-9.
I wonder if it's possible to get credit from God if you also got a tax deduction? Does your motive matter? What if you only did the charitable act to save some taxes? What if you did it out of the goodness of your heart and then just took the tax deduction because it was there?
Kidding. I'm kidding. I am sure Jesus would be all for any governmental policy designed to further the welfare of the poor. My question has to do with the value of the act itself (charity induced by the desire for a financial edge) from the standpoint of God. I'll leave that to God to decide.
No wonder so many Right-wing Christians prefer to get their morality from the Old Testament. Jesus doesn't let you claim credit for anything. He especially loathed people who engaged in public displays of their righteousness, Pat Robertson. I quote:
Be careful not to make a show of your religion before men; if you do, no reward awaits you in your Father's house in Heaven....
Again, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in synagogue and at the street corners, for everyone to see them. I tell you this: they have their reward already. But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to the Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father who sees what is secret will reward you.
In your prayers do not go babbling on like the heathen who imagine that the more they say the more likely they are to be heard. Do not imitate them. Your Father knows what your needs are before you ask him.
Matthew ch. 6, NEB at 8-9 (1971 ed.)
Some of the most impassioned fundamentalists obviously don't take this passage literally.
After telling people to pray "the Lord's prayer" as it's known, Jesus emphasizes the importance of the lines "Forgive us the wrong we have done, as we forgive those who have wronged us." According to him---if you take him literally---one depends on the other. "For if you forgive others the wrongs they have done, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, then the wrongs you have done will not be forgiven by your Heavenly Father."
See, it's tough love, Christian-style. "Do as you would be done by" is followed by "be done by as you did." It's a Christian concept of karma. Your fellow Christians don't get to judge your worth; but God certainly can, and the test will be how you comported yourself towards others. A Christian who is really attentive to the words of Jesus and really believes that he meant what he said has a hard row to hoe.
Many Christians---and it must be nice to be them---don't believe that this means what it says. Thanks to St. Paul (not a favorite with me), Protestants* in my dear old Bible Belt, where I grew up and from whence so much damn nonsense emerges, believe that they don't have to do all that soppy, liberal, sinner-hugging forgiveness crap. As long as they don't drink alcohol or engage in same-sex sex, they are going to go straight to Heaven no matter how badly they actually behave because they are saved.
Here's what I was told at a revival I attended with a cousin in South Carolina sometime back in the Seventies: "As long as you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you are saved." As far as I can tell, that is the main tenet of many born again Christians. They are forgiven for their sins (not doing what Jesus said) because they believe that he is Lord. You---despite the fact that you may lead an exemplary life or a much more exemplary life---are not." It's all so simple once you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. He'll walk with you and he'll talk with you and he'll always say exactly what you need to hear.
Good for them if it helps them to sleep, but not quite consistent with the Gospels, I think? For instance, this:
Not everyone who calls me "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Heavenly Father. When that day comes, many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in your name perform may miracles?" Then I will tell them to your face, "I never knew you; out of my sight, you and your wicked ways!"
Whoa. That doesn't sound very forgiving, does it? Doesn't it sound to you as if Jesus was saying that salvation depends on actually trying to live life in accordance with the very difficult precepts he laid out? Doesn't it sound as if he literally meant that his followers shouldn't go on spouting "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" when someone injured them?
Yeah, that's how it sounds to me too. And to the people who heard him too. "When Jesus had finished this discourse the people were astounded at his teaching."
To live a Christian life is really hard to do. Maybe it's actually too hard. I've failed in all sorts of ways and on a daily basis. I wouldn't fault anyone for failing.
But I do fault anyone who uses "Christianity" as a means to achieve political power and to ram their version of "Christianity"---which isn't---down everyone else's throat. That's not a Christian thing to do at all.
Here ends the Heretic's epistle
*I'm not saying that Catholics have it right either. But most of the Catholics I've met personally don't even pretend to know or be interested in the Gospels, or to be relying on them for authority.
12:05:59 PM 
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