Republican Pharisees

I find it fascinating that a government body (The US House of Representatives) which meets for a maximum of 4 days per week (more usually 3 1/2 T-Th) can sit and debate taking away affordable health care from the American people but it has not, in 1 1/2 years, acted to create ONE American job. The Republicans spent all day debating the repeal of the AHCA, which has just been declared to be constitutional by the US Supreme Court. They sit and they waste time while REAL people are REALLY hurting in this country! They allow the CROOKS (banks) of this country to accrue TRILLIONS of dollars while not ONE of them has been jailed for destroying the nation's economy. They sit there and insist that the nation's wealthiest people need their tax cuts while they equally insist on paying for those tax cuts on the backs of the poor. 

The Republicans often identify as conservative Christians. They can call themselves anything they like but their ideology is the furthest thing from any of the teachings of Jesus. They ARE, however, pretty much right in line with those of the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' day. If Jesus were here today, based on the words in red in the New Testament (and the Prophets in the Old), He would condemn the GOP in the strongest possible terms, especially the ones who profess to follow Him. The Biblical record is clear: G-d Judges those who oppress the widowed, the poor and the sick and imprisoned. If those in the Republican party and the 1% who call themselves Christians do not repent and turn away from evildoing they WILL be Judged. Count on it. This IS the Word of G-d (Isaiah through John).

P.S I am NOT the agent of Judgement nor is anyone I know or do not know. Judgement usually comes in the form of the consequences of our own actions, not at the hand of someone else. 

In 1981, I was in my third year of seminary at Perkins School of Theology, SMU, Dallas, TX.  I was noticing a trend among television evangelists: the beginning of political involvement from a group which had traditionally eschewed politics as a corrupting influence on faith. I had no idea exactly where this trend would lead. I did know that I was uncomfortable with the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson leading the charge under the banner of the Moral Majority. As we were soon to discover, the Moral Majority was neither very moral or a majority. But they WERE loud. And obnoxious. And not very interested in good scriptural exegesis. 

In those respects, and others, the Moral Majority of the 1980's is much like today's Tea Party and the Dominionist Movement which accompanies them. They are definitely loud and definitely want the country to be run by theological standards which are set in stone, if not the Bible. There is a overwhelming tendency for these folks to ignore great chunks of the Bible in order to knock others over the head with the parts they deem applicable. They will totally ignore the major themes of scripture: Love God and walk justly. Instead they focus on individual verses, usually taken out of context to support their prejudice against homosexuals or whatever other social issue bug they have their collective butts. 

What all these fundamentalist folks fail to fathom is that Americans are a pragmatic and liberty loving bunch and will not easily give in to the Christian Taliban any more than they will to any outside terrorist group. My advice to them is to read the WHOLE Bible and if that is too much for them, read just the verses in red. THEN come back and tell me what Jesus would do.