The Religious “right” has had a monopoly on the political process for too many years. Now people who actually pay attention to religion and understand the teachings are starting to get involved.
Recently over 5000 religious leaders sent a letter to congress with a simple message: Do not cut services to the poor!
The letter printed here, reminds Congress that the “moral measure of the debate is how the most poor and vulnerable fare.”
“As I look out our country, what concerns me more … is a radically individualistic attitude that says ‘I got mine, it’s completely up to you to get yours,” said the Rev. Rich Nathan, a signee and pastor of the 9,000-member Vineyard Church of Columbus, Ohio. “That’s not the ethic of Jesus.”
“I woke up this morning and thought if God indeed does judge the nation, I believe that will be not on the basis of how well we protect the wealth of the top 1 percent, but how much we heed to Christ’s command to care for the ‘least of these'” said the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Co.
Looks like everyone is on to Scott Walker and paul ryan.
How much longer until the honest good people in the religious community realize that they’ve been completely played by the politicians that purport to support them? How long until the religious right realizes that they gave up their economic freedom in exchange for token morality laws? When is this whole house of cards going to finally crash down?
The religious spectrum is quite wide, and it has been always. Don’t be fooled by the occasional good stance of individual religious leaders (Fr. Groppi, locally comes to mind). The religious “right” (really the “wrong”) still has enormous power and influence (Pat Robertson, Kenneth Copeland, Robert Tilton, Pastor Hagee, and many of the Catholic Church hierarchy such as ex-archbishop Law of Boston– now at the Vatican, are just some examples of the corruption– be it greed for wealth, power, cover up of pedophiles, etc. The list goes on.
It’s so strange, I guess it depends what the issue is and then the left is all for religious intervention.
Actually Sarah, I think everyone should weigh in on politics in this country. I just look for consistency from our religious ‘leaders”.
Jeff that would require a consistency in the religion. But The bible is so inconsistent that you could support any thing you want with it.
I think thats true of the Old testament for sure, but I do think that Jesus was pretty consistent.
The problem is that helping the disadvantaged (like religious figures such as Jesus advocated) clashes with the American cultural value of rugged independence, and the idea of adversity being the mother of invention – so that offering a helping hand is actually taking away someone’s chance to grow and maximize their potential. Not that that’s not a messed up idea, but it is one that resonates powerfully with the Tea Party (a.k.a. Christian Right of yesteryear) and even with a lot of moderate conservatives. So I’m just saying that in their perverse worldview, they would see helping people as actually being intrinsically IMmoral.
I’m never for religious intervention. Religion is a crock of crap and has no place in running a democracy. If people want to put their wills and their lives into the hands of a handful of nutcases who think they have a direct line to a supreme being, let them. Just keep them out of our government and don’t allow them to proselytize in our schools.