The Juxtaposition of Faith and Politics

[Soph0571]

One might suggest that looking at the unwillingness of those on the far right to effectively tackle immigration reform, the isolationist and xenophobic stance taken and the hate filled rhetoric and use of dog whistles by those who support Trump in the US, or Brexit in the UK, that there is a fundamental failure on the part of those on the far right to live up to Christ’s commandment to love thy neighbour as thyself, or they are not seeking to follow the example of the Good Samaritan, in helping foreigners down on their luck.

Is it possible for you to be a Christian and vote for a far-right candidate? If Christians find themselves voting for these people, fundamentally they are on very shaky doctrinal ground. The very fact that the far right has racist policies rules them out from a seat at the table of mainstream Christianity. Now we know that the far right will claim Christianity for themselves. They wear it on their sleeves while advocating hate for other; they will claim their dissenters are demonic in their policy and practice. If one examines parties that self-identify as Christian, they are overwhelmingly parties of division. LGBT rights, the rights of immigrants, woman’s rights, policies on people of colour, all have their rights diminished in the name of the far right God.

The far-right exploit policies areas that divide society. By exploiting division in society, they are pushing us back to a time when acceptance was a dirty word. Surely however Christ’s teaching is about love and acceptance to name but a couple of his attributes.

This chap says it better than me: (Abridged)

Force your religious beliefs and practices on others. One of the strengths of the faith Jesus taught was in its meekness. The faith he taught valued free will over compulsion – because that's how love works.

Advocate for war. There's a reason why he was called the Prince of Peace. Sure, you can quote, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” and even two or three other verses, but they don't hold a candle to the more than fifty-some verses where Jesus speaks about peace and peace-making.

Favour the rich over the poor.. Favouring the rich over the poor is a slap in the face of Jesus, his life, and his teachings.

Cut funding that hurts the least of these. Hurting the poor? Well, that's just … just ... um, something a whole lot worse than despicable. Despicabler? Über-despicable? When Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do it to me,” he meant it. When you cut funding and it hurts people, according to Jesus, you are hurting him.

Let people go hungry. Spiritually, Gandhi said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Politically, hunger causes problems with education, production, and civil behavior that are all necessary for a successful nation. More importantly for Christians, Jesus said when we feed the hungry, we are feeding him

Withhold healthcare from people. When people who were sick needed care, Jesus gave it to them. If we are following Jesus, we will imitate him as closely as possible. No, the government can't repeat the miracles he did but I've seen modern medicine do things that are about as close to a miracle as I expect to get.

Limit the rights of a select group of people. Jesus loves everybody – but he loves me best. Kind of sits the wrong way with you, doesn't it? Well, it should and with good reason. If you spend any time reading the Bible you know that we all were made in God's image. Exactly which part of us is in God's image is less clear, but what is clear is that we were equally made in the image of God. Any law that doesn't treat people equally is as good as thumbing your nose at God. Even worse? Doing it in the name of God or based on religious beliefs

Turn away immigrants.. As Exodus says, we know how it feels to be foreigners in a foreign land. If you don't think being foreigners in a foreign land is still our story, ask the Native Americans. At best, turning away immigrants makes us hypocrites; at worst, it makes us betrayers of our ancestors and our God.

Devalue education. We learn in Proverbs that wisdom is something in which God delights daily.

Support capital punishment — execution. Jesus died by execution. He was an innocent man. Every year, innocent people die by execution in our nation. It's time to be a shining city on a hill. It's time to express the fullness of love, to express the value of life. It's time to stop the government-sanctioned killing.

[link:https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thegodarticle/2016/05/10-things-you-cant-vote-for-while-following-jesus/

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

In comparison the far right is neither patient or kind, the far right is arrogant and rude. The far right insist that only its way is the RIGHT way. The far right is resentful and mean to anyone who challenges them and their belief system. The far right only bears the burden of those who are exactly like them. That is some juxtaposition, right there.

Just saying.......

[MineralMan]

1. Quite the Paradox, Isn't It?

Always a puzzle.

[Igel]

2. Same for the poster.

Paradoxes abound.

What's truly amusing is that many that obsess over the far right's government-pass-through non-charity are in the bottom two quintiles. They pay essentially no federal income tax and are proud of doing their humanitarian or Xian duty by having the government help the needy. In other words, they like forcing others to contribute (sometimes in Jesus' name) and then saying they did it. The tax burden that's so high for the poor is a tax burden that many exult in--they're "investing" in Social Security and "purchasing" a right; in this they really are helping retirees, because these days about 100% of what is paid in FICA, including the half paid by the employee, is immediately paid out to current retirees and disabled. The rest of the bottom two quintiles' tax burden is sales tax, but we have no federal sales tax.

If I wanted to be snarky, I'd say that their Jesus was all about forcing the rich to pay. Oddly, I see two strains in the narrative. The first is that the rich are called upon to pay, but not forced--even violations of the Law against God weren't to be punished, and people were called upon to be the same: Don't judge, but forgive. If you're wronged, don't go to court over it. If you've wronged, go the extra mile in seeking forgiveness. The second strain is that when applying the Law, it was to be done justly, which is to say, you don't favor the poor in a legal judgment because he's poor, you don't favor the rich in a legal judgment because he's rich: The tendency was to oppress the poor in judgment and to let the rich off easy. The opposite is also not a Jesus-approved mode of corruption.

People also tend to like to cite the "help the stranger," ignoring two things. First, the stranger had no family or friends in the new country, and typically was faced with really dire straits. Leaving was pretty much the only course of action, there was no place in their home area to go to or to turn to, and where they went to was pretty much the nearest or only option. This was painful; it was not common. Few strangers that were refugees from Persia made it to Israel, and not so many Greeks. People from Egypt, Babylon, possible from parts of Anatolia would show up. Otherwise, the strangers tended to be colonialists or oppressors, and there's a lot of talk about outsiders oppressing the natives. Mostly, if you seek safety, you stop when you're safe. Second, the stranger was under strict injunction: There was to be one law for the stranger and for the native born, and it was specifically talking about the theocratic law. In other words, they were expected to assimilate to the dominant (theocratically imposed) culture. In Jesus' day there was a big debate over the influence of Greek thinking in Jewish thought; he largely skirted that, but used Greek ideas fairly nonjudgmentally when it made a point, while still letting the point stand that the Law was the law and outsiders were outsiders. At times it's not obvious: When a herd of swine are driven into the water, what's not apparent is that swine are being raised (not by Jews, but by those settled by Greeks and Romans) in what used to be Israelite territory, and it's okay to strip them of their livelihood. That loss of his herd might well have bankrupted that poor outsider, but you know, Jesus didn't care. In most ways he went with the Pharisees, if you look carefully. But outsiders had riven the polity and caused great chaos. Even inclusion of a related nation, the Edomites, led to a mixed marriage that produced Herod; he was half-Idumean.

[Eko]

3. My mom was very religious.

My nephew came over one Sunday to cut our yard and she called and said he couldn't work on the lords day. She made him come home and work on her yard instead.

[Pope George Ringo II]

4. I've always found it amusing:

Guy working mostly on Sunday tells everybody else that working on Sunday is bad. Mix the day up for other religions.

[Eko]

5. Never thought about that,,,,,

lol.

[Major Nikon]

6. Unitarians can potentially get a three day weekend every week