Muslim scholar Reza Aslan: Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin would call Jesus a ‘Marxist’
Religious scholar Reza Aslan said American conservatives are basing their criticism of recent comments made by Pope Francis on a “profoundly unhistorical view of Jesus.”
The pontiff has ruffled the feathers of U.S. conservatives with comments suggesting the church has focused too much on social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception, rather than helping the poor.
But his first Apostolic Exhortation released earlier this week, in which the pope denounced the sacred economic theories of the American right – trickle-down economics and an unfettered free market – seems to have been the last straw for Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.
“These two paragons of the far right – both of whom regularly invoke the teachings of Jesus to bolster their own political views – have suddenly turned their backs on the man whose actual job description is to speak for Jesus,” Aslan wrote in a Washington Post column published Thursday.
The Iranian-American scholar noted Palin’s complaint that Pope Francis sounded “kind of liberal” when he decried the growing global income gap between the rich and the poor, although the former vice presidential candidate and reality TV star has since apologized.
But Limbaugh accused the pope of promoting Marxism in comments that had undoubtedly been written by someone else or forced upon him.
“Somebody did get to Pope Francis,” Aslan wrote. “It was Jesus.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/29/muslim-scholar-reza-aslan-rush-limbaugh-and-sarah-palin-would-call-jesus-a-marxist/
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