The Pope's Views Are Hardly At Odds With Bible. The Bible Is Far More Leftist Than Right Wing

[TomCADem]

First, there are several Biblical quotes that directly endorse collective ownership, which are often ignored by the evangelical Christians:

And all that believed were together, and had all things in common;
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Acts 2: 44, 45

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,
Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Acts 4:32-37

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Romans 13:1-7

Second, in direct contradiction to those who preach the prosperity gospel, i.e., that being rich reflects the Lord's favor and being poor reflects God's disfavor, the Bible contains numerous provisions expressing hostility to the rich:

"Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves."

- Matthew 21:12

"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves,"

- Mark 11:15

"In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

- John 2:14-16

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

- Mark 10:25

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

- Luke 18:25

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
- Matthew 19:24

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

- Luke 18:25

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

- Matthew 19:24


“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows”

- I Timothy 6:10

[hrmjustin]

1. Reading all the texts of the NT it is clear that Jesus and early Christians believed in pulling

resources together and helping people out. Christians need to do a better job at reading.

[TomCADem]

2. Church Is Often Corrupted Due To Reliance On Wealthy Parisioners

Think of the Medici family financing the construction of cathedrals to buy their way into heaven. Likewise, think of evangelists pushing the prosperity gospel and preaching that earthly wealth is a sign of divine favor, which directly contradicts many passages of the new testament. In other words, the church became a barrier to understanding scripture, rather than means of facilitating the understanding of what Jesus actually said.

[hrmjustin]

3. Especially when the church here in the US became an arm of the GOP.

[pnwmom]

11. +1. n/t

[FarCenter]

4. 2 Thessalonians 3

6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.

[CJCRANE]

8. That passage doesn't contradict the command to help the needy.

Idleness is not the same as need.

Helping those in need, sharing equally and also working hard are not mutually exclusive.

Look at the lifestyle on a kibbutz. Everyone who is able contributes.

[Tigress DEM]

9. Corporate Welfare produces far more idleness than poverty does. nt

[kelliekat44]

42. This is Paul talking, isn't it? He is specifically speaking about his band of followers.

These are not the words of Christ. Paul wrote and believed a lot of things that, even he confessed were not the Lord speaking...but his own view. Most conservative, evangelicals, RWingers simply ignore Jesus Christ and choose to recite and cite scripture from the Old Testament or from Paul and his apostles.

[MellowDem]

5. The Bible is far more conservative than left wing...

The Old Testament is most of it, and the New Testament isn't all roses.

Regardless, religion should never be the basis of any ideological argument, since it is weak and exposes the argument to all sorts of fallacies. There are very good secular reasons to support liberalism, and they are grounded in fact and logic.

I can say that a liberal policy should be followed because god said so, but that's a terrible argument and it's just as easy to say the opposite.

[TomCADem]

10. What passages of the Bible discuss abortion?

Also, you refer to the Old Testament, but most Christians tend to focus on the New Testament, so I don't see how you simply dismiss the NT. Put another way, what passages of the bible do you think support a trickle down, anti-regulatory, pro-gun, philosophy?

[AgingAmerican]

13. Abortion has nothing to do with conservatism

It is a wedge issue used to lure idiots into voting for Republicans.

[pnwmom]

12. The Old Testament is NOT "most" of the Christian Bible.

Christians believe that the New Testament, the "Good News," takes precedence over the Old.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Then why is it they don't even follow the direct commands of Jesus?

He said 'do not pray in public as only hypocrites do that' and went on to say prayer should be private, alone, at home in a room with the door shut, he then offered the famed 'Lord's Prayer' as template. Almost all Christians pray in public, their clergy do so for a living. Jesus said only hypocrites do that, I agree with Jesus rather than Rick Francis Robertson on that one.
Jesus said 'call no man father' but of course priests like to be called Father and Francis is The Holy Father. Call no man father, again I'll go with the founder of the faith over those currently profiting from it.
Jesus said nothing against gay people, but in the NT Paul did. In the same passages, Paul says women need to remain silent in public gatherings and ever ask questions save to their husbands alone at home. That's what Paul said, Mom, not me. But he did say it. He also said women are fobidden 'costly garments' and any clothing that draws attention to their physical beauty, but most 'Christians' ignore all of those 'teachings' about women or say they are 'historical' while they claim those anti gay Paul verses are The Word Of God. Interesting that the bits which might apply to YOU are of no real concern but bits that apply to others fuel many sermons and attitudes.
Anyone who opposes equality for gay people 'cause of the NT better also follow those verses about the position and proper behavior of women, or they'd just be hypocrites using materials to harm others while excusing themeselves from those same materials.
Paul and each of the other Biblical authors who wrote anti gay verses also wrote verses about women keeping their place and about the wonders of slavery. NT and OT alike.

[pnwmom]

29. Some try to much more than others.

That's why there's such a difference between, for example, the Nuns on the Bus and some of the Bishops.

There are also significant differences in translations of the Bibles, which affect what various authors, including Paul, are believed to have said.

[Bandit]

30. Isaiah 32 :5-8

Isaiah 32:5-8
King James Version (KJV)

5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.

6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.

8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.

[struggle4progress]

6. Perhaps it something of a mix, as Ernst Bloch says in 'Atheism in Christianity' --

... The Church has too readily and too long kept slaves with their nose to the ground ... The opium of the people, it was called; but .. in real truth its name should be: the end of an illusion ... There is only this point, that Church and Bible are not one and the same. The Bible has always been the Church's bad conscience ... Scripture's language .. is democratic. That is why Luther, when he was translating it, observed the peasant people's speech around him ... And .. in the old German pictures the stable at Bethlehem lies deep in snow .. just as a black Moses thunders at the slave owners in the .. spiritual, Let my people go! That can be done with the Bible ... The Bible speaks with special directness to the ordinary and unimportant ... The preachers of the Peasant Wars .. took their whole stand on the Bible ... Munzer could turn the Bible against Ahab and Jezebel ... But Luther could take the same text and read it as a work .. of authority ... The Bible is, then, no means zealous only for the cause of My Little Ones,.. quite the opposite. But over and against all this stand sentiments no other religious book contains: suffering that will no longer suffer; buoyant expectation of Exodus and restorative transformation ... Piety here, from first to last, belongs to the restless alone; and the particular brand of Utopian loyalty which keeps him restless is the only thing that is, in the long run, deep ...

[Prophet 451]

7. The right have their own interpretation of the Bible

I used to work for the net's biggest spirituality site and got to see all the psudo-pious legalism teh right engages in to try and justify their own mean-spiritedness. They constantly claim that Jesus was talking about personal charity and would have been against all form of welfare. It's a gospel that owes less to Jesus than to Rand.

[On the Road]

14. Actually, as a Whole,

I think the Bible might best be described as monarchist.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. He's hit and miss. Jesus commands his followers to never pray in public 'like hypocrites

do' but of course Frankie and all the Frankie followers don't care for that teaching and they love public shows of 'faith' and 'righteousness' not only in prayer form but in their conduct in daily contact with others.
Francis is called 'Holy Father' but Jesus commanded his followers to call no man father. Including your father. Frankie likes to pray on TV while folks call him father, all of this for Jesus who said to do none of that.
Jesus said not a single word against gay people nor against abortion, yet these are Frank's lifetime themes, he got famous in Argentina as an anti gay fire breater.
In terms of personal accountability, Jesus said to sell it all and give it to the poor, Frankie and his peers are hugely wealthy men, with vast holdings not being sold off to feed the poor. Frankie and his peers do not share all that wealth with others as the apostles did in Acts. The largest holder of real estate in NYC is Cardinal 'I oppose gays' Dolan, who does not give it to the poor nor share it with others according to need, he keeps it close and keeps it his own.
Jesus very wisely spoke about the empty public words of religious professionals and asked that we look instead at their actions and treatment of others. How does Frankie treat gay people? Aggressively, as an enemy, he slanders us, calls us names, says we are an attack on God and every other bit of nonesense. I guess Francis thinks Jesus neglectful for not trashing gays in the Bible, Francis feels he has to correct the object of his own worship. Ironic.

[SidDithers]

16. "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear...

Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him. (Eph 6: 9 . )



'Course, I would have hoped Jesus and the Bible would have just come out and said that slavery is wrong. Maybe that's just me.

Sid

[el_bryanto]

18. I think the argument in that case

Is that what is referred to as Slavery isn't exactly the same as what we understand Slavery to be from our perspective.

But there are still plenty of problematic bits to the Bible.

Bryant

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Explain to us about this other slavery. The Bible uses the word 'servant' as well

as the word 'slave'. Yet you claim they practiced some sort of slavery that was somehow ok?
Same guy who told the slaves to obey says gays are bad and that women need to keep quiet in public. Oddly, folks who defend that faith usually say the gay parts are true but slavery does not mean slavery and the parts about women don't apply anymore. Just the parts about 'those people'. It is convenient for them to do it that way. Not honest, but convenient.

[el_bryanto]

24. I know how you require all questions to be answered

"Yet you claim they practiced some sort of slavery that was somehow ok?" I don't claim it was OK - I think that many if not most aspects of life in the first century AD were brutal and terrible, and I'm sure Slavery was no different. But at the very least it was different because it was not based on racial superiority. Slavery in our experience is tied up in the wrong idea that blacks are inferior to whites - slavery in those days wasn't tied up in that idea. The children of Slaves didn't automatically become slaves, either.

I can't really respond to the rest of this; I'm not going to defend arguments I haven't made.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

25. Of course. The bible never says what it actually says, except when it does.

[el_bryanto]

26. So you think that I should read the bible more like the Fundamentalists do? nt

[cleanhippie]

31. You already do.

You just take away different meanings than they do.

[el_bryanto]

32. That's an odd response.

I have to say I think you don't really understand how fundamentalists read the Bible. Or how I read it.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

34. Your response to the poster above regarding slavery was "your not interpreting it correctly!"

That's why everyone, from fundamentalists to atheists, who use the bible as a basis for an argument, reads it exactly the same way: the way they need it to read to support their point. You do it, I do it, fundies do it.

To me, this is the second best reason why the bible is worthless for anything other than toilet paper.

[el_bryanto]

36. Tht's not precisely what I said - there was a question about those verses

I provided one interpretation of it.

And if the bible is worthless because people read it different -doesn't the same thing apply to all books? Heck, all art of any kind?

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

38. It's worthless as the basis for any reasonable or rational argument.

And we're not talking about other books, were talking about a very specific book.

You seem to understand my point, even if you won't fully acknowledge it, and that's good enough for me.

[el_bryanto]

39. I guess I would agree that it's useless as an authoritative source

Particularly when you are talking about politics. I think that if i were to argue "You need to think this way because the Bible says so." that's problematic at best.

Obviously as a discussion point of religious or spiritual questions I feel it has value, but even when you are talking about morals or values it has value as well, in the same sense that any philosophical work could have value. Quoting the Bible, quoting Thomas Jefferson, quoting William Blake, quoting Noam Chomsky - it's part of what has shaped my views, and therefore fair game.

Do you feel it's intellectually dishonest for me to understand your point without acknowledging it?

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

40. I think were on the same page.

[former9thward]

17. The Christian Bible has two sections -- Old and New Testaments.

You are only quoting the New. I don't apply politics to the Bible but yes the New is more 'left' than 'right'. But the Old is more 'right' than 'left'.

[Revanchist]

22. Hey there's "right" in the New Testament

You got the money changers in the temple, Pharisees who would do anything to maintain their power and the status-quo, selling out someone who you respected for 30 pieces of silver, how can you say the New Testament is all about left leaning ideologies?

[former9thward]

23. As I said trying to apply 2013 politics to events of thousands of years ago is a fool's errand.

[el_bryanto]

20. This is kind of on the edge of not being appropriate for GD

As it is specifically about what a religious book (i.e. the Bible) says about political issues. I guess an interesting thought experiment is what if one were to post similar verses from the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Bhagavad Gita would we judge it to be fine GD fodder or more appropriate in the Religion Forum.

Bryant

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. I think it is possible to sincerely build pretty much whatever theology form the Bible one wants to

build. The same Christian New Testament that exhorts the rich to sell all they have and give it to the poor - exhorts slaves to obey their masters.

[Rex]

28. Jesus was a socialist, he didn't care about material wealth.

In many ways, he would be ignored and shunned today by the masses for his words of unconditional compassion. The WSJ would write up a horrible article on how out of touch he is and blind to the ways Capitalism has saved modern society from itself a million times over.

[Cha]

33. thanks Tom!

[Nye Bevan]

35. But what about that Gospel verse where Jesus condemns homosexuality?

Whoops, no such verse exists. My bad.

[Humanist_Activist]

37. The bible is a book to project your own values on, then cherry pick passages that support it...

and ignore those that don't.

[Vashta Nerada]

41. Jesus never said one thing about homosexuals, so why does Francis call them "the work of the devil"?