Harpers - The Christian Paradox; How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong

[realFedUp]

http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html



The Christian Paradox
How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong

Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. What it means to be Christian in America. An excerpt. Originally from August 2005. By Bill McKibben.

snip
Asking Christians what Christ taught isn’t a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation—and, overwhelmingly, we do—it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.

snip

But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion—say, giving aid to the poorest people—as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they’d fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And it’s not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. It’s also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose—childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool—we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin. The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it’s that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention. And it’s not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were “food insecure with hunger” had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus’ strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate—just over half—that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage pregnancy? We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline—like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?

continued in magazine

[PurgedVoter]

1. A good summation

Whenever I hear an evangelist preach that we need to be ruled by Christian doctrine, the doctrine following is quite far from Christian.

[AmBlue]

2. spot on n/t

[evolved Anarchopunk]

3. Great post, on point for sure. even if it sinks like a stone

i want to repeat to the entire world: Jesus was a great prophet, and an even greater man. A MAN. A MAN A MAN A MAAAAAAN. a dude. a regular human being with all of the limitations of body and mind that we have because we are all God's children and he is all the MORE incredible for that fact, not less. Putting him up as the "one and only" son of God pussifies the entire story, and debases its meaning. People have demonstrated pretty unequivocally that they cannot process the lessons of Jesus for themselves... fuckin fundies...:grr:

[More Than A Feeling]

5. you don't have to be a fundamentalist to believe in Jesus

as the second person of the trinity which is God, and also as a man. You also don't have to be a right-winger and/or a Bush-idolator. Neither do you have to be someone who has let all their brains run out their ears.

If a fundamentalist is now someone who believes traditional (really traditional, not "we made it up in the 19th century and call it traditional") Christian doctrine, then the term has morphed radically from its original usage. There is an actual document called "The Fundamentals" which is the traditional definition of a fundamentalist.

Just a friendly reminder:)

[grumpy old fart]

4. I wish talking heads would use Jesus' words whenever fundies attack on...

gays is couched in terms of "defending marriage". Jesus said zip about homosexuality, and clearly and directly spoke against divorce.

"And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her".
Mark 10:11

Outlaw divorce if you want to "defend" marriage. Let all the serial adulters and thrice wed rethugs get on that horse.

[More Than A Feeling]

6. If you are talking to fundamentalists and/or evangelicals

they probably will agree with you. Takes all the sting out of it, because they see nothing wrong with banning anything they happen to disagree with.

My favorite tactic is three-fold: One, make it very clear that marriage via the state has nothing to do with their individual religious beliefs

Two: remind them that those who God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Then ask them if they would object if God had joined gays or lesbians together. They will probably say he wouldn't. Then point out that it isn't about what God wants, it's their insecurities masquerading as God.

Three: ask them if those who are greedy and idolatrous can marry. Then say that if they think gays and lesbians are sinning, why refuse to marry them when worse sinners can get married?

I plan to try this out on my cousin the pentecostal preacher. In my imagination, after I hit him with these arguments, he agrees to start marrying gays when it becomes legal. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?:)

[grumpy old fart]

7. pigeon holing the anti gay crowd as the "ban divorce" crowd would.......

instantly marginalize them with the vast majority of the public and kill the issue, IMHO. Remember it's all in the "framing"...