my ‘the conservative religious right in america have an agenda that is egregiously, almost comprehensively, contrary to the teachings of christ’ seems to have touched a nerve with some people.
allow me to try to explain a bit.
see, i really love the teachings and character of christ.
the teachings are actually pretty simple on many levels.
be humble. be forgiving. be compassionate. be non-violent. be non-judgemental.
and more.
if you read the 4 gospels(matthew, mark, luke, and crazy john)you’ll find a lot of remarkable teachings.
teachings on forgiveness(to paraphrase: forgive everyone, regardless of how they’ve wronged you).
teachings on judgementalism(simple: judge not unless you want to be judged, and no one can really hold up under judgement).
and so on.
what you WON’T(again, to be clear, what you WILL NOT) find in the 4 aforementioned gospels:
1-teachings compelling people to pray in public.
2-anything regarding homosexuality.
3-anything defending ‘the family’.
4-anything about evolution.
5-anything promoting war(quite the opposite, actually).
6-anything about abortion.
7-anything about amassing wealth(again, christ seems to be kind of anti the whole ‘let’s get rich’ ethos. this is a difficult one for me, to be honest, but i wrestle with it the way i wrestle with many difficult teachings).
8-anything encouraging hate(again, quite the opposite).
like i said, my issue is with right-wing american christianity, which seems to have absolutely no foundation in the actual teachings of christ.
my presumptuous belief is that if christ walked into a right-wing mega-church and started preaching he would either be beaten up or shot.
republicans call themselves christians, but the next time you encounter a republican
christian just ask them what part of their agenda is based on the teachings of christ.
just try it, it’s fun. they get all flustered and practice this double speak that would be infuriating if it wasn’t so absurd(some of the best right-wing republican justifications of their ‘christian’ agenda: ‘well, jesus wrote the bible’. and ‘we focus on the letters of paul’, and so on).
-moby
p.s-oh, just for the record, as far as we know, jesus didn’t write the bible. well, if by ‘write’ you mean ‘put pen(or stylus) to paper(or papyrus)’. jesus didn’t even write his gospels. he was more of an executive, with his followers doing the transcribing.
p.p.s-again, if you want to have fun with a right-wing, republican christian just ask them:
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to start wars?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to oppose the theory of evolution?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to condemn homosexuals?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to obey men?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to amass wealth?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to judge others?
the only truthful answer to any of those questions is ‘nowhere’.