“So the Pharisees, Jesus said, were the rich and the powerful and righteous who ignored the most important moral values that should guide everyone: the values of justice and mercy and faith. They were fools and foolers, and those who followed them were blinded by their own piety.
“This sounds achingly familiar today. The complaints that the religious right has lost all sense of moral values — that it has a blind and foolish piety in its endorsement of torture, killing of innocent civilians in the name of finding a new proselyte, and ravaging of the Earth even as it is the great giver of life — are not new charges. And they are also true. Yet the real message of Christ was that hypocrisy will be condemned, and that those who practice it will face the perils of Hell.”
– Guy Reel, “Woe to the Hypocrites,” Common Dreams, Sept. 22, 2005.
I saw a bumper sticker recently, “Proud Member of the Religious Left”. It’s about time that we quit letting the Right claim exclusivity on Jesus.
Comment by db — December 5, 2011 @ 8:04 am
db, I’m not religious but I have a Village Agnostic’s knowledge of the Bible, which is more than most of the True Believers have. The blatant and outrageous hypocrisy of the religious right is what really offends me. They love Jesus only up to the point where they have to actually follow what he said. If we had a viable media, this would be a major issue. If…
Comment by RS Janes — December 5, 2011 @ 7:34 pm
I’m not claiming to be an expert either; but I seem to remember something in the Bible about Rich Men, Camels, & Eye of Needles, that didn’t sound too good for the Rich Guys.
I’m interested in your comment about the viable media? Care to elaborate?
Comment by db — December 6, 2011 @ 6:01 am
What I meant by ‘viable media’ is the media challenging these characters over their knowledge of the Bible and its various interpretations; e.g.: if you’re going to use Leviticus to say that gays are evil or sinful or whatever, you should also ask them about some of the other ‘laws’ in the same book that Republicans habitually flout like eating pork, wearing two types of fabric together, shaving their beards, donating a certain portion of their wealth to charity, treatment of strangers (such as immigrants), etc. If you’re going to strut around like you’re the ‘true Christian’ candidate, you should know what you’re talking about and explain why you aren’t following every word of the Bible in your daily conduct. Instead, our supine MSM lets them get away with this phoney-baloney self-righteousness, except for C-Span on occasion. It’s disgusting.
Sorry I was late getting to this; I’ve had some health problems lately.
Comment by RS Janes — December 10, 2011 @ 8:33 pm