Anything but Christian
Language is a powerful thing. Language can convey powerful ideas, it can be used to inform and educate, but it can also be misused to malign and distort the truth.
One such gross distortion is the widespread use in public discourse and the media today of the words Christian, evangelical and bible in ways that depart considerably from their historic, mainstream meanings. Terms such as conservative Christian, Judeo-Christian heritage, Christian right, evangelical, bible-believing, biblical values, and so on. You know the kind of language I'm referring to.
All of these terms seem to have become unhinged from any strightforward dictionary sense of their meaning. For instance, evangelical these days is more likely to mean someone of conservative political views (definitely a Republican) who is against abortion and gay marriage and believes George W. Bush was appointed President by God, rather than describing someone for whom the defining characteristic is a commitment to spreading the Gospel of Jesus, as taught by Jesus. Likewise, bible-believing usually means someone who reads parts of the Old Testament and Paul literally, but believes the sermons of Jesus should generally be taken figuratively. They 'believe' the parts about the six-day creation and man-on-man sex, but not those parts that talk about feeding the poor, releasing the prisoners or forgiving others' debts. And so on and so on.
This misuse of language has become so pervasive that we hardly notice how incongruous it is. Thus we have arrived at a point where historic, mainstream churches—who endeavor to live the words of Jesus each day in their ministry and social witness—are accused of declaring independence from God, whereas political opportunists and liars who see no law above their own (and rarely even attend church) are anointed as men of God...
- America as a 'Christian' nation founded on 'biblical' values
- An American empire supported by a powerful military, preemptive warfare and secret prisons
- The Ten Commandments as the foundation for all secular law
- Criminalization of abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality
- State-sanctioned murder of criminals
- Opposition to the human and civil rights of women, gays and immigrants
- Elimination of government programs for health, education and poverty
- Expansion of tax cuts for the rich
- Prayer, bible classes and creationsim in public schools
- Elimination of the constitutional separation of church and state
The above set of priorities can be verified simply by spending a few minutes on the web sites of any number of supposedly conservative Christian organizations, including the Christian Coalition, American Family Association, Focus on the Family, WorldNet Daily and so on.
Bill Press is a nationally renowned talk show host and former California Democratic Party chair who graduated from seminary in 1967 and undertook doctoral studies at the Pacific School of Religion. In his excellent new book, How The Republicans Stole Christmas, Press asks what any of the above has to do with Jesus. Many of these 'priorities' are not addressed at all in the Bible, or are directly contradicted by the teaching of Jesus.
In contrast to the agenda of the religious right, Press points out how the gospels relentlessly affirm Jesus' concern with a different set of moral values. These values are evident throughout the New Testament, but especially in the statements and teachings of Jesus himself:
- Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)
- Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your parents, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 19:19)
- Bless are you who are poor... How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20, 18:24)
- I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me (Matthew 25:36)
- Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10:8)
- Sell your possessions and give to the poor (Luke 12:33)
- The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed (Luke 4:18)
It's becoming clearer to me that religious leaders who pursue a political agenda diametrically at odds with Jesus' social, moral and spiritual teaching not only have no right to define those Chrsitians who disagree with them as 'un-biblical', they really have no right to call themselves his followers at all.
Unfortunately, many good-hearted liberal Christians who are devoted disciples of Jesus fall into a tremendous error when extending ecumenical tolerance and the label 'Christian' to those on the religious right who would rather see the rest of us go to hell. Jesus never tolerated religious and political hypocrites. He called a spade a spade when he saw one. He repeatedly called the religious-political coaltion of his day to account for the spiritual and physical abuse of the people, their misuse of ill-gotten riches and their vain basking in public adoration.
Progressive Christians will not regain the high moral ground if we keep conceding that ground to those who call themselves Christian in name only. It's time to begin taking back the language of Christian discipleship and the name of Christ. To quote Press, "we must lift morality out of the tiny world of the Christian Coalition and restore it to the global world of the Gospels. We must push back against fundamentalism, and stand up for the moral values that made this country great."
"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."
—John 4:23
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Posted by: Admin | April 3, 2006 2:21 PM