Economics (Justice,Greed,Tax) Greed, Corruption Jesus Christ

On Bankruptcy is our Congress “Grossly Wicked”? Jesus Calls Its Values “Detestable”.

Here’s part of a recent email from moveon.org. It uses the word “heinous” about this bankruptcy bill – that means “grossly wicked or abominable.” Would our dear leaders ever do anything “grossly wicked or abominable”?

A great majority of the families that declared bankruptcy last year did so because of a major life crisis – huge medical bills or layoffs – that threw them into a spiral of debt.”

That is just the truth. If you have your ears open or circulate at all in our society you know cases like that. It is infuriating and profoundly tragic. And it is being done to us (“we the people”) on purpose.

” Now, after a multi-year, multi-million dollar lobbying effort by credit card companies, Congress is poised Wednesday to approve a sweeping change in bankruptcy law that would make it impossible for folks who have been dealt a bad hand to get a clean start. The law actually gives credit card companies new ways to seize your home and car if you get into financial trouble.”

All for the sake of increasing the ability of the wealthy to attract to themselves even more of the little bit the rest of us have managed up to now to hang on to.

“After accepting more than $620,000 from the lending industry to his various PACs, Republican Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay has scheduled the vote for Wednesday. The change in bankruptcy laws is a clear example of whose interests the Republicans in Congress are serving.”

Poor Tom DeLay; he’s facing a little criticism for his rampant ethical illness. Oops. “Poor” is probably not the right word. His immorality has gained vast wealth for him and his family.

Here is a tiny bit of the tip of the iceberg of what Scripture says about economic exploitation and oppression. Still the old question echoes: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” (Here’s another recent post on this.)

“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight”. (Luke 16:13-15)

The LORD takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: “It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (Isaiah 3:3-5)

Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land … skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink. (Amos 8:4-8)

These are serious charges and threats. They are not made by me, but are taken from the Word of God. The Lord has a long-standing hatred of money-lust, financial brutality and arrogance. He holds those in contempt who devote themselves to such idolatry.

Leave a Comment

2 Comments

  • I am very glad to see sites like yours exist and flower!
    Being a member of a German Baptist – so “evangelical” – congregation I am increasingly disturbed, yea shocked to see so many people who pretend to a Biblically authentical, decided or even born-again Christianity regarding endorsement of anti-social, so-called conservative positions of the extreme political right as something like the halmark of the earthly ministry of true Christians. Any effort of mine to vindicate a scrupulous observance of non-fraternization with a certain convicted liar and religious impostor to be a sheer minimum requirement of candidly professing faith to our Lord Jesus Christ is as likely to result in startled oaths of allegiance to our “Brother” G.W. Bush as in a shrug of indifference. Apparently vast numbers of my evangelical compatriots are struck with a sense of inferiority or even awe at looking up to the greater stamina of Christian roots and conviction with the people of the New World. Yet the same stalwart Christians of Europe don’t shun to fall in with the litany of plaints uttered by the Religious Right that credits half of American people as “Liberals” with apostasy and immorality.
    In Germany, a brisk criticism of G.W. Bush nowadays can’t easily escape an almost mechanically launched counter-charge of “Anti-Americanism”, obviously pointing to a deep-seated identity crisis of our troubled nation of which the Christian idolization of America is but one variant. I, for my part, honour your nation, – the more so for having met – via Internet – with its growing Bush-critical community. But I can’t and will not help to wholeheartedly detest the devastating effects which neo-conservatism and roughshod capitalism Bush style wreak all around the world – aberrations of which we Germans prove, at a closer look, to really be dedicated followers.

    But the American disease will claim for its main victim the American people themselves, and I am glad to learn from sites like yours that Americans are going to take up the fight against Bushism. And I am even more glad to see that vast parts of your nation refuse to discard Christianity as main source of morale in this crusade, simply because Bush dare claim it for his case. He will never succeed to blind the elect.

    God bless America, God bless Germany
    May he feed his flock and help them to withstand!
    Martin Bauer

  • Some people apparently believe that a person’s closeness to God is measured by how often that person inserts God’s name into conversations, and they apply the same standard to the nation as a whole and to public officials and public events. So if people in public places talk “God-talk” and there are frequent out-loud prayers at public events, then according to this logic these are signs of a Godly nation.

    If the person or country behaves badly, it doesn’t count, unless the misbehavior is sexual in nature. Sometimes the results of this odd viewpoint are tragic (as in the war, or the plight of poor people), and sometimes they are really funny (like a graven image that says “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.”–I keep seeing it as a Monty Python sketch.)

    Anyway, it used to be the “conservatives” who accused the “liberals” of selective scripture reading and failure to call a sin a sin. Now the shoe is definitely on the other foot, and the “conservatives” are the ones who have chopped off big sections of scripture and think any amount of greed and arrogance is okay, just don’t mess with the intern (unless you throw over your wife and marry the intern!)