It is not. It is entirely about increasing the power of the powerful and the wealth of the wealthy, as is plain when you look at what they DO with any power they get.
The arrogance and infidelity, the sanctimonious perfidy of the Republican party and its wholly-owned appendages in the so-called “community of faith” is astounding. These people are truly among the all-time greats in brazen lying, wool-pulling, and hypocrisy. They have worked hard at it, and they have become world-class.
But do they really think they will outlive That Other Power, the power and interrogation of the Almighty? Silly men. Silly women. Just a few decades AT THE MOST. As T S Eliot wrote, “Be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.” “Be prepared for the coming of the one who knows how to ask questions.” Many of these destroyers of our Constitution are already within a decade or two of the Reaper. But even the “young” ones will not outlive The Judge. Does not that matter? Does not God say, “Vengeance is Mine, I WILL repay”? They clearly do not believe they personally face any threat of judgment. That means they are not Christian in any conservative or Biblical sense of the term.
I just got a canned survey call from Focus on the Family. I was outraged at the first question (about Senate Democrats) and yelled at the machine. “NO! That line of questioning is outrageous. Are you LIVE? Answer me!” The voice was not live. It asked “Do you think of yourself as a Republican?” “NO! Of COURSE not!” I hope intensity of response makes my answers count three or four times.
Here’s Senator Salazar of Colorado as quoted in the Rocky Mountain News:
“I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party,” Salazar said in an interview. “I think it’s using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way.”
Here’s the NWANews quoting Senator Pryor of Arkansas:
Mark Pryor lashed out Wednesday at the Christian evangelicals who have joined the attack on Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
Their tactics threaten “to make the followers of Jesus Christ just another special-interest group,” Pryor said in a conference call with Arkansas reporters. “It is presumptuous of them to think that they represent all Christians in America, even to say they represent all evangelical Christians,” added Pryor, 42, a first-term Democrat who has considered himself an evangelical Christian for 25 years.
Isn’t it sad that there are so many “Christians” in these watered-down ministries who think they can tell that Pryor is not a “true” Christian because he is a Democrat?
I am a Christian. I have problems with “the Democrats”. That’s a very broad term; it’s like saying I have problems with the human race. I am identified with the human race as well as with the Democrats. But I cannot imagine any way under Heaven I would allow myself to affiliate with the Republican party as it now stands.
We know which party keeps the paid liars and addicts on the radio and tv. We know which party will lie about and destroy any and every person who interferes with their insane lust for total power. We know which party is EAGERLY shoveling the money from the schools and the wage-workers into the pockets of the already ridiculously wealthy.
The Arkansas senator said he understands “how many people are frustrated with the judiciary” but Christians “should represent the best in politics, not the worst in politics.“
Unfortunately, Christian churches and ministries are, as Pryor indicates, coming to represent the worst in politics – in the eyes of America AND of the whole world, and they seem to be proud of it. But it is an extremely painful fact for many of us, because it is such a profound corruption of what Christ stood for. And you know, when push comes to shove, it’s not usually the truly powerful, the “buyers”, who get shoved – it’s the ones who have been bought.
If power corrupts, as it always tends strongly to do, so also the lust for power corrupts. It moves you to the lowest levels of immorality, no matter what your professed religious faith. If there is a Devil, or if there’s not, this is classic Devil-strategy – just keep lying. Keep it loud and keep it long and keep it self-righteous. Lie fervently and refer often to faith or God as you do so.
It takes guts of cast iron, a heart of stone, flaming ravenous lust for power, strong mental discipline, and a completely corrupted morality (spirit). But it often works – for short and usually very destructive periods – it often works.
I am genuinely a Biblical Christian, and I am NOT a party to this. I see and protest strongly this sell-out of the Christian faith, this dragging of the names of God and of Christ through the slime of their lies and their lusts.
This is my cross-posted comment from your diary which was cross-posted on DailyKos (confusing? Just trying to be transparent!):
I appreciate your righteous rant, and thank you for taking the time to conceive it and post it.
Those who are using the Religious Wrong are doing so cynically; and the reason this administration is working so fast and on so many fronts to deconstruct the New Deal, the EPA, and accountability regulations is because they know that eventually they will lose the support of the Evangelicals, and they want to cash in financially as much as possible before that happens.
I think some of us are tired of this subject and want a rest from it. Unfortunately, this issue is not going to go away quickly or soon; this will only end by a slow chipping away at the influence of the false prophets, diary by diary, LTE by LTE, conversation by conversation. If Progressives are waiting for the whole edifice to one day just come crashing down, they will be waiting a generation. What is going on is the flip side of the New Deal, the Dark Deal, and it will take quite a while and much suffering to undo it. And it will take lots of our energy and attention to take it down.
Thanks for your hopeful diary.
I mean that I’m also angry. The ‘conservative’ prescriptions for our problems are not healing anyone or anything.
Yes, your anger IS appropriate. Sometimes it seems right and necessary to rant and roar and weep, and read all the Psalms that dignify and affirm your righteous indignation– the ones that denounce wickedness, mourn oppression, and wonder where God is in all of this. But then what? I don’t know about you, but I have to have some relief from a sense of being almost constantly spiritually shredded. Do you see anything hopeful? Do you think Jim Wallis and Sojourners, for example, is an effective force for “real”Christianity? I think we could all use some examples of fighting the good fight.
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
Isaiah 1:15-17
LGH: “I cannot imagine any way under Heaven I would allow myself to affiliate with the Republican party as it now stands.”
Funny, I’ve been thinking oh, since yesterday… “I don’t know what God’s will is for your life, for how to serve him in the world… I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you with absolute certainty what it isn’t!“