Jesus Is Not a Republican

you may need a subscription for this article...it is really good.

http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i42/42b00601.htm

By RANDALL BALMER

...The evangelical subculture, which prizes conformity above all else, doesn't suffer rebels gladly, and it is especially intolerant of anyone with the temerity to challenge the shibboleths of the religious right. I understand that. Despite their putative claims to the faith, the leaders of the religious right are vicious toward anyone who refuses to kowtow to their version of orthodoxy, and their machinery of vilification strikes with ruthless, dispassionate efficiency. Longtime friends (and not a few family members) will shuffle uneasily around me and studiously avoid any sort of substantive conversation about the issues I raise — and then quietly strike my name from their Christmas-card lists. Circle the wagons. Brook no dissent...

...And what has the religious right done with its political influence? Judging by the platform and the policies of the Republican Party — and I'm aware of no way to disentangle the agenda of the Republican Party from the goals of the religious right — the purpose of all this grasping for power looks something like this: an expansion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the continued prosecution of a war in the Middle East that enraged our longtime allies and would not meet even the barest of just-war criteria, and a rejiggering of Social Security, the effect of which, most observers agree, would be to fray the social-safety net for the poorest among us. Public education is very much imperiled by Republican policies, to the evident satisfaction of the religious right, and it seeks to replace science curricula with theology, thereby transforming students into catechumens...

...The torture of human beings, God's creatures — some guilty of crimes, others not — has been justified by the Bush administration, which also believes that it is perfectly acceptable to conduct surveillance on American citizens without putting itself to the trouble of obtaining a court order. Indeed, the chicanery, the bullying, and the flouting of the rule of law that emanates from the nation's capital these days make Richard Nixon look like a fraternity prankster.

Where does the religious right stand in all this? Following the revelations that the U.S. government exported prisoners to nations that have no scruples about the use of torture, I wrote to several prominent religious-right organizations. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization's position on the administration's use of torture. Surely, I thought, this is one issue that would allow the religious right to demonstrate its independence from the administration, for surely no one who calls himself a child of God or who professes to hear "fetal screams" could possibly countenance the use of torture. Although I didn't really expect that the religious right would climb out of the Republican Party's cozy bed over the torture of human beings, I thought perhaps they might poke out a foot and maybe wiggle a toe or two.

I was wrong. Of the eight religious-right organizations I contacted, only two, the Family Research Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, answered my query. Both were eager to defend administration policies. "It is our understanding, from statements released by the Bush administration," the reply from the Family Research Council read, "that torture is already prohibited as a means of collecting intelligence data." The Institute on Religion and Democracy stated that "torture is a violation of human dignity, contrary to biblical teachings," but conceded that it had "not yet produced a more comprehensive statement on the subject," even months after the revelations. Its president worried that the "anti-torture campaign seems to be aimed exclusively at the Bush administration," thereby creating a public-relations challenge. I'm sorry, but the use of torture under any circumstances is a moral issue, not a public-relations dilemma....

Or a Democrat. Jesus lived LONG before those kind of political distinctions. But I do agree with what you said in that article.

I have only one editorial comment to make, in response to the FRC's assertion that torture had already been banned: 'Uh huh. Sure.'

I do think that Jesus was a liberal, however.
Ringo

Perhaps the most ultimate peacenik, anti-materialist and anti-authorian figure in history. A true ursurper of all earthly systems, and everything most of us cling to, whatever ort political inclinations. He advocated a level of self-denial and release from our egos that hardly anyone could live up to.

It amazes me how anyone can say they believe his teachings and be a Republican. Closest I can think of in recent history would probably be Ghandi.

President Carter is one of the few.

Or a fundy, for that matter. What really gets me are fundies like the one on TBN - sitting on palatial TV sets, wearing Italian suits and living in huge mansions, all while talking about how Jesus was rich and He wants His followers to be rich too. It's despicable.
Ringo

If Jesus paid a visit to TBN, the first thing he'd probably do is take a pickaxe to their set and order them to change their clothes.

but his kingdom was not of this world