Jesusnomics

Never before in history have so many people had the ability to waste their free time and available resources sitting around feeling guilty because they have too much free time and so many available resources. From all accounts, most of these guilt-ridden souls live in the United States of America where the population is all rich, fat, lazy, and becoming stupider by the minute on a steady diet of new technology and mind-numbing entertainment. But as evil and stupid as Americans are, they also somehow manage to keep on being in charge and winning first place in just about everything that matters. Somehow that just makes them feel even guiltier.

I’ve never heard of a factory worker in Eastern Asia or farmer in Belize who spent a lot of time worrying about whether or not he’s morally bankrupt because he owns two pairs of shoes while someone over in the Sudan may only have half a pair that is the community property of an entire village. Mostly, folks in other parts of the world are too busy working and taking care of their own families to feel any sense of guilt for not shipping dollars across the ocean to folks whom they have never met. No, this type of guilt is a luxury mostly afforded to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who endure the obligation of feeling bad for the plight of everybody and everything in the world.

In the face of all this pressure to prostrate myself in penitence for my crime of existence I would like to make the following declarations:

• America did not get rich by stealing from poor countries; neither do I have a Western standard of living because I have stolen that right from someone else.
• Evil corporations are responsible for most of the jobs, products, and technological advances in the world. Ergo they are also responsible for most of the happiness in the world as well.
• Even though our processed, refined, cruelly caged and painfully slaughtered food is making us fat and killing us slowly, we are also inexplicably living longer than ever.
• We cannot save the planet. We also cannot kill the planet. The planet will be just fine long after we are all dead and gone.
• No matter what groups of politicians and international bodies may claim, America and America’s military are freedom’s last best hope. Without our blood, sweat, and money the majority of mankind would be in servitude to dictators and autocratic regimes.
• Technology is not making people lazy and stupid. People have always been lazy and stupid and many of them work very hard to for the right to be that way.

I believe that it is time for a small call to sanity for those of us who are fed up with constantly being told both explicitly and implicitly that we should feel horrible about being who we are and living like we do. It’s time somebody stood up and said “Enough!”

It’s time to start living guilt free.

As I read and listen to some of the more hip and progressive thinkers in Christian circles, I’m hearing an increasing attempt to isolate Jesus in essence from the God of the Old Testament. I’m sure this is not a new school of thought, but it’s one that I see starting to show up any time a conservative attempts to defend things like Just War or Traditional Marriage using the Scripture.

The reasoning behind this alleged dichotomy goes something like this…

Old Testament God was not very nice. He endorsed genocide. He endorsed slavery. He killed a bunch of people for no good reason. He enforced a bunch of really icky rules. He’s racist, sexist, and homophobic. He’s not a good God to have around in our modern, enlightened age.

On the other hand, Jesus was very nice. He never did or said anything violent. He didn’t talk about sex hardly at all except when he was forgiving people who really didn’t need forgiving anyway. He was inclusive, and a social progressive who dispensed free health care and organized communities.

The result is that if we want to be Christ-followers, the best course of action is just to throw out anything in the Bible that smacks of Old Testament God thinking and only focus on Christ’s personal teaching. Oh, and that includes throwing out most of Paul too because he wasn’t nearly as nice as Jesus was. So the Bible is basically the four Gospels and really only the bits of those where Jesus is being nice.

So we start by deciding based on that limited scope who Jesus really was (which always ends up looking surprisingly like our own agendas in a Jesus-shaped container) and then we become the judge of what else in Scripture is consistent with His ethos.

Don’t like guns, war, or professional wrestling? Jesus said love your neighbor so all violence must be bad no matter how much of it was perpetrated with impunity in the Old Testament. Support gay marriage, or rights for illegal immigrants, or state-run welfare, or fill-in-the-blank-with-your-pet-project? Just find Jesus saying something about love or doing something kind and extrapolate that to mean that since your agenda is nice too, it is therefore what Jesus would want.

You can just ignore all the rest of those pesky rules about private property and sexual conduct. Those aren’t nice so Jesus doesn’t want them enforced. Simple as that.

The problem, of course, is that Jesus claimed to be one with his Father. In fact he said that If you had seen Jesus then you have seen the Father. He didn’t repudiate anything that had come before him, in fact he quotes extensively from the same Old Testament that folks now get really queasy about.

In denying that Old Testament God and Christ are one they basically rob Christ of his deity because his claims to deity are all tied back to the understanding of who Old Testament God is. That’s pretty heavy stuff. Heavy enough to land you right into the arms of some pretty serious heresy by the standard of any orthodox Christian movement for the last two thousand years.

The only hope of the progressives would seem to be that maybe someday God will evolve and become the kind of God we really deserve.

Today’s post comes via The Slactivist, Fred Clark who boldly takes on the illegal immigration with these words:

Immigration policy is a tricky subject for Christian ethics because immigration policy is all about boundaries and borders that we Christians don’t regard as ethically significant. States have the duty and obligation to secure, safeguard and regulate their borders. Those charged with that responsibility have to do the difficult job of determining who may enter and who may stay and how many and from where and for how long. All of those decisions are based on the crucial distinction of nationality — a distinction that Christian ethics doesn’t easily accommodate because it teaches that this distinction is not ultimately real.

The contribution we Christians can make to this conversation, then, I think arises from this very refusal to accept its basic premise. We can argue that immigration policy must not be constructed according to national boundaries of moral obligation because there is no such thing as a boundary of moral obligation.

…

More concretely, an immigration policy that attempts to do justice for Americans by perpetrating injustice toward Mexicans is based on a lie, on a misunderstanding and a misrepresentation of the universe, on a faulty model.

It’s true that as Christians we have to balance our responsibilities between our obligation to obey the laws of the land and our responsibility to help individuals. However, just because we have the responsibility to help the hungry, sick, and needy does not mean that borders have no ethical significance. The Scriptural mandate to obey the laws of the land is pretty clear.

But more to the point, what is the ethic of immigration? Is it inherently wrong of a country to lay out borders, establish sovereignty, and defend them against invaders? Mr. Clark doesn’t bother trying to lay out that case, he merely makes assertions and somehow expects them to be accepted at face value. In view of that, let me try to lay out a positive case for the ethics of borders.

In the first place, each of us has the right to private property as established by the Eight Commandment: “thou shalt not steal.” That means that I have the right to lawfully gain property and then exercise control over that property. Connected to this is protection against trespass. If you enter my house uninvited, I have the right to tell you to leave and use force to remove you if necessary.

It follows then that when free people band together to form a government, they as a group posses the same rights to exercise control over their communal property as dictated by majority vote. In the United States that communal agreement is embodied in the Constitution which in Article IV lays the groundwork for citizens being able to freely travel from state to state. We as a nation have said that if you’re an American you have the inherent right to travel on public roads, be on public property, and take private residence in this country.

But as a country we’ve also decided something else: if you’re not a citizen, you have to obtain our permission (via the government) to be here. We as citizens have that right because the country of our citizenship in a very real sense belongs to us since the government exists by the will of the people. This is no mere prejudice since the path to citizenship (though admittedly difficult) is open to people of any race, color, faith, or creed. It is, however, exclusive to those who follow the rules and complete the requirements that we as a nation have constructed.

Let’s imagine that you’ve bought your child some nice Christmas presents. They belong to him and they reside in your house. If the neighborhood children want to play with those things they need permission to enter your house and his permission to use his belongings. They do not have the right to merely enter at will and take whatever they want because they are not your children and they have no ownership of the things in your house.

Now let’s imagine that you have a second child. Unlike his neighborhood counterparts, he does have the right to enter your house (although not necessarily to play with his sibling’s toys.) Why? What makes your child different from the other neighborhood children? Why should he get special privileges? The simple answer is that he was born in the citizenship of your household.

Fred Clark would have us believe that this exercise of ownership and privilege is rank injustice. He would have us believe that if you posses something and believe you have the right to keep it that you are somehow in violation of Christ’s teachings. What he fails to see is that there is a huge difference, between freely giving something and having it taken from you. Freely giving implies that you have the right to give or not as you choose. Free will makes all the difference between charity and robbery.

My apologies to Mr. Clark but it would seem that there is indeed such a thing as a boundary of moral obligation. My body is the boundary that allows me to be secure in my person. My property is the boundary that allows me to be secure in my possessions. Our borders are the boundaries that allow us all to be secure in the country of our citizenship.

Here’s an interesting status update from Real Life Ministries Spokane

“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.Ezek16.49.NIV”

I’ve seen this passage used in multiple places around the interwebs to downplay the role of homosexual behavior in Sodom’s destruction. Evidently, it was the lack of a really good welfare system that made God turn those folks into crispy critters. Greed is a capital offence!

Wait…God killed people with fire? That can’t be right! God doesn’t condone unkind things like the death penalty! So obviously this must be a myth and not an actual historical event. But the story being untrue does not diminish the fact that it proves that Sodom’s mythic sin had nothing to do with sexual deviancy as demonstrated by crossrefrencing Jude 1:7

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Oh…wait. Never mind. Forget the whole thing.

Today’s tweet comes from @Laura4330

“Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” JN15:5 Independence is destructive. The American dream is at war with the Kingdom of God.”

I suspect this statement may be a case of “I didn’t quite say what I meant” but I’m going to address it at face value anyway…

“Independence” is one of those words like “freedom” or “separation” that doesn’t stand by itself. When someone talks about independence you always have to peek behind the curtain to discover what they’re independent from.

In the first phrase we see Jesus saying “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Christianity understands this to mean that we are dependent on the finished work of Christ for power in spiritual living. There’s no real argument there.

But then somehow from there we take the leap to a general statement of “Independence is destructive” and then a jog over to the American dream being at war with God’s kingdom. May I just say: Huh?

Let’s look at the very first Declaration of Independence our country had:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…

This is a declaration of freedom from tyranny not a declaration of war on God’s kingdom. The American Dream is at its root the dream of a system of government which believes God gave man the natural right to be free in his person, his property, and his worship. Protecting that freedom is the best aid to security and prosperity.

I fail to see how that dream of liberty and peaceful prosperity is somehow in opposition to Christ’s statement about our spiritual dependence on Him.

Today’s tweet comes from @PastahRod

“You can find safety in the arms of Jesus Christ not in carrying a gun.”

This is a line of argument that I’m hearing with increasing frequency these days by Christians who are in the anti-gun political camp. It usually takes the form of a question such as “Why do you need a gun to protect yourself? Don’t you trust God to take care of you?”

A bit of thought reveals that this is really one of the sillier arguments against gun control. Certainly we trust God but we do not live our lives as if our choices about our own protection have no bearing on the eventual outcome. Consider these statements…

“Why do you wear a seat belt? Don’t you trust God to save you in a car crash?”

“Why do you eat vegetables? Don’t you trust God to keep your cholesterol in check?”

“Why do you have locks on your car and house? Don’t you trust God to keep your possessions safe?

The old proverb instructs us to “trust in God but keep your powder dry.” Preparation is not the same as doubt. There may be other arguments to be made for gun control but implying that owning a gun amounts to tacit mistrust in God’s protection is simply a non-starter unless you’re willing to argue that every other safety or security measure is as well.

Today’s post comes from David Ferriman on Facebook.

Jesus: “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Republicans: “Jesus is too soft of the war on terror, he cannot protect America”

Jesus and Republicans just can’t get along.

As dubious as it sounds, the attempt to use Christ’s commands to not resist evil as a call to complete pacifism is a fairly common practice these days. Never mind that the instruction is given to individuals about non-lethal personal affronts and not threats to national security. Being “anti-war” just sounds so like Jesus doesn’t it? Who in their right mind would be “pro-war”?

Of course we also must recall that Jesus is the one who said that one who offends an innocent child would be better off being drowned in the sea. Those are strong words to be coming from an alleged pacifist.

Let’s take a step back and look at what the command to turn the other cheek actually says. If someone hits you then you can choose to not hit back and thereby demonstrate strength by non-resistance. So far so good.

But let’s consider if the offense is not simply against you. What if it’s an attacker who has invaded your home to rape and kill the occupants? Is non-resistance still the rule? Would you use violence defend the innocent in your house? Would you call the police as your violent defense-by-proxy?

If the answer is “yes” then you are only one step removed from understanding the ethics of just war.

A just war never has as its goal the taking of life or the conquest of property. It is a war fought with the end goal of saving innocent life in the face of acts of violent aggression or conspiracy to commit those acts. The entire Old Testament is full of examples of people who defended their personal and national security with the blessing of the Almighty.

Make no mistake that war is a terrible thing. When countries take up arms against each other some innocent life will be inevitably lost in the process. Men who would otherwise have no quarrel with each other will be set in unthinkable position of trying to end each other’s lives. The survivors will carry the scars on their souls as well as their bodies.

Yet, as awful a thing as this is to contemplate, do we somehow believe that Jesus taught us that the rape and slavery of our families is more moral than using force to protect them? If you do indeed subscribe to complete pacifism then I can respect that. If, on the other hand, you wouldn’t let an aggressor run free in your home there is little moral high ground in saying that you would let a country of aggressors run free in the homes of your neighbors and countrymen.

That doesn’t doesn’t mean that we delight in war but rather see the necessity of protecting as much innocent life as possible at whatever cost.

Today’s post comes from @RealFredHammond

“While most Black Christians who vote Dem, are not saying they approve of Abortion & gay issues but want a fair shake at life”

Let’s start at the end and work backwards on this one. What does it mean to want a “fair shake at life”? More specifically, what sort of fairness is exclusive to Democrats? Civil Rights is already the law of the land including Equal Opportunity for employment, Fair Housing, and so on. Last time I checked, there was no part of the Republican or Libertarian agenda to revoke any of that.

In fact, the only significant place in which Republicans and Democrats differ in areas of race would seem to be on the issues of entitlements. In other words, it’s not about fairness at all but about what government is obligated to give people simply for being born of a certain race or ethnicity. That’s not about a fair shake at life, in fact that’s the complete opposite of fairness.

So in reality, the meaning of this statement is that African-American Christians are willing to violate their own consciences with regards to issues like abortion and gay rights as long as the cash and entitlements keep flowing. That’s hardly a complimentary picture of the Black Christian demographic, especially if you consider that on average, “1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.” Did those babies get a ‘fair shake’ at life?  Their chance at fairness ended before they ever saw the light of day.

One can almost hear the words of Jesus has He said to His disciples: “deny yourself, take up your cross, and then vote for whichever candidate promises to give you the most stuff.” Go thou and do likewise.

today’s post comes via tweet from @NoOnProp8Events

“Two years ago #prop8 was passed in CA. The fight continues. We will never give up our right to #equality. EVER”

When people start talking about the same-sex marriage debate in general and Proposition 8 in specific, the word “equality” shows up with great frequency.  All gays want, we’re told,  is the same rights that everybody else already enjoys. What could be so wrong about that? Who does it hurt? C’mon, live and let live!

The problem with the use of the word “equality” in this context is that what the proponents of same-sex marriage rights are seeking is a fundamental redefinition of what a “marriage” means. In doing so this is not the mere extension of an existing right but an attempt to reshape an entire institution into a form that it never before had.

Inevitably, talk of equality ends up drawing parallels to the injustices of race or gender that have plagued our country in the past.  But let’s consider exactly what was going on in those times of true inequality…

When African-Americans were denied a seat at a lunch counter because of their skin color there was a genuine disparity of equality.  We can say that one person=one person regardless of race.

When a woman was denied entry into a school because of her gender there was inequality. One person=One person regardless of gender.

However, when comparing a marriage of one man+one woman to that of one man+one man the scope of what we mean by marriage has to be altered since marriage had never been defined as one person  + one person but always as one man+one woman.  We are no longer in an legitimately equal scenario and therefore “equality” is no longer an operative term.

It would be as if instead of being denied a spot at the lunch counter because of their skin color a person was instead complaining that since a restaurant did not change its menu to suit his specific tastes that they were not giving him the same service as all the other customers who were content to order what was already being served. Insofar as a gay man has the legal right to marry any woman who agrees to marry him, he has the equal protection of the law. But introduce another man into that equation and the terms have changed. It’s no longer a question of equality.

If the word marriage no longer means the legal binding of a man and woman into a family unit  then it’s definition is then merely a matter of legal fiat. Once a term is forced to encompass every meaning then it has no certain meaning at all.  Marriage is then left to the whim of whatever judge happens to feel that someone (or any number and gender groupings of someones) is being left out of being ‘equal’ and ceases to be of any real value at all.

Here is my modest proposal on the subject. If we’re really going to re-make society in which the marriage of a man to a woman is no longer the core unit then let’s just allow the government to see its way out of the marriage business all together. Churches can marry people in the religious sense and as far as the secular world is concerned we can all go to having the kinds of community property and power of attorney rights that are already available to anybody who wants them now.

My suspicion is that this proposal would not be met with great support by many activists in the gay community. Call me a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist but in my opinion what is at stake here is not equality at all.  The end goal of the “equality” crowd  is to take away the freedom of organizations and individuals to stand on their convictions and not not recognize same-sex unions as legitimate.  And they’re doing this despite the explicit will of the people as expressed in Proposition 8.

Equality? Hardly. Tyranny? Precisely.

Which one is the Jesus Party? Which one invokes the figure of Christ to give them political clout and bend Christian voters to their agenda? Do you have a party firmly in mind? Good. Now let’s consult the interwebs for posts over the last day or so…

Jesus Politics: it’s obviously not just for right-wingers anymore.