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"If your brother sins against
you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If
he listens to you, you have gained your brother.But if he does
not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every
word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if
he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as
a Gentile and a tax collector".
(Matthew 28: 15-17)
We need to follow Jesus' advice and
tell President Bush and his faithful followers that lying, deceiving
and killing are sins that defy the teachings of Jesus. Worse
by claiming to be a Christian, particularly one who feels called,
President Bush is dissing Jesus with all his lies, misdeeds and
anti-Christian behavior of war. He is a resounding confirmation
of Jesus' apocalyptic prediction that there would be many pretending
to be like him (Jesus) (Mt 24: 23-25).
The prophetic tradition has
a long history of witness and confronting those that break the
rule of the law by showing them the light. The prophets railed
against all those that defied the word of God. They reminded
people of God's teachings and in doing so reaffirmed them. They
were particularly concerned with the abuses of those in power
and upholders of the law. Jesus had some of his strongest rebuke,
his "Woes", towards religious leaders. (For example
see Mt
23: 13-37among others).
By confronting the President
and his faithful followers about their actions we will be following
the advice of renowned activist Saul Alinsky who said challenge
their moral high ground. He suggested such in his book Rules
for Radicals: A Primer for Realistic Radicals (Random House,
1971) with his 4th rule:
RULE 4: "Make the enemy
live up to its own book of rules."
Alinksy then goes on to tell
how powerful this rule can be:
"If the rule is that
every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill
them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their
own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very
credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists
catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can
continue to chip away at the damage.)"
In other words the conservative
"eye for eye" crowd would loose their moral high ground.
Make them defend war when Jesus preached turn the other cheek
(Mt 5:39)
and said "blessed are the peacemakers" (Mt 5:9).
Make them defend cutting funding to the poor when Jesus said
that; The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor. (Luke 4:18). Make them
defend tax cuts when he told the rich young man to give up all
his worldly possessions if he was to get to heaven and said that
it is easier for a camel to fit through an eye of a needle than
for a rich man to get to heaven (Mt
19: 16-27) .
Spiritual progressives should
not leave their faith at home when they speak out. Rather they
should wear it on their sleeve or carry a big sign with scripture
on it. (See discussion of Ghosting:)
If we are to achieve peace on earth or the kingdom of heaven
on earth it will require our total being and connection to God.
Consider the meaning of Peace as defined in the Mercer Dictionary
of the Bible (Mercer University Press 1997)
"The Hebrew word Shalom
in its fullness represented a vision of peace and spiritual well-being
that was grounded in covenantal relationship with Yahweh and
was reflected in all dimensions of life: economic, political,
biological, and religious." (Page 664)
In other words unless we bring
God and spirit into all that we do we will not achieve peace.
For too long we have let the
conservative "eye for eye" crowd set the moral and
spiritual tone in America. The results have been catastrophic.
They have turned the figure of Jesus who preached God's message
of love upside down into a message that advocates God's righteous
anger against the world. Instead of the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth they give us a vengeful God that is looking to rescue his
believers to heaven while he smites the rest of us. Clearly
Jesus was about the transformation of humanity, not its destruction.
In the Parable of the Growing Seed Jesus tells us how the Kingdom
of heaven would grow on earth:
"He also said, The kingdom of God is as if someone
would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night
and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know
how. (Mark 4: 26, 27)
But instead of spreading the
brotherly love, or love of our enemies that Jesus taught we have
spread war and violence as would followers of a vengeful God
of wrath.
We will be walking a fine line
when we tell President Bush and his minions that their actions
defy the teachings of Christ they so proudly claim to follow.
We risk turning it into a put down or appearing as if we are
against or anti something. Rather we are looking to make a positive
statement of our values and beliefs and to defend Jesus' teachings.
By reaffirming Christ's teachings we will be reaffirming what
many of us spiritually based activists believe in--Peace, non-violence,
the golden rule, community, charity and compassion.
We must be sure not to affiliate
Jesus, faith or any religion with a political party. Our goal
is not win or use religion for gain, but rather to educate and
transform, and prevent the desecration of God's word. By pointing
out President Bush's defiance of Christ teachings we will turn
him into a foil that will act to highlight the teachings of Christ--truth
telling, non-violence, compassion--and it will further expose
President Bush's transgressions. In this manner, people will
understand what they are really backing when they vote conservative
right (fundamentalism).
No doubt we will be challenged
and perhaps even have Jesus' words used against us (See Woes
above ). We should not run from this assault but confront
it head on. A healthy debate about Jesus and Christianity would
give us an opportunity to discuss such things as war and violence.
Jesus clearly promoted nonviolence and was against war. For
example, how would the "eye for eye" conservatives
defend war when Jesus preached non-violence and turn the other
cheek. We need to remind Christian war mongers that when Jesus
was being arrested he told Peter to put down his sword and not
violently resist or fight back.
Because spiritual progressives
have failed to challenge the President and his followers over
their interpretation of Jesus' teachings they feel that they
have the moral high ground and that they are the true faithful.
President Bush has himself said that he felt called and chosen
to lead America at this critical juncture. Complicating this
is that many "eye for eye" conservatives not only feel
justified in their actions but they also have an apocalyptic
vision of the world. This is worrisome particularly at a time
when the President is being pushed to the brink over the failure
of his policies as his declining polls testify. The risk is
that the President could become stubborn and ignore reality thinking
God is on his side is and undertake even more detrimental policies.
Can we afford this? Certainly not. We can no longer let Fundamentalism
run wild like an unsupervised child in a toy story. The President
needs to be told the truth. He needs to be told Jesus did not
lie.
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