As I've mentioned before, some of my readers get a bit miffed with me from time to time because I focus a lot of my criticism at Christianity, in general, and fundamentalist Christianity, in specific. It has been suggested to me by some that I should more readily embrace a "live and let live attitude." And, as I have written about before, I would have less interest in other people's personal beliefs IF they did not bleed out into the common area of society.
You see, that IS the problem with personal beliefs. What each person chooses to believe has a direct impact on the kind of world each of us wants to live in. An individual's politics are influenced greatly by their religious or philosophic worldview. I think I can illustrate this point in reference to three of the political currents flowing through America today.
Why is it that one of the groups that staunchly opposes increased taxation on the rich happens to be fundamentalist Christians? Many of these people depend on the very government services that are being starved due to decreased federal revenues.
In my mind's eye, one of the chief reasons why they oppose this type of taxation is because far too many of them believe that wealth is a sign that their God is rewarding the wealthy person for their piety. If this wealth is a gift from the almighty, humankind -- in the form of government -- has no business making a claim on most or any of it.
A corollary to the above point has to do with civil government itself. A government made up of so-called pious Christians naturally would understand that wealth is a sign that the heavenly father is pleased with the individual who possesses the riches. A secular government would not understand this obvious connection and so it must be resisted. One of the chief mechanisms to resist it is to starve the beast of the funds it needs to operate effectively. Thus, we find many conservative evangelicals on the side of "downsizing" government.
Another big issue confronting America today has to do with unions and union rights. All three of the Abrahamic religions are about power relationships and hierarchy. Conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that peons -- workers -- should willingly submit to the authority of management just as parishioners submit to the authority of religious leaders.
Viewed in this light, unions are an attempt to usurp power, to thumb one's nose at God. It is seen as breaking the natural chain of command and must be opposed.
These are but three examples of why I continue to criticize the basic assumptions of Christianity. If these beliefs merely impacted how particular families or churches conducted their private affairs, I would keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, as indicated above, life doesn't work that way. How people comport themselves in their private lives impacts their actions in terms of the way they desire public affairs to be handled.
This is why I will continue to criticize those basic assumptions that lead to a myopic and less than compassionate worldview.
You see, that IS the problem with personal beliefs. What each person chooses to believe has a direct impact on the kind of world each of us wants to live in. An individual's politics are influenced greatly by their religious or philosophic worldview. I think I can illustrate this point in reference to three of the political currents flowing through America today.
Why is it that one of the groups that staunchly opposes increased taxation on the rich happens to be fundamentalist Christians? Many of these people depend on the very government services that are being starved due to decreased federal revenues.
In my mind's eye, one of the chief reasons why they oppose this type of taxation is because far too many of them believe that wealth is a sign that their God is rewarding the wealthy person for their piety. If this wealth is a gift from the almighty, humankind -- in the form of government -- has no business making a claim on most or any of it.
A corollary to the above point has to do with civil government itself. A government made up of so-called pious Christians naturally would understand that wealth is a sign that the heavenly father is pleased with the individual who possesses the riches. A secular government would not understand this obvious connection and so it must be resisted. One of the chief mechanisms to resist it is to starve the beast of the funds it needs to operate effectively. Thus, we find many conservative evangelicals on the side of "downsizing" government.
Another big issue confronting America today has to do with unions and union rights. All three of the Abrahamic religions are about power relationships and hierarchy. Conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that peons -- workers -- should willingly submit to the authority of management just as parishioners submit to the authority of religious leaders.
Viewed in this light, unions are an attempt to usurp power, to thumb one's nose at God. It is seen as breaking the natural chain of command and must be opposed.
These are but three examples of why I continue to criticize the basic assumptions of Christianity. If these beliefs merely impacted how particular families or churches conducted their private affairs, I would keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, as indicated above, life doesn't work that way. How people comport themselves in their private lives impacts their actions in terms of the way they desire public affairs to be handled.
This is why I will continue to criticize those basic assumptions that lead to a myopic and less than compassionate worldview.
" wealth is a sign that their God is rewarding the wealthy person for their piety. "
ReplyDelete"wealth is a sign that the heavenly father is pleased with the individual who possesses the riches."
"peons -- workers -- should willingly submit to the authority of management "
None of these is a "basic assumption" of Christianity; they are distortions by "gospel of wealth" fundamentalists. Essentially I agree with you about the damage the fundamentalists do in politics and government (and not just in this country), but you do tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think St. Francis and all of the '30s -era social gospel activists and liberation theologians would be equally appalled at the behavior of these small-minded fundies in politics, but they would not trash their own faith.
Have you read the Old Testament? God consistently lavishes the chosen and the righteous with earthly riches.
ReplyDeleteWell, as they say, Jesus saves, Moses invests....
ReplyDeleteBasic Christian assumptions (of humility, brotherly love, forgiveness, justice that is not of the eye for an eye kind) are not found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy or the rest of the history of Jewish's people's effort to establish and define their relationship to God...the Covenant. That is the OLD Testament. Jesus' teachings are understood as a revision of that in the NEW Testament, the NEW covenant.
Funny topic to discuss on this particular day, remembering Jesus and the money changers, the lilies of the field sermon. The prosperity gospel preachers have created a peculiar, materialistic, very American really, interpretation of the Protestant work ethic. St. Francis, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther are surely rolling in their graves. I have a hard time accepting the prosperity Christians as such, much as they have a hard time undertanding Catholics as Christians.
I'm not really disagreeing with you. I just feel that it is not religion that is poison (a view that you seem to share with Mao Zedong), but rather, money that is the source of the evil. When religion and money mix it up in politics, eveything goes to hell.