From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 05 2004 - 15:41:11 GMT
Steve,
Part of me wants to delay my response here to pull my bible off the shelf
and give you a more academic reply, which is what you've asked for. I'm not
going to do that, however ;-)... well, I will after some reflection.
What I do want to jump in with, is some general observations about Jesus,
wealth, the poor and napalming Iraqi citizens. First off, I am absolutely
convinced that were Jesus alive (or existent, depending on your
orientation) he would be a socialist. Other than the one phrase "Render
onto Caeser, what is Caeser's", there is no mention anywhere in the NT of
his support of wealth, capital, money as a measure of worth, or any other
typical capitalist value. Here was a man who (like Gautama Buddha)
dedicated his works to helping the poor, taking in prostitutes and
sheltering the downtrodden. His apostles all sacrificed all their material
possessions to follow him. He advocated turning the other cheek, loving
your neighbor, and (here is a reference I know offhand) in Matthew 7:12 "So
whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the
law and the prophets."
In short, Jesus advocated a lifestyle of goodwill, of doing work with and
for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the meek. Jesus did not advocate
that the pursuit of wealth was a means to this end. He said specifically
otherwise: "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my
name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting
life. (Matthew 19:29)". And of course Matthew 19:23, "Then said Jesus unto
his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter
into the kingdom of heaven." (Sorry, Platt, you're gonna have to give it
all away ;-)). His chosen poverty and the enforced poverty of his
disciples, indicate to me that he advocated a rejection of material wealth
and a life of doing good works. Although scholarship has shown that Jesus
may have indeed come from wealth, and been a legitimate heir to the throne,
and was turned into a down-and-out messiah to appeal to Roman
sensibilities, a strong argument can be made that those who call themselves
christians are more concerned (or concerned solely) with the biblical Jesus
and not the historical Jesus anyway.
How does this relate to the current parties' political platforms? Of the
two, the democrats have shown more readiness to support public works to
feed the poor, heal the sick (without regard to ability to pay), and work
towards civil liberties. But they have also been more accepting of behavior
that Jesus would have called sinful. The republicans have been adamant
about denying these behaviors, and rejecting them as unacceptable, but at
the same time have used policy to reifying class divisions, have relied on
the arguments of social darwinism to deny public funding of the poor, sick
and homeless, and have rejected publically supported civil equality. The
wealthy have appealed to the myth of "trickle down" to say that by making
the wealthy even wealthier, in this way you'll feed the poor. (Were that to
be the case, of course, America would have no poverty, or certainly no
hungry and homeless. America has the largest division of any nation between
the rich and the poor. Canada has less, and Japan less than that.) "Trickle
down" and "social darwinism" are things Jesus would have cringed at. But so
are homosexuality and quite likely abortion.
I doubt that Jesus would have called for an invasion of either Afghanistan
or Iraq. Based on his teachings, he would have certainly advocated a
peaceful approach. Remember that the Romans were occupiers at the time, and
yet nowhere in his teachings is the call for any type of military revolt,
killing of Roman soldiers or napalming the Roman capital. And these were
not simpler, less violent, utopic times, the regions of Jesus' time were
rought with war and invasion. Jesus simply did not go that route. He would
not, I say adamantly, support Jerry Falwell's christian cry of "kill them
on their soil". What Jesus would likely have advocated is sending
missionaries into these areas to do good works and win the hearts and minds
of the citizenry. This would likely too have been followed by attempts to
convert the muslim populations to judaism (remembering that Jesus never
advocated an abandonment of judaism, he came to fulfill prophecy, not
replace it). Jesus was certainly not open to accepting other's religions,
although he wouldn't have them killed for it, he certainly would not
endorse it or say we should respect it. I think of Mother Theresa in this
regard, a lifetime of "good works" (from a strict christian perspective)
but also a heavy emphasis on conversion.
As I am thinking about this, I am wondering if I could make the claim
that-- regarding specifically christian morality-- liberals tend to agree
with and promote the more metaphorical moralities (public funds for the
poor, sick and homeless, civil equality, peaceful-negotiated approaches to
conflict) while ignoring the literal moralities, while the conservatives
tend to promote the more literal moralities (anti-homosexuality,
anti-muslim, anti-abortion), while ignoring the metaphorical moralities.
Conservatives tend to rally around these literal moralities, and even use
them as justification for ignoring the metaphorical ones. How many "good
christians" see no moral conflict in the napalming of the Baghdad. Or see
it as something "Jesus would understand we had to do". Liberals tend to
rally around metaphorical ones, and use them as justification for ignoring
the literal ones. It is in this regard that liberals get branded as
"secularists", because they do not adhere to literal morality in the bible.
Perhaps my use of "metaphorical" and "literal" are off, I thought about
saying social and biological, but this seemed to conflate things. Although
I could certainly argue that public funding of healthcare is a concern over
social morality and anti-homosexuality over biological morality. (I should
point out too, that these biological moral issues are pretty well picked
and chose as necessity dictates by the conservatives, I doubt you'd find
many conservatives willing to national back a proposition or constitutional
amendment declaring everything a menstruating woman touches as "unclean"
(And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she
shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean
until the even. And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall
be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And
whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in
water, and be unclean until the even.) In short, even the self-professed
righteous take want they want and ignore the rest)
In the end, as you will no doubt see (and I am sure you are quite aware),
the bible has been interpreted and used to justify/falsify any position.
There are some, as the Gnostics did, who look past the literal towards the
esoteric truths. Others like the fundamentalists and evangelicals reject
the esoteric and cling solely to bits and pieces of literal words.
My point... both sides can claim to advance biblical morality, but both
sides would also be completely hypocritical to do so.
Arlo
At 08:30 AM 11/5/2004, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Like Platt, I am also very interested in how morality has influenced the
>election. Since reading Lila, I have long thought that the Democrats were
>making a huge mistake by shying away from use of the terms "morality" and
>"values." Liberals have failed to articulate their moral view. They have
>tended to cringe at the sound of these words and allowed the Republicans
>to seize the terms of debate that were perhaps the most important in
>deciding the election.
>
>It has often been said that the US has a Judeo-Christian value system
>based on the Bible. I'm interested in exploring whether the conservative
>or liberal agenda actually has more Biblical support.
>
>Your thoughts would be appreciated, especially those supported by Biblical
>quotes.
>
>Thanks,
>Steve
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