What I wish the President would say in the State of the Union but won't: The United States is in trouble: more people are in poverty than ever before, the long term unemployment rate is awful and we spend way too much fighting needless wars. I have a perfectly good jobs plan but the Tea Party members of the GOP in Congress are racist idiots and fight me on everything I propose just because I'm black. The Supreme Court of the United States made the worst decision in its history with Citizens United. Corporations are NOT people and money is NOT free speech. They have essentially sold democracy to the highest bidder. Most of those high bidders are corporate sponsors of Scalia and Thomas.


 The real hope for this country comes from you, the citizens. It is up to YOU to take back this country from the special interests which control politics, even me. The Occupy Movement expresses the deep seated frustration with the way things are. It is the beginning of a movement to create change. But that change can only occur when enough of you are angry enough to step up and take direct action. Your vote in November is the most important first step but calling out injustice as it occurs is another. Do not allow the oppressor to control the dialogue. Most of all, DO NOT REMAIN SILENT because you think it will just somehow get better one of these days. It won't  -  not without you. 

Ad Hominid

I have been thinking about health care as a human right lately. What I keep returning to is the question of how much better our ancient ancestors probably treated each other in terms of access to "health care". Granted, technology is much different, but do you think early humans denied care to any member of their clan because they couldn't pay? How much have we truly "advanced" as a species?

Remember When Jesus Said...

My favorite "Remember When Jesus Said..." Tweets:

1.  US_JUST: Remember when Jesus said, "The rich shall inherit the earth?" Me either
2. DalydeGagne: Remember when Jesus said how totally cool it'd be if we had greedy and selfish white guys in control of our government.
3. A_ThinkingGirl: Remember when Jesus said that rich white guys know what is best for humanity?
4. A_ThinkingGirl: Remember when Jesus said a political party was the one to represent Him?
5. A_ThinkingGirl: Remember when Jesus said that the moneychangers were totally cool dudes?
6. US_JUST: Remember when Jesus said, "God loves everyone -but homosexuals? Neither do I.
7. aewells: Remember when Jesus said how much he hates "the pill"? Yeah that was awesome.
8. deniseromano: Remember when Jesus said, "Celebrate my birth by hating anyone who doesn't celebrate my birth?"
9. NoToTheRight: Remember when Jesus said, "You have to show a government I.D. to vote.
10. deniseromano: Remember when Jesus said, "Oppress women by denying them health care, birth control & equal right".  Me neither.
11. deniseromano: Remember when Jesus said "The poor are lazy and should be drug tested.
12. US_JUST: Remember when Jesus said, "Love only those who look like you and think like you and who are not sick or poor." Me either. 

The Antithesis of Christ?

I came across an article today: "True Believer Rick Santorum Is The Antithesis of Christ's Teachings" http://www.politicususa.com/en/rick-santorum-christ  It made me stop and think: could this guy be THE Anti-Christ? It would be easy to understand why one would be tempted to think so - everything Santorum says and does seems, at best, to misrepresent the teachings of Jesus.  The problem is, he is not alone - far from it. He represents many fundamentalist people who call themselves Christians. They are the people who, as I said the other day, base their beliefs on individually selected verses from the Bible, many from the Law. The problem with that kind of approach to Scripture is that it tends to twist and pervert the meaning of the whole. I have heard it said, "Even the Devil can quote Scripture." And it is true. Santorum, if he thinks through what he believes at all, probably bases most of it in the Old Testament. I doubt that he has much room in his theology for "Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself." I doubt that he reads the Old Testament Prophets who were all about social justice for the sick and the poor, the widowed and the prisoners. They were all about condemnation for the wealthy and powerful who oppressed the poor. And Jesus followed very much in the tradition of the Prophets. No where does Jesus EVER say, "God loves everyone - unless you're gay." No where does Jesus say, "Blessed are the rich for they inherit great wealth." So, yes, Rick Santorum does, indeed, seem to have it backwards. The question though is whether he, himself, if the Anti-Christ. I don't think so because he is far from alone in his heresy. So much of Fundamentalism, the Tea Party and Corporate America hold similar twisted and perverted views of Christianity. I would suggest that the Anti-Christ IS among us, but not as one individual. Rather, the Anti-thesis of Christ is to be found wherever Jesus' teachings are twisted to benefit the rich at the expense of the sick, the elderly, the poor.

In 1981, I was in my third year of seminary at Perkins School of Theology, SMU, Dallas, TX.  I was noticing a trend among television evangelists: the beginning of political involvement from a group which had traditionally eschewed politics as a corrupting influence on faith. I had no idea exactly where this trend would lead. I did know that I was uncomfortable with the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson leading the charge under the banner of the Moral Majority. As we were soon to discover, the Moral Majority was neither very moral or a majority. But they WERE loud. And obnoxious. And not very interested in good scriptural exegesis. 

In those respects, and others, the Moral Majority of the 1980's is much like today's Tea Party and the Dominionist Movement which accompanies them. They are definitely loud and definitely want the country to be run by theological standards which are set in stone, if not the Bible. There is a overwhelming tendency for these folks to ignore great chunks of the Bible in order to knock others over the head with the parts they deem applicable. They will totally ignore the major themes of scripture: Love God and walk justly. Instead they focus on individual verses, usually taken out of context to support their prejudice against homosexuals or whatever other social issue bug they have their collective butts. 

What all these fundamentalist folks fail to fathom is that Americans are a pragmatic and liberty loving bunch and will not easily give in to the Christian Taliban any more than they will to any outside terrorist group. My advice to them is to read the WHOLE Bible and if that is too much for them, read just the verses in red. THEN come back and tell me what Jesus would do.