Posted on 10/25/2010 2:46:05 PM PDT by HorowitzianConservative
Politicians of all stripes endeavor to invoke the Bible for many reasons. Some try to use God’s Word to score points with the Christian or Jewish communities. Others employ a Biblical analogy or story to drive a point home. A few even share impactful passages out of sincere faith. However, it appears that most politicians — on the Left as well as on the Right — use the Old and New Testaments to prove or further their agenda.
One of the most insidious and troubling areas in which politicians have co-opted scripture is the “social justice” movement. Since the 19th century, Leftists have attempted to use particular passages from the Bible to achieve progressive and often radical or statist ends. From communitarians to eugenicists to early 20th century progressives to New Dealers, evangelists of various strains of the Social Gospel have attempted to utilize the Bible to justify their views.
Civil rights leaders from the 1950s until today have used scripture to prove their point. Jimmy Carter made no secret of his Christian faith, and he claimed to center many of his policies around it. The environmentalist movement has attempted to lure Jews and Christians into its fold by using the Bible, even coining the term “Creation Care” to make radical environmentalism palatable to believers. The progressive Social Gospel concept has come front and center in the Obama era, with Leftist religious leaders like Jim Wallis and his group, Sojourners, peddling their peculiar band of radically Leftist religious conviction.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
When Barack Obama tells us it is required by Christ to support Obamacare, he is PUSHING his own false interpretation of scripture on people of ALL faiths which is CLEARLY unconstitutional. He cannot mandate that I tithe to his particular theological beliefs.
>>I wasn’t aware that Barack has mentioned Christ very often since becoming president. He seems more focused on Muslims.
Obama’s Campaign-Season Christianity
American Spectator ^ | 9/30/10 | George Neumayr
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2608310/posts
“[The] precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead—being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me,” he said. He threw in a few more vague-sounding clichés and a paean to religious relativism for good measure, and reassured the lady that “I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.”
‘God’s partners in matters of life and death’
Washington Jewish Week ^ | 8/19/09 | Adam Kredo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2320466/posts
President Barack Obama needs some outside help pushing health care reform, and he’s turning to rabbis to get it. In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the President told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner. “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream.
‘Bearing False Witness’: Obama Tells Religious Leaders Health Care Critics Are Guilty of Sin (audio)
Faith for Health ^ | August 19, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2320065/posts
“These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation, and that is to look out for each other.”
MSNBC host: Hey, wouldn’t Jesus want us to have universal health care ?
Hot Air ^ | August 13, 2009 | ALLAHPUNDIT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2315664/posts
Code Words (Glenn Beck urges Christians to leave churches that preach “social justice”)
National Review ^ | 03/17/2010 | John Leo
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 10:02
When Glenn Beck urged Christians to leave churches that preach social justice, he allowed himself to be tripped up by conventional buzzwords of the campus Left. In plain English, “social justice” is a goal of all churches and refers to helping the poor and seeking equality. As a code word, it refers to a controversial package of goals including political redistribution of wealth, gay marriage, and a campaign against “institutional racism,” “classism,” “ableism,” and “heterosexism.” Beck was wildly off base linking “social justice” (of either form) to Communism and Nazism, but he was correct to note that the term is often used as a code. In the words of Peter Wood, head of the National Association of Scholars, “The campus left learned with its promotion of the concept of ‘diversity’ the advantages of packaging hard-core ideology in bland, feel-good terminology.” “Social justice” is one of several terms — others include “dispositions,” “sustainability,” and “cultural competence” — that has been given in-group meanings by the wordsmiths of the cultural Left.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2471480/posts
Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Jesus?
Time.com ^ | March 14, 2010 | Amy Sullivan
When Glenn Beck told listeners of his radio show on March 2 that they should “run as fast as you can” from any church that preached “social or economic justice” because those were code words for Communism and Nazism, he probably thought he was tweaking a few crunchy religious liberals who didn’t listen to the show anyway. Instead he managed to outrage Christians in most mainline Protestant denominations, African-American congregations, Hispanic churches, and Catholics...
Religious Left Rallies for Obamacare’s Final Stand
FrontPage Magazine ^ | Mark D. Tooley
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464783/posts
The Religious and Evangelical Left, plus the Islamic Society of North America and a few others, are making a final Custer-like stand on behalf of much cherished Obamacare. In an ad featured in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper aimed at congressional staffers, a religious coalition called “Faithful Reform in Health Care” demanded that Congress “complete the task at hand on behalf of the millions who are left out and left behind in our current health care system.”
Would Jesus pray to block health care for needy? (Two bag barf-alert)
Orlando Sentinel ^ | December 24, 2009 | Mike Thomas
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414585/posts
People are praying for many things during this holy season. But perhaps the most unusual request of all comes from religious conservatives, including some in Congress. They staged an Internet “prayercast’’ to block the health-care legislation being voted on today in the Senate. Given that Democrats have the 60 votes lined up to pass it, they may have to call in Benny Hinn to pull off this miracle. How exactly does one pray against health care? ‘Dear Lord, please do not send the downtrodden to the doctor because my taxes will go up and I’ll have to wait in line for my knee replacement.’ Or: ‘Dear God, please don’t give that other family health coverage taxpayers cannot afford so I can keep the Medicare Advantage and drug plan we also cannot afford.’ Or how about a simple: ‘Deliver us from socialism. Amen.’ I certainly do not agree with everything in the health-care bills. But praying against access to medical care right before Christmas? And then claiming God’s political support?
Obama abuses faith office to promote his radical agenda
The American Thinker ^ | October 20, 2009 | Ed Lasky
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2366453/posts
Why has Barack Obama waded into religious waters? His intentions become clearer by the day. He sees every taxpayer dollar, every government office, as a tool to further his political agenda. The prospect of this occurring was presciently recognized by Meghan Clyne in a Weekly Standard article earlier this year when she predicted that Obama would use the Office of Faith-based Initiative as one more “mechanism for nationwide community organizing”. Clyne notes that Obama himself telegraphed his goals back in 2005. In 1995, Obama told the Chicago Reader: ...In every church on Sunday in the African-American community we have this moral fervor; we have energy to burn. But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building. The biggest failure of the Civil Rights Movement was in failing to translate this energy, this moral fervor, into creating lasting institutions and organizational structures...
Did you just hear Kucinich?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2346672/posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Speaking about the need for health care on Fox Business, he quoted Jesus. He reminded us that Jesus said, ... “when I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was sick, did you care for me?”
You need to pay attention to the politicians and the “Christian” rhetoric they preach to push liberal policies as biblical. I cannot be FORCED to tithe to their interpretation of Christian scripture.
Not quite. It merely recognizes that they exist.
Ok, but the fact that Obama uses scripture wrongly to push for socialized medicine and equality, does not negate the fact that scripture does tell Kings/governments to care for the poor and needy.
Again, socialism is one extreme. No mercy for the poor is the other extreme and every bit as bad.
You misstate my remarks.
I do not say “no mercy”.
I say the government does not need to provide.
Charity comes from the heart. There is no charity in forced taxation.
When taxes increase you will see a decrease in charitable giving.
The scriptures I posted earlier, indicate that the Lord expects BOTH governments and individuals to provide. You may be right that one impacts the other, but neither can wash their hands of the poor without consequences.
No one claims paying taxes is charity. Governmental decisions to give to the poor are charity. And such decisions come from the hearts of the citizenry and their elected officials. Again it must be kept in balance.
You could argue as no doubt many have that such governmental charity is not in the enumerated powers, but you would be going against precedents set by the very first congress that provided both charity to indians as well as disaster relief to cities.
I despise the welfare mess this country has gotten into as much as anyone. I have personally reported what I thought was food stamp fraud and suspect nothing was ever done about it.
There is another side tho. All one has to do is look at Britain before the Victorian age. Horror stories of the poor were absolutely incredible. Private charities did what they could but they were not even close to enough.
As someone else said, there are extremes on both sides. Right now we are on the extreme side towards Socialism. I want to get the government out of basically being the whole way of life for much of the country but not to the extent that good honest people die because of poverty when it is not necessary.
Better to use it as a safety net than as a sole source of sustenance for 3 full generations in a family.
In the 1980s, there was a stunt pulled where some liberals took some American homeless to the Soviet Union to discuss the plight of the homeless. The audience asked how long they had been homeless and hearing answers of “5 years” caused the audience to get up out of their seats and leave.
And there are people who are much better off than the homeless who refuse to contribute to their own livelihood. Opening the doors to the world as a welfare state will not "end" poverty in America. But it will benefit the politicians who need to reach new voting blocs and they sour their reception with those who've been here paying taxes.
A safety net is not a residence. It's not a place to pitch tent. It's why I argue against any drug legalization efforts AT LEAST until the safety net is removed. I will not be exploited by those who wish to cause their own unemployable condition.
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