Because of who I am, I expect that everyone will hate me. What else is new?
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but as I see it, a large chunk of the Bible is God sending messengers: angels, prophets, and even Jesus himself to tell people in power that they are not being nice to the people. This typically resulted in those prophets being jailed, tortured and killed. If you consider yourself a Christian, you probably believe that Jesus was crucified (tortured and killed) for:
- Criticizing the Pharisees, who were overly dogmatic religious leaders, and
- Producing miracles to demonstrate He was speaking on God’s behalf
People in power have never liked having their authority questioned. This was true in Biblical times as well as today. Back then many religious leaders chose not to make waves, and went along with the corrupt leaders to retain their power. In fact, similar things are going on today with the Conservative Evangelical support for Donald Trump.
Conservative Evangelicals believe that the free market is the answer to our problems. If someone is poor, that is a result of character flaws including laziness. It is their responsibility to work for what they get. This is very different from what Jesus preached. He taught to look out for the orphans, widows, and the poor. When a rich man asked Jesus for advice:
Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” “Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” the man asked. And Jesus replied: “‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?” Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
Even though humanity was His enemy, Jesus died in our place on the cross. He was self sacrificial, and didn’t leave us lazy sinners to fend for ourselves. He taught His followers to have compassion for people in their hearts.
The culture of Wall street and Conservative Christians is about selfishness. They believe making money for themselves and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves is God’s will. They are completely opposed to self-sacrifice, and teach others to not show compassion for people in their hearts. Maybe some Christians from the Bible belt might not believe God wants his followers to have a heart of greed, but they always defend the greedy, and those who oppress the poor.
I believe that Jesus called upon us to show compassion and mercy to the weak, the oppressed, and the poor. For the life of me, I still can’t understand how the people who claim to be the official spokespeople for Jesus can actually teach Christians to ignore or even attack the people Jesus told them to protect. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, they seem to have no doubt that they are 100% following the Bible, and what Jesus asks them to do. In that way Conservative Christians remind me of the Pharisees who voted to have Christ killed. Either they were completely sure Jesus should have been executed for God, they were to afraid, or simply didn’t care enough to defend an innocent man.
It’s sad, but very little has changed. Those in power oppress the poor, and religious leaders defend those in power. Donald Trump is a wealthy man who doesn’t even try to pretend he has any interest in submitting to anyone, even God. Yet the majority of American Christians elected him, and fight to keep him in power. Evangelical Christians often label those who teach generosity to the poor as socialists. I truly believe that if they were to read Jesus’s teachings on money, without knowing it came from Him or the Bible, He would likely be attacked as a socialist as well. That is why I take on the label of a socialist with pride.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel, or Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross. I am however deeply ashamed of American people have taken Christianity and corrupted it. For the first time in years I am attending Church regularly. After a talk with my pastor yesterday where I mentioned my political stance, he mentioned that as a pastor of an Evangelical Christian Church, many people make false assumptions about him and his beliefs. It also reminded me, that under some metrics, I can be considered Evangelical. After praying, I felt compelled to begin this blog.
I also want to make one thing clear: although I find Evangelicals corruption of the Word disturbing, they should not be afraid of me. I am just a man with strong opinions speaking out on the Internet. Ultimately, you should be afraid of God. He will be the ultimate judge of us all.
The Evangelical Socialist 