gracchusdixit

Scarcely a day goes by when we are not subjected to a lecture from the lips of some Republican evangelical about religion, morality, or the intentions of God. Such people tell us that abortion and birth control are sins, that gay unions are an abomination, that even the violent rape of a woman must be part of God’s plan and accepted as such by the victim. It seems that the Republican Party has been hijacked by the born-again Christians in its midst, and none of the supposedly “moderate” members of its establishment have the backbone to stand up to them, least of all their Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.

Put aside the blasphemous notion that such people are arrogant enough to think that they can divine the intentions of the Almighty. Put aside the blatant reality that most of what they have to say is claptrap. Consider instead the inescapable moral fact that is impossible to be both a Republican and a true Christian.

Republican evangelicals believe in the sanctity of property. That isn’t what Christ believed. It was Christ who said: “Ye cannot serve God and mammom.” It was Christ who told his disciples: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth.”

Republican evangelicals believe that material success is a sign of virtue and poverty a stigma signifying laziness. That isn’t what Christ believed. It was Christ who said: “How hard shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.” It was Christ who proclaimed: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Republican evangelicals believe that they have “earned” their success entirely through their own efforts and those who have been less fortunate in life have no claim upon them. That isn’t what Christ believed. It was Christ who said: “But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the mained, the lame, the blind.” It was Christ who demanded of his followers: “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

Republican evangelicals exalt what they like to call “family values” and strive to impose their version of those values on the rest of us. That isn’t what Christ believed. It was Christ who renounced such values in favor of something more important: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” It was Christ who exalted all mankind as his family: “Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them, which sat about him, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren!”

Worst of all, Republican evangelicals presume to judge the rest of us according to their own cramped, narrow and bigoted version of religion. That, above all else, is what the founder of Christianity abhorred: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”

It is difficult to read the Gospels without concluding that Jesus Christ, were he alive today, would have nothing whatsoever to do with the Republican Party, let alone the evangelicals who now seem to dominate it.

It was the founder of Christianity who warned:  “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” If Jesus Christ were alive today, it is far more likely that he would be a communist than a capitalist, and he would see Republican evangelicals for the “ravening wolves” they truly are.