Post by Paradox on Oct 17, 2009 19:05:36 GMT -5
Let's examine this lovely article by one Mrs. Jan Markell in which she bemoans all those dirty, liberal, communi-facists Christians who insist that what Jesus said is important.
Disclaimer: Technically I would not qualify as a Red-Letter Christian. Paul and the others had some good material. But the only Paulian passages Mrs. Markell seems to be aware of are the ones that talk about the gays. She also mentions abortion, but the Bible doesn't actually say anything on that, so I'm not sure where she gets that from.
Exactly!
And you shall know we are Christians by our love? Seriously, I know a lot of Christians who think that war can be a necessary evil, but Markell doesn't seem to think it's an evil at all.
We know this is true because a bunch of dead guys in the third century decided that it was true. And even they had it wrong, so we had to drop a bunch of the Catholic books.
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." -Acts 2:44-45
Why should we? He didn't actually say that.
I think I like this Wallis guy.
This is why Christianity is so fucked up now days.
Well to be fair, you do. Seriously. You complain that Red-Letter Christians accept only the words of Christ, but you seem to be rejecting them entirely.
I like the sound of these guys.
It is perfectly reasonable to blame America for things that America has actually done. Like, if I were to blame America for instability in the middle east, that would be perfectly fair. We did destabilize the middle east. Iraq immediately comes to mind, although selling nukes to Israel wasn't the brightest move either. America is not perfect, and its actions are not automatically justified by the fact that it is America doing them.
Just like how Bush, that compassionate Christian conservative, immediately sent relief to the people of New Orleans when their city was flooded! What else is there to say here? Conservative Christians do give money to charity, although I can't say how their giving compares to any other group. And note again how Republican political causes and lingo have been seamlessly merged with Mrs. Merkell's religious beliefs. She certainly didn't get her concern about big government from the Bible.
There was a link behind Noebel's quote, but it conveniently failed to work for me. Needless to say, I suspect that Noebel is exaggerating and/or lying through his teeth.
What emotion was that? Anger? Joy? Sadness? A mixture of feelings combining sorrow for all the lives needlessly wasted, joy at the end of such pointless loss, and worry for the future of the Vietnamese state? I guess we'll never know, because Markell doesn't tell us. And if you think I'm going to go hunting down some wingnut book for a little commentary on a discussion forum, you have much more faith in my dedication to this endeavor than I do.
Ignoring the apparent endorsement of theocracy, wasn't she complaining about how Liberal communazi Christians support big government earlier? And now she wants Jesus to personally reign over the entire world as king?
No, I'm pretty sure that I for one have talked about those guys. I'm talking about them right now, for example. Everyone knows that they were dicks, but people like Mrs. Markell think that the US can do no wrong. It can, and we must recognize that if we are to prevent future atrocities.
Also note how politics and religion have been seamlessly intertwined. If you are for God you must be for America. If you are against America, you are against God.
So because we can't stop war, it's pointless to try. So lets go bomb some brown people for Jesus.
He is the guys we named the religion after. I'd think Mrs. Markell would hold him in higher regard.
I think she's wrong about that. Mainline Protestants are pretty liberal, in my experience, or at lest the ones I know.
So there you have it.
In many Bibles, all the words of Jesus are in red. There is nothing wrong with that. But something is wrong when Leftist Christians or so-called Christians want to mute the words of Paul and other writers and only follow Jesus' words. They call themselves "red-letter Christians."
They feel it is convenient to blot out the words of Paul on homosexuality and focus in on the good deeds Jesus talks about.
Most are pacifists who reject an "eye for an eye" (Leviticus 24:19-20). They focus on Jesus' words about helping the poor, ministering to "the least of these" (Matthew 25:40), loving our enemies, etc. That justifies abandoning hundreds, even thousands of condemning verses in the Bible they choose to wish away. That makes homosexuality OK and war wrong!
And remember, Paul and the others in the Bible represent Jesus' words. They were His spokesmen.
Some who believe this way practice a form of neo-Marxism and others would call it "Christian Marxism" -- an oxymoron if there ever was one. They note that the early church shared everything (socialism).
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." -Acts 2:44-45
A close cousin to this is "liberation theology."
Those who are high profile in this movement include Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren and his Emergent bunch, and the National Council of Churches. Jim Wallis says, "In those red letters, Jesus calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary American consciousness." Translate that to mean he loathes capitalism and opts for socialism and/or communism.
Those who are high profile in this movement include Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren and his Emergent bunch, and the National Council of Churches. Jim Wallis says, "In those red letters, Jesus calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary American consciousness." Translate that to mean he loathes capitalism and opts for socialism and/or communism.
Why should we? He didn't actually say that.
Wallis continues, "Jesus calls us to be merciful, which has strong implications for how we think about capital punishment. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, He probably means we shouldn't kill them. Most important, if we take Jesus seriously, we will realize that meeting the needs of the poor is a primary responsibility for His followers. Ghandi once said that everybody in the world knows what Jesus was teaching in those verses except Christians."
To your average evangelical, the words of Ghandi are meaningless.
Red-letter Christians feel evangelicals spend far too much time worrying about abortion and homosexuality.
Wallis and Campolo make the college circuit and get standing ovations from young people who are seeing them as newfound gurus. Red-letter Christians champion "social justice," the cause of illegal immigrants, environmentalism, high taxes, discrimination issues, socialized medicine, and getting rid of the death penalty.
They are first to stand in line to play the "blame America" game.
Red-letter Christians support unrestricted big government, sometimes equating the welfare state with the Kingdom of God.
This crowd loves to spend other people's money. They put down conservative Christianity when, in fact, it is conservative Christians who are first to step up to the plate whenever there is a disaster at home or abroad!
This crowd loves to spend other people's money. They put down conservative Christianity when, in fact, it is conservative Christians who are first to step up to the plate whenever there is a disaster at home or abroad!
As David Noebel of Summit Ministries writes about Wallis, "Wallis and his Sojourners' community believe Castro, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the other revolutionary forces are the Communist paradises the U.S. needs to emulate in order to establish 'social justice.' " Noebel emphasizes the startling and frightening fact that Wallis is Obama's spiritual advisor.
Ronald Nash in his book, Why the Left Is Not Right, says, "Wallis was pro-Viet Cong and gloried in America's defeat in Vietnam. Wallis said, 'I don't know how else to express the quiet emotion that rushed through me when the news reports showed that the U.S. had finally been defeated in Vietnam.'" But he said not a word about the blood baths that followed.
The issues you will never hear red-letter Christians talking about include winning the lost, the lateness of the hour, or sin and repentance. Their mantra is peace, yet they do not understand that only Jesus ruling from Jerusalem will bring peace to this planet. They would scoff at that and say peace would be better accomplished if they saved the planet with their works based on the red letters of Jesus. And their understanding of the peace of God is minimal.
As Mark Tooley of the Institute for Religion and Democracy writes, "These people only criticize the U.S. and Israel in its human rights critiques, while remaining largely silent about monstrous regimes. They focus on America's supposed mistreatment of Indians, about slavery, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But they will never talk about the Holocaust." You will also note they don't talk about the butchery of Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or Kim Jong IL.
Also note how politics and religion have been seamlessly intertwined. If you are for God you must be for America. If you are against America, you are against God.
Red-letter Christians join the chorus of those who believe in a utopia with no wanting or war. Yes, that will come someday, but not the way they think. This could come as a shock to them just because they have little to no regard for other parts of the Bible. They have almost created a new meaning for the term "biblical illiteracy."
It is also tragic that these folks are frequently called "the evangelical Left." They don't have even 1% of evangelical theology in a single bone in their body. They cherry- pick the verses they like, almost exclusively the red letters of Jesus.
Also on a sad note, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is promoting a Leftist conference featuring Jim Wallis October 21. This was announced in their "NAE Update" received today, October 5, by e-mail. Tooley's more Mainline Protestant Institute for Religion and Democracy takes a more righteous stand against Leftist causes than does the NAE.
So there you have it.