Responding to fundamental fervor
Someone posted this morning with a link to this article. The article makes me cranky, so I am replying to many of its points. I'm considering sending this note on over to the author of the piece, but it's so dismissive and sarcastic that I don't think that would really be useful. Still, I'm tempted.
Okay...speaking as a former fundamentalist who's really quite an adequate (read: very good) Bible scholar, I mock his assertions. Also, as an aside, if you want Bible reference, one of the best sites I've found (where you can do a cross-translation search) is atBible Gateway, which is where I got all my quotes (all are KJV). There's also one run by Focus on the Family. I must admit I get rather a kick out of using a site they run to find reference for arguments against what they believe, since I think that much of what they believe is, in fact, counter to their source text.
Is anyone else weary of this “Jesus was a revolutionary” line Dean and his ilk feed voters?
Um...I'm certainly not weary of it, since it's true. I'm rather delighted about it much as the song "Long-haired Radical Socialist Jew" delights me.
Brace yourselves, people: Jesus wasn’t at all like Gandhi, Confucius or even Martin Luther King Jr.
Well I can't speak to whether this is accurate about Confucius; I don't know much about him. But Mr. Grills has a point: Jesus was, in fact, NOT a political reformer like the other two, but rather believed in obeying the law of the land, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matt 22:21) then making personal choices based on religion, such as recommending changes in thinking with statements like, "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt 5:28).
He didn’t have a “dream,” and he didn’t walk around talking about love and peace - at least not liberals’ idea of love and peace.
Hmm. So...liberals don't understand what "love" and "peace" mean, huh? Or is it that the conservatives of Mr. Grills' ilk think that "love" means bashing someone with a stick till they believe as you do since you "love" them too much to let them continue in their wrongness? Or because they think "peace" means bombing the crap out of anyone who might fight you till there's no more fighting?
the “Rev.” Jesse Jackson’s sermons
There seems no reason to put "Rev." into quotes, unless it is to be deliberately disrespectful. From my understanding (which, granted, may be slightly faulty), the honorarium "Reverend" is standard for Baptist ministers, who I believe may be lay ministers with no specific training or ordination required. I have many, many issues with Jesse Jackson, but it is his option and right to use a title conferred on him by his church.
that asinine Coca-Cola commercial where people sing about the world being a place of perfect harmony.
Does someone have childhood television trauma? I still like that song and commercial. I recognize the sentiment as a pipe dream, an impossibility of human nature, but I still like it.
Truth? Jesus didn’t have a lofty goal of uniting the people of the world together, hoping to plant the seeds of self-actualization that would guide humanity toward creating a utopia.
Again, true.
During his life and the 2,000 years that followed, Jesus has divided people. He intended to. Don’t believe me? Check your New Testament cue cards, Dean.
Not so true. Jesus DID preach living in harmony with those around you, doing more than is asked, and accepting all peacefully, UNLESS it is in violation of the law you espouse to follow. He sought to divide the people from the hypocritical leaders, and to divide the hypocritical leaders from their hypocrisy, but also sought to encourage the people to live harmoniously with the secular government and even the occupying peoples. In THAT way he's very much MLK, Jr. and Gandhi in his insistence that working within the law and political structure through personal rather than political change. He's responsible for the whole, "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." (Matt 5:40-41)--ALL of these as peaceful, non-violent responses to being wronged (these are, btw, the teachings of Jesus with which I have the greatest gripe in terms of him teaching victimization, even while I do understand that, in the Roman Empire, these probably would have given you a longer life).
All the division? Came after. Came from the disciples. Came from Paul. Came from the Counsel of Jerusalem. Came from the attempts of men to insist that their interpretation of divine will was more right than someone else's. The division in Judaism came because some Jews accepted that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, and some did not (and, given the seven or so folks in the previous 100 years who'd claimed to be The Messiah, skepticism seems not only understandable but wise). The divisions in Christianity since have come, every time, over interpretational issues (or, sometimes, power-mongering issues, but that's another thing).
In short, that leaves every man and woman with a decision: Jesus was either crazy or he was God in the flesh
Hey! I know that sermon: "He was a lunatic, a liar, a legend, or Lord." I've heard that sermon. Like four times.
Perhaps there are more facets to the possible decision. Perhaps it's possible to believe that Jesus was someone with wisdom, with vision, a teacher, who was the Son of God only in the same way that everyone is a child of God (for those who hold that belief). Certainly this possibility won't work within the mindset of conservative Christianity with its insistence that the Bible is the one true expression of the one true will of the one true God, and that you must believe it or you are an infidel, cast out from any association with God or the divine, but the fact that Christianity won't entertain the possibility does not remove the possibility.
You can’t hold onto “do unto others as you have them do unto you” and ignore the fact that Jesus said he sits at the right hand of God and that he’ll return someday.
Sure you can. Literally every other religion has a similar precept, so, sure, you can hold onto that whether you accept anything else in the belief system. Christianity didn't make this up. And, sure, you can even believe that Jesus symbolically "sits at the right hand" as a symbolic favored place with whatever entity is the Divine, or that perhaps that soul will come around again rather than that person in that form.
Also? Mr. Grills may want to quote more carefully. The quote, from the NIV, is actually, "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:31).
because what faith Howard Dean has in Jesus isn’t central to his life.
Or because he accepts that there is more than one way to commune with the divine and that while a belief in Jesus may work for him, perhaps it is a different belief system or approach that works for others--including Dean's wife and daughters.
“Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind,” he gushes.
Howard's got a point. And yet Mr. Grills disagrees.
Let’s clear this up: people sought Jesus more often than he sought them.
True enough. But he chose those with whom he spent time. He chose those whom he had as his closest followers and advisors and students and friends. And those he chose to continue to spend time with, and to keep closest, were all poor. Paul, the wealthier apostle who was actually a Roman citizen and educated, was not a follower of Jesus, nor did he ever meet him in his lifetime. Luke, an educated Greek physician and writer of one of the gospels (the original fanfic if there ever was--four different takes on the "Jesus series") also wasn't one of the twelve.
And he didn’t just run with the poor.
Well, not just with the poor, the harlots, the sinners. Just mostly with the poor, the harlots, the sinners. Can you find a few examples? Sure. But only a few. And remember his dismissal of pretty much anyone in power? The derision from an otherwise gentle persona toward the Pharisees? The cleansing of the temple? The disdain for money? The fact that the guy who held the money turns out in the stories to be the betrayer? The statement that it is "harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle"? The repeated parables with the wealthy and powerful as the bad guys? Did he ignore the rich and powerful and insist that they were hopeless? No. But he believed that they were at great risk for successfully living with care for the less fortunate as he suggested.
reading Scripture isn’t considered “tradition” for most Christians. It’s the best and only way to learn about God, about Jesus and about living a holy life.
Umm...my very conservative fundamentalist mother believes that she learns a great deal about God through prayer and (though she might not use this word) meditation and even through walks in the woods and by gardening. Now, she also reads scripture closely and seriously, but that's not the "only way", nor the "best" way to learn about God, just the best way to learn about what Christians consider God's law.
Jesus taught that unless you obey God’s Old Testament laws to the letter, you don’t have a fighting chance at getting into heaven.
Um, no. He taught that if you're not obeying the OT to the letter that you have no right to demand that and more from others. His fight was against hypocrisy, not failure to meet every jot or tittle of the law. He taught that caring and humanity come first in the service of God, and that the serving of God's letter of the law should never come before the service and caring of "the least of these my brethren" (Matt 25:40, context really 39-46).
He taught that it all comes down to one question: do you rely on faith alone in God to save you, or are you counting on your own efforts?
This, again, is more Paul, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid" (Rom 6:1). The number of Christians who are primarily Pauline Christians (and, in fairness, somewhat understandably since the man wrote 12 or 13--if he wrote Hebrews--books of the NT). Jesus was much more about, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt 22:39-40).
I am forced to restrain myself from repeatedly smacking my forehead in amazement. “I don’t get offended when George Bush or Joe Lieberman talk about their religion,” Dean muses.
How sad that Mr. Grills is so affronted and upset by Dean (or, indeed, anyone) expressing a respect for and lack of offense at the religious belief and expression of others. It is certainly clear that Mr. Grills himself is affronted and offended by anyone espousing a version of Christianity with which he does not personally entirely agree. I find it most unfortunate that an American, in discussing political views, would be so troubled by a politician's acceptance of religious views other than his own. Unless Mr. Grills would prefer to live in a theocracy where his own religious beliefs were mandated and enforced (something that certainly would be unAmerican given the First Amendment), then I at least would think this would be a desirable trait in someone participating in our government.
But whose Jesus?
Well, mine, to the extent I listen. My mom's, I think. Sadly, Mr. Grills and the other über-right conservative Christians who are often quite loud don't seem to know the Jesus in whose name they are trying to reinstitute the kinds of religious persecutions they see themselves as victims of and which the founders of this country (though certainly not its settlers) tried to stamp out.
Okay...speaking as a former fundamentalist who's really quite an adequate (read: very good) Bible scholar, I mock his assertions. Also, as an aside, if you want Bible reference, one of the best sites I've found (where you can do a cross-translation search) is atBible Gateway, which is where I got all my quotes (all are KJV). There's also one run by Focus on the Family. I must admit I get rather a kick out of using a site they run to find reference for arguments against what they believe, since I think that much of what they believe is, in fact, counter to their source text.
Is anyone else weary of this “Jesus was a revolutionary” line Dean and his ilk feed voters?
Um...I'm certainly not weary of it, since it's true. I'm rather delighted about it much as the song "Long-haired Radical Socialist Jew" delights me.
Brace yourselves, people: Jesus wasn’t at all like Gandhi, Confucius or even Martin Luther King Jr.
Well I can't speak to whether this is accurate about Confucius; I don't know much about him. But Mr. Grills has a point: Jesus was, in fact, NOT a political reformer like the other two, but rather believed in obeying the law of the land, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matt 22:21) then making personal choices based on religion, such as recommending changes in thinking with statements like, "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt 5:28).
He didn’t have a “dream,” and he didn’t walk around talking about love and peace - at least not liberals’ idea of love and peace.
Hmm. So...liberals don't understand what "love" and "peace" mean, huh? Or is it that the conservatives of Mr. Grills' ilk think that "love" means bashing someone with a stick till they believe as you do since you "love" them too much to let them continue in their wrongness? Or because they think "peace" means bombing the crap out of anyone who might fight you till there's no more fighting?
the “Rev.” Jesse Jackson’s sermons
There seems no reason to put "Rev." into quotes, unless it is to be deliberately disrespectful. From my understanding (which, granted, may be slightly faulty), the honorarium "Reverend" is standard for Baptist ministers, who I believe may be lay ministers with no specific training or ordination required. I have many, many issues with Jesse Jackson, but it is his option and right to use a title conferred on him by his church.
that asinine Coca-Cola commercial where people sing about the world being a place of perfect harmony.
Does someone have childhood television trauma? I still like that song and commercial. I recognize the sentiment as a pipe dream, an impossibility of human nature, but I still like it.
Truth? Jesus didn’t have a lofty goal of uniting the people of the world together, hoping to plant the seeds of self-actualization that would guide humanity toward creating a utopia.
Again, true.
During his life and the 2,000 years that followed, Jesus has divided people. He intended to. Don’t believe me? Check your New Testament cue cards, Dean.
Not so true. Jesus DID preach living in harmony with those around you, doing more than is asked, and accepting all peacefully, UNLESS it is in violation of the law you espouse to follow. He sought to divide the people from the hypocritical leaders, and to divide the hypocritical leaders from their hypocrisy, but also sought to encourage the people to live harmoniously with the secular government and even the occupying peoples. In THAT way he's very much MLK, Jr. and Gandhi in his insistence that working within the law and political structure through personal rather than political change. He's responsible for the whole, "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." (Matt 5:40-41)--ALL of these as peaceful, non-violent responses to being wronged (these are, btw, the teachings of Jesus with which I have the greatest gripe in terms of him teaching victimization, even while I do understand that, in the Roman Empire, these probably would have given you a longer life).
All the division? Came after. Came from the disciples. Came from Paul. Came from the Counsel of Jerusalem. Came from the attempts of men to insist that their interpretation of divine will was more right than someone else's. The division in Judaism came because some Jews accepted that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, and some did not (and, given the seven or so folks in the previous 100 years who'd claimed to be The Messiah, skepticism seems not only understandable but wise). The divisions in Christianity since have come, every time, over interpretational issues (or, sometimes, power-mongering issues, but that's another thing).
In short, that leaves every man and woman with a decision: Jesus was either crazy or he was God in the flesh
Hey! I know that sermon: "He was a lunatic, a liar, a legend, or Lord." I've heard that sermon. Like four times.
Perhaps there are more facets to the possible decision. Perhaps it's possible to believe that Jesus was someone with wisdom, with vision, a teacher, who was the Son of God only in the same way that everyone is a child of God (for those who hold that belief). Certainly this possibility won't work within the mindset of conservative Christianity with its insistence that the Bible is the one true expression of the one true will of the one true God, and that you must believe it or you are an infidel, cast out from any association with God or the divine, but the fact that Christianity won't entertain the possibility does not remove the possibility.
You can’t hold onto “do unto others as you have them do unto you” and ignore the fact that Jesus said he sits at the right hand of God and that he’ll return someday.
Sure you can. Literally every other religion has a similar precept, so, sure, you can hold onto that whether you accept anything else in the belief system. Christianity didn't make this up. And, sure, you can even believe that Jesus symbolically "sits at the right hand" as a symbolic favored place with whatever entity is the Divine, or that perhaps that soul will come around again rather than that person in that form.
Also? Mr. Grills may want to quote more carefully. The quote, from the NIV, is actually, "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:31).
because what faith Howard Dean has in Jesus isn’t central to his life.
Or because he accepts that there is more than one way to commune with the divine and that while a belief in Jesus may work for him, perhaps it is a different belief system or approach that works for others--including Dean's wife and daughters.
“Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind,” he gushes.
Howard's got a point. And yet Mr. Grills disagrees.
Let’s clear this up: people sought Jesus more often than he sought them.
True enough. But he chose those with whom he spent time. He chose those whom he had as his closest followers and advisors and students and friends. And those he chose to continue to spend time with, and to keep closest, were all poor. Paul, the wealthier apostle who was actually a Roman citizen and educated, was not a follower of Jesus, nor did he ever meet him in his lifetime. Luke, an educated Greek physician and writer of one of the gospels (the original fanfic if there ever was--four different takes on the "Jesus series") also wasn't one of the twelve.
And he didn’t just run with the poor.
Well, not just with the poor, the harlots, the sinners. Just mostly with the poor, the harlots, the sinners. Can you find a few examples? Sure. But only a few. And remember his dismissal of pretty much anyone in power? The derision from an otherwise gentle persona toward the Pharisees? The cleansing of the temple? The disdain for money? The fact that the guy who held the money turns out in the stories to be the betrayer? The statement that it is "harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle"? The repeated parables with the wealthy and powerful as the bad guys? Did he ignore the rich and powerful and insist that they were hopeless? No. But he believed that they were at great risk for successfully living with care for the less fortunate as he suggested.
reading Scripture isn’t considered “tradition” for most Christians. It’s the best and only way to learn about God, about Jesus and about living a holy life.
Umm...my very conservative fundamentalist mother believes that she learns a great deal about God through prayer and (though she might not use this word) meditation and even through walks in the woods and by gardening. Now, she also reads scripture closely and seriously, but that's not the "only way", nor the "best" way to learn about God, just the best way to learn about what Christians consider God's law.
Jesus taught that unless you obey God’s Old Testament laws to the letter, you don’t have a fighting chance at getting into heaven.
Um, no. He taught that if you're not obeying the OT to the letter that you have no right to demand that and more from others. His fight was against hypocrisy, not failure to meet every jot or tittle of the law. He taught that caring and humanity come first in the service of God, and that the serving of God's letter of the law should never come before the service and caring of "the least of these my brethren" (Matt 25:40, context really 39-46).
He taught that it all comes down to one question: do you rely on faith alone in God to save you, or are you counting on your own efforts?
This, again, is more Paul, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid" (Rom 6:1). The number of Christians who are primarily Pauline Christians (and, in fairness, somewhat understandably since the man wrote 12 or 13--if he wrote Hebrews--books of the NT). Jesus was much more about, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt 22:39-40).
I am forced to restrain myself from repeatedly smacking my forehead in amazement. “I don’t get offended when George Bush or Joe Lieberman talk about their religion,” Dean muses.
How sad that Mr. Grills is so affronted and upset by Dean (or, indeed, anyone) expressing a respect for and lack of offense at the religious belief and expression of others. It is certainly clear that Mr. Grills himself is affronted and offended by anyone espousing a version of Christianity with which he does not personally entirely agree. I find it most unfortunate that an American, in discussing political views, would be so troubled by a politician's acceptance of religious views other than his own. Unless Mr. Grills would prefer to live in a theocracy where his own religious beliefs were mandated and enforced (something that certainly would be unAmerican given the First Amendment), then I at least would think this would be a desirable trait in someone participating in our government.
But whose Jesus?
Well, mine, to the extent I listen. My mom's, I think. Sadly, Mr. Grills and the other über-right conservative Christians who are often quite loud don't seem to know the Jesus in whose name they are trying to reinstitute the kinds of religious persecutions they see themselves as victims of and which the founders of this country (though certainly not its settlers) tried to stamp out.