The mangy “occupiers” of Wall Street, with their bracingly radical demands for open borders, abolishing credit rating agencies, and outlawing private health insurance, are uttering what many Religious Left zealots only quietly pray for but don’t dare publicly to proclaim.
Religious Left icon Jim Wallis has announced he will conduct a visitation to the occupiers presumably to bestow his blessing and, he doubtless hopes, to receive their homage. “The Occupy Wall Street protests make some people nervous, while others scratch their heads, and more than a few grab their sleeping bags and join in,” Wallis carefully noted in his Sojourners. Himself a former rambunctious street activist who now aims for respectability among middle class church goers, Wallis almost certainly would like to bring a sleeping bag.
Professing to not yet fully understand the movement, Wallis still rhapsodized about “Occupy Wall Street:”
“When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus.
When they stand with the hungry, they stand with Jesus.
When they stand for those without a job or a home, they stand with Jesus.
When they are peaceful, nonviolent, and love their neighbors (even the ones they don’t agree with and who don’t agree with them), they are walking as Jesus walked.
When they talk about holding banks and corporations accountable, they sound like Jesus and the biblical prophets before him who all spoke about holding the wealthy and powerful accountable.”
Wallis concluded: “The Occupiers’ desire for change and willingness to take action to do something about it should be an inspiration to us all.” He’s going to Wall Street himself to ”visit” with the demonstrators because they are “carrying on the most interesting conversation going on in that city — or any other — right now.” Undoubtedly Wallis will share his subsequent impartial analysis with his Sojourners readers afterwards. As to Wallis’ comparisons of Jesus to “Occupy Wall Street,” he never cited any specific instances of the Savior demanding the state coercively redistribute wealth.
A prominent Wallis acolyte is pacifist Evangelical Left activist Shane Claiborne, who likened the Wall Street Occupiers to St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is this week. “One of the quotes attributed to Francis is a simple and poignant critique of our world, just as it was to his: ‘The more stuff we have the more clubs we need to protect it,’” Claiborne wrote for The Huffington Post. “It does make you wonder if he’d be on Wall Street protesting today.” Setting up the usual stereotypes about conservative religionists in contrast with St. Francis, Claiborne complained: “We’ve seen Christian extremists burn the Quran, blow up abortion clinics, bless bombs, baptize Wall Street, and hold signs that say ‘God hates fags.’” Note that Claiborne, like Wallis and most on the Religious Left, will never deploy such harsh verbiage against even al Qaeda aligned Islamists. They evidently aren’t as threatening as conservative Christians.
People should never forget that real health depends how well you take care of yourself and not what health insurance you carry but I agree health insurance is important for every one. Search "Penny Health" or online for dollar a day insurance plans.
I hope this site bars you for this cheap commercial.
I just saw a picture of OWS protesters. Two teachers. Why aren't they in their classrooms teaching?? Are they on sick leave, and being paid by tax payers???
"The religious left," is the religion of socialism with some of the trappings and language of Christianity. The only time Christ compelled or used force was when he ran the money changers out of The Temple.
The basic principle behind the entitlement state is that a person’s need entitles him to other people’s wealth. It’s that you have a duty to spend some irreplaceable part of your life laboring, not for the sake of your own life and happiness, but for the sake of others. If you are productive and self-supporting, then according to the entitlement state, you are in hock to those who aren’t. In Marx’s memorable phrase: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” The problem with the entitlement state is not simply that it is bankrupting this country–the problem is that it is morally bankrupt.
Liberal 'Christians': Harmless as serpents, wise as doves.
When Jesus talked about holding the rich "accountable," He was talking about the love of money interfering with a rich man's ability to focus on God. To my knowledge, the New Testament does not report Jesus as requiring anything other than piety from the rich (as well as from the poor). There are, on the other hand, several accounts of Jesus Christ socializing with the rich. When it came to the poor and the downtrodden, Jesus said don't look down on them just because of their social position (but if they are of poor character or are apostate, that's different). Jesus' message, and Christianity, are for everyone, rich and poor alike. To suggest otherwise is to interfere with Christ's plan for the redemption of mankind and is therefore heretical and must be rejected.
The OWS and there demands are interesting. On closer examination it reads
like, smells like, feels like the same extreme far left dibble we get from the
Democratic agenda. Bring me your ' down trodden masses', and I will "use them" and
toss them aside. The parasites bringing down the host bring themselves down!
What a glorious victory! We all die!
I especially love it when they stoop so low and have to bring the religious lefties out of their closet, to add cred to the cause. Which begs the question, whats the difference
between the religious left and the secular humanist lefties—nada! One thinks their
going to Heaven the others know their not!
Which also leads us to the latest media outrage about the Dallas pastor and
what defines a cult? In regards to "this context" a cult takes from Christianity
(i.e.cherry picks) what it wants to piggy back off of and runs with it, i.e. Jim Wallace
about the poor,etc. ( Historical note at this point, Christianity has always since its
beginning, helped the poor.) The same Jesus said the poor will always be
with us. The true followers of Jesus help the poor and many other things
as evidence of their salvation not to gain salvation!
Don't be fooled by this rent a mob, hodge podge of malcontents, they are
idealogical hard cores "common people"?, who are driven by the same
mentality that drove the left in the 60's, minus the "rhetoric" of the old left.
And please, enough of comparing them with the Tea Party (a comparison
dreamed by the leftist media, their fellow travelers).
And the big winner, is none other than Barack Almighty. His failure for
screwing up the economy has been taken off the front page, for now.
How does that happen?
Chow choir members….
I'm having this stupid argument about "whose side would Jesus be on?" with my cousin, who lives in Texas. I remind her that Jesus probably wouldn't be too thrilled with her side's pro-abortion position, but she just–doesn't seem to hear me.
liberals….
God's Commandments,in part: "Do not Steal. Do not covet your neighbors possessions." Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says, "I have not come to do away with the Law but to fufill it. No part pf the Law will change until the end of all things." Jesus also says that he who would disobey even one of the Commandments and encourages others to do likewise will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus would be very disappointed with the Wall St. protestors and the clergy who side with them. In the book of Acts and several of St. Pauls Letters, there is the theme that if a member of the community does not work for his keep, then he cannot eat.
As a corollary to that, it doesn't seem as if the accumulation of wealth is a violation of the Ten Commandments unless it involves some sort of covetousness. So the Christian approval of the OWS folks requires some clarification. As does the OWS business itself. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's." I don't see that anything that is going on with the OWS protest involves the need for a religious overlay.
Except that Jesus might come to the Wall Street protests and tell the protesters "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." That might involve some religious involvement.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Is that what they're protesting? That they want to be Communists or Socialists? Tell them to go to Europe and leave the Capitalists alone