why do so many christians surrender SO MUCH to the powers that be?

my parents are evangelicals who believe that there will someday be a murderous, all-controlling government that enslaves human-kind and denies the power of the gospel….

…and of course they have no problems with american government over the last couple hundred years: genocide, broken treaties, slavery, whatever.

(and thank christ for james cone.)

The Golden Rule DOES have political implications but I would argue that it is not itself a political statement. The Sermon on the Mount was manifestly not intended as a constitution or a “bill of rights.” Jesus does not seem to have had any intention of founding a new state or a new political system, in fact some of His contemporaries were annoyed that he was not a political Messiah, a Messiah of revolution who would lead Israel out from the Roman yoke. What we can take away politically from the Sermon on the Mount is that to reform the state we need to reform ourselves, and then help other people to reform – as individuals, because that is the only way that change occurs, soul by soul. We don’t need revolution, we need evangelization.

Is supporting a political regime that kills your neighbors not a violation of the golden rule?

Doesn’t it violate the golden rule to support a regime that encourages the “well off” to feel good about themselves by making sure there are poor and suffering around, so the “well off” can always be reminded, by contrast of their own success?

In any case, the claim that Christianity reduces to reception of the sacraments and following the golden rule is a pretty big howler.

Christ’s teaching is a systematic attack on the idea that following the golden rule is enough.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself” is infinitely different from “do unto others as you would have them to unto you”

What about “love thy enemies”? What about the teaching — of that nutcase, Christ — that it does one no credit to give to others in expectation of a return?

It was going OK until 6:55, when he lets loose with one of the stupidest things ever said: “There are nine Supreme Court Justices, all of them white as far as I’m concerned. One may look black, but he’s white.”

Why’s that? He would also say it’s possible to look white (as a symbol of being an oppressor) and to not be white.

Why’s that, you ask? Because Cone was talking about Clarence Thomas, and no one who has the slightest familiarity with Thomas’s opinions would seriously say that Thomas has a “white” viewpoint. If anything, Thomas has a black nationalist view (not surprising considering that he once supported the Black Panthers). See Mark Tushnet’s essay, “Clarence Thomas’s Black Nationalism” (available online) (note: don’t even bother trying to come up with an ad hominem; Tushnet is a law prof at Harvard, and a committed leftist/socialist).

“Frankly, it is obvious that I do not have the time for that.”

Real classy

i’m glad to know catholics who are capable of thinking otherwise.

Me: “Metaphor is not truth.”

Ban me!