World News Korner

Author, and religious scholar, Reza Aslan says that "Self-styled 'defenders of Christianity,' like Palin and Limbaugh, peddle a profoundly unhistorical view of Jesus."

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are starting to sour on the new pope.

In response to Pope Francis’ first Apostolic Exhortation, in which the pontiff denounced “trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” these two paragons of the far right – both of whom regularly invoke the teachings of Jesus to bolster their own political views – have suddenly turned their backs on the man whose actual job description is to speak for Jesus.

Sarah Palin complained that Pope Francis sounded “kind of liberal” in his statements decrying the growing global income equality between the rich and the poor (she has since apologized).

Rush Limbaugh went one step further. “This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope,” he harrumphed into his giant microphone.

Limbaugh, in his trademarked conspiratorial style, speculated that the pope’s tirade against “widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion” must have been forced upon him by somebody else. “Somebody has either written this for [the pope] or gotten to him,” he said.

Limbaugh is right. Somebody did get to Pope Francis. It was Jesus.

Self-styled “defenders of Christianity,” like Palin and Limbaugh, peddle a profoundly unhistorical view of Jesus. Indeed, if you listened to those on the far right you would think that all Jesus ever spoke about was guns and gays.

Aslan then goes onto point out just how different the Jesus of the Bible is from the conservative version that is bandied about by the Right Wing.

While modern Christianity has tried to spiritualize this message of Jesus, transforming his revolutionary social teachings into abstract ethical principles, it is impossible to overlook the unflinching condemnation of the wealthy and powerful that permeate Jesus’ teachings.

“How hard it will be for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23).

As one can imagine, such a radical vision of the world would have been both profoundly appealing for those at the bottom rungs of Jesus’ society, and incredibly threatening for those at the top. The fact is not much has changed in two thousand years, as Palin and Limbaugh have proven.

Yet if these “culture warriors” who so often claim to speak for Jesus actually understood what Jesus stood for, they would not be so eager to claim his ideas for their own. In fact, they’d probably call him a Marxist.

I do not always agree with Reza Aslan, but on this topic he is quite correct. And the truly pitiful thing is how Christianity, on its face a religion of acceptance and social justice, was so easily hijacked by those who used it as an excuse to amass great wealth and power and then use it to subjugate those who they considered dangerous to their ambitions or unworthy of their charity.

And who does THAT remind you of?

Source