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The trouble with "Christian Fundamentalists" |
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is that their "fundamentals" aren't at all what was important or fundamental to Jesus Christ ! |
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| Pages : 1, [ 2 ] of Fundamentalism | |
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The "Great Commission" :"Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. the one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned." There are many "Christians" who think they are obeying the Great Commission when all they are doing is promoting their misinformed version of Christianity. The sad fact is that , despite what they imagine, many so-called promoters of "Christianity" don't even know or believe what Jesus actually taught themselves, and so are in no position to teach it to anyone else! When Jesus spoke of "believing", he didn't mean a mere wag of the tongue, nor a profession of faith in a number of doctrines. He meant a complete reorganization of one's scale of values in life to better match HIS scale of values, and a daily life that reflects that change all day, every day:  Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' And Jesus spelled out what kind of deeds he was talking about in this wonderful sermon: And Jesus issued this challenge to those who would follow him: 
Then I, the King, shall say to
those at my right, "Come, blessed of my Father, into
the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.
For I was hungry and you fed me;
I was thirsty and you gave me water;
I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes;
naked and you clothed me; sick and in prison,
and you visited me."Then these righteous ones will reply, "Sir, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you anything to drink? Or a stranger, and help you? Or naked, and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?" And I, the King, will tell them, "When you did it to these my brothers you were doing it to me!" Then I will turn to those on my left and say, "Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry and you wouldn't feed me; thirsty, and you wouldn't give me anything to drink; a stranger, and you refused me hospitality; naked, and you wouldn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me." Then they will reply, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?" And I will answer, "When you refused to help the least of these my brothers, you were refusing help to me." And they shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into everlasting life."
And Jesus issued this challenge to those who would follow him: Many Christians imagine that this Scripture is realized when the non-Christian "world" resents their attempts to invoke secular power to impose their view of Christianity on others. But the "world" which hated Jesus was not the secular world at all. In fact, when the leading representative of the secular world, the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, was urged to hate and prosecute Jesus, he wanted no part of it, declaring in { John 19:4,6 } : "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him. . "When the chief priests and the (temple) police saw him, they shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him." It's obvious from passages such as this that the real enemies of Jesus, were neither the Roman authorities, nor the Jewish people, but the priests and bible scholars and Pharisees, (the "Religious Right" of that time and place). When Jesus was preparing those who would take up his work for the persecution they were going to encounter, it wasn't for persecution at the hands of the secular "world", but at the hands of the religious world: For years I imagined that I was "carrying my cross daily" by accepting the little aches, pains and annoyances that plague every human being. But after reading the words of Jesus for the hundredth time or so, I came to realize that I had never actually understood or taught those words faithfully at all. When, on the other hand, I started telling people that Jesus was serious about it being impossible for the rich man to be saved, suddenly rich and even middle class people didn't think very highly about me any more. They didn't want to hear that Jesus warned that it is impossible to love both God and Mammon. They cringed at the thought that God wouldn't let them enjoy their multitude of shirts (and a multitude of other things) in peace and tranquility. They much preferred the kind of preachers who tell them that their wealth is "a blessing" from a loving god. ( The other side of that coin is that God doesn't love the billions of people who have to spend the entirety of their earthly lives in desperate misery! ) See much more on the important matter of "Blessings from God". When, like Jesus, I identified with the downtrodden multitudes around the world, instead of with my "successful" fellow Americans, I came to know first hand why Jesus predicted: { in Matthew 10:25-28 }
. . . and why Jesus said : in John, ch. 7, v. 7: "The world . . . hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil." If Jesus of Nazareth preached what his so-called followers do today, then why on earth would people react as { Luke 4: 29 } says they did : "When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff." ( Eventually, of course, they did corner and kill him.) If the vast majority of paid clergy continue to ignore the challenge of this message, I am going to be forced to conclude that paying the living expenses of a professional clergy has evolved into a means of bribing them to be quiet about the heart and soul of Christ's teaching - which is what the rest of my web site is all about --. If you have the courage to face the kind of fury that the teaching of Jesus generated in the religious establishment of his day, and which Jesus predicted that his followers would experience in our day, then you are I invited to explore and teaching at greater depth at : www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/GodvsGreed.
Have you ever wondered what has happened to Christianity since the first generations of those who had known Christ best, when those who believed in Christ's teaching were willing to die horrible deaths rather than deny that teaching? Why have so few felt the need to pay that price since? Historians tell us that one of the crucial turning points in Christian history was "the conversion" of the emperor Constantine to Christianity. before that conversion, those who wanted to follow Christ couldn't work with secular rulers, because such rulers wanted to force them to worship false gods. after that conversion, Christians were made to believe that the ruler was "one of them", and there was no longer any need to choose between the true God and Caesar's false gods.
"Oh, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them." - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin |
"That is a terrific passage, but if we are to deal with it fairly we
need to understand that today's poor in the United States are the
victims and perpetrators of illegitimacy and abandonment, family
non-formation and malformation, alienation and loneliness and
much else - but they are not suffering thirst, hunger, or nakedness,
except by choice, insanity, or parental abuse. When we lack
discernment, we give money to panhandlers that most often go for
drugs or alcohol. Christ does not include in his list of commended
charitable acts, 'When I was strung out you gave me dope.'
What are we truly doing to homeless men when we enable
them (through governmental programs, undiscerning nonprofits, or
tender-hearted but weak-minded personal charity) to stay in
addiction? Here's the reality: When I was an addict you gave me
money for drugs; when I abandoned the woman and children who
depended on me you gave me a place to stay and helped me to
justify my action; when I was in prison you helped me get out
quickly so I could commit more crimes.
Instead of being a thorn in the side of the secular authorities, i.e. the voice of conscience, the leaders of the church now gave their blessing to those authorities, without requiring obedience to Christ's teaching as the condition of that blessing. Far from being a counterforce to secular rulers, the church's leaders crowned those secular leaders in their houses of worship, which the authorities now helped them build. They themselves became "princes of the church", and they did everything in their considerable power to make sure that their Christian followers behaved as dutiful subjects of their earthly rulers. There was no longer any need to suffer or die for one's faith at the hands of secular authorities, because those authorities now enjoyed God's blessing, thanks to the "princes of the church".
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Bible scholars now believe that Mark was the first to publish the story of Jesus' life, some 20 years after Jesus' death, and he (like the evangelist, John) wrote nothing whatever about Jesus' birth or childhood. Apparently unhappy with Mark's Gospel, Matthew, Luke and John each decided to try to improve on Mark by writing their own versions of Jesus' life and teaching. Although Matthew and Luke wrote as though they were both witnesses of Jesus birth, you have to wonder if they were writing about the same person. Luke appears to know nothing about any kings coming from the East, or King Herod becoming involved, or a multitude of Jewish male children being butchered, or the holy family fleeing to Egypt, where Jesus supposedly spent the first years of his life. Wouldn't you think that events as dramatic as these would be included in any story of the first chapter of Jesus' life? Matthew, on the other hand, shows no knowledge of the shepherds, or the appearance of a multitude of angels to announce and celebrate the birth of Jesus. And directly contradicting Matthew's claim that immediately after his birth Jesus was carried off in panic to the foreign country of Egypt to the south where he stayed for several years, Luke writes all about the public ritual appearances at the temple, and says that "When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth (North of Bethlehem, and far from Egypt to the South, and from which) "every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover." (Luke 2:39-41)
Sadly, Christian versions of the Hebrew bible which use the word "virgin" in this verse may be intentionally mistranslating the Hebrew word "almah", which is not the word for "virgin", but the word for "young girl" or "recently married young woman", because the accurate translation would expose Matthew's erroneous assertion that "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet (Isaiah) : "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." ( An additional problem with this text, which Matthew claims is a profecy about Jesus, is that there is no evidence of anyone ever calling Jesus 'Emmanuel'.) |
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America's Christian Fundamentalism by Adherents to America's Christian fundamentalism are concentrated in the Bible-belt which encompasses what was once known as the lands below the Mason-Dixon line along with the border states. In other words, America's Bible-belt encompasses those areas where slavery was deeply entrenched in the years before the American Civil War and the surrounding areas. Many slave states seceded from the Union and engaged in a bloody civil war against their fellow Americans to maintain the institution of slavery. Let me repeat that last idea in a slightly different fashion: slave holders who dominated the governments of the slave states preferred to destroy the United States, to devastate the lives of millions of Americans, slave and non-slave, combatants and non-combatants, alike, and to kill, maim,and cripple their fellow Americans rather than to give up their institution of slavery. These same slave-owning men who attempted to dissolve the Union were considered by many of their contemporaries to be good, God-fearing men and leaders of the community. In those slave states, the Christian religion took on a very unique character. None of the slave states were formed as beacons of religious freedom. Maryland was given to Lord Baltimore as a haven for Britain's Catholic population and was as religiously intolerant of non-Catholics as the mother country was intolerant of Catholics. Virginia and the Carolinas were populated by for-profit corporations engaged in the business of transporting people from the Old World to the New. Georgia was a penal colony. Florida was a Spanish colony, while Louisiana was a French colony. Money ruled and the clergy adapted to the rule of gold. Slave owners and other profiteers from human misery did not want a religion that made them feel guilty about the source of their riches. So the rich, who were mostly rich because they owned slaves and profited from the misery of others, choose not to hire ministers and preachers who taught a message which made them feel guilty. The ministers who were hired were the ministers who preached the message which the rich were willing to hear - a message which justified the rights of the slave owner to manage his property the way he saw fit, a message which demanded obedience from the slaves, and a message which promoted the subjugation of women, Native Americans, and other peoples. As the institution of slavery spread, so did this new American religion. As the institution of slavery deepened, so did the church's insistence on the justice of the rich to the fruits of their slaves' labor. America's Christian fundamentalism, then, is descended from the religion of slave owners, slave traders, and slaves. Long before the American Civil War, an ostensibly Christian religion arose which completely neglected the hundreds of biblical injunctions for social justice. In place of a message of social justice, this new Christian religion demanded only one thing: from the elite, money; from the rest of society, obedience to the established order. To assist the church in supporting the established power, the church demanded two things from the faithful. First, the true believer must have an unquestioning faith in the religious teachings of their church, usually expressed as an unquestioning adherence to the Bible as most helpfully interpreted by that Christian church, even if that unquestioning faith required one to suspend his willingness to reason and his ability to accept reality and facts. Second, morality was solely defined as (women's) sexual fidelity, augmented at times with an injunction for men to support their wives and children, in return, of course, for their unconditional obedience. As always, the rich and powerful were exempt from both of these rules. Gone were the strictures against greed. Gone were the obligations of the elites to ameliorate the plight of the least fortunate among them. Gone were God's demands that humanity be wise stewards of God's creation. Gone were the biblical injunctions to bring justice into the world, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to tend to the sick, to assist the widow, to protect the orphan, and to shelter the homeless. Gone were the stories of God's wrath at Pharaoh for his refusal to let God's people go. Gone were the stories of God liberating the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Gone were the stories of God's mercy and God's love for all of her creation. Using a theology of Social Darwinism in which it was claimed that the rich and powerful are rich and powerful as a sign of God's blessing, the rich and powerful were seen as virtuous and deserving the riches which were showered upon them by a just God. In reality, nineteenth-century slave owners and robber barons became rich because they were corrupt and ruthless. They had the money to silence their critics, as well as, to reward their flatterers. The defeat of southern troops in the Civil War was not enough to convince those who rebelled against both the Union and God that God did not smile on their theology. Rather, the system was updated to find legal and quasi-legal methods of subjugating the former slaves. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized the Black community. Black men and women, particularly those who became relatively successful, financially, or who became leaders in the Black community, were lynched with impunity. No white man in the former Confederacy was convicted of raping a black woman for the next hundred years. Well into the 1960s, white social activists working on behalf of people of color, as well as Black people, were murdered in the deep South. When northerners came south to work on behalf of people of color, doing simple things like registering them to vote, southerners, including those good God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians, virulently denounced the interlopers as "outside agitators." Yet, in the 1960s, under the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, a true friend to people of color and to women, a series of laws were passed and new social programs were instituted which helped to bring women of all colors and people of color into the mainstream of American life. White men, especially rich, white men saw their privileges eroding and struck back, first against civil rights activists and feminists, then against the broader social justice / social responsibility movement. The rich and powerful found allies in only a few sections of the American people among racists, male chauvinists, the religiously intolerant, the xenophobic, and, of course, the Bible-belt Christians who had long been conditioned to respond to the influence of money, to ignore issues of social justice, and to define morality in terms of sexuality. Contrary to all of the teachings of their ostensible spiritual leader, Jesus of Nazareth, in their lust for temporal power, fundamentalist Christians allied themselves with the rich and powerful. In doing so, they forfeited every legitimate claim they ever possessed to moral authority." |
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[ from a course on Religion in America, taught be Dr. Terry L. Matthews ] Adjunct Assistant Professor of Religion at Duke University in 1995 from http://www.wfu.edu:/~matthetl/perspectives/twentyone.html The term "fundamentalism" came into existence at the Niagara Falls Bible Conference which was convened in an effort to define those things that were fundamental to belief. The term was also used to describe "The Fundamentals," a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 by Milton and Lyman Steward. These two wealthy brothers were concerned with the [so-called] moral and spiritual decline they believed was infecting Protestantism, and sought to restore the historic faith with a 12 volume call to arms that dealt with five subjects that latter became known as the five fundamentals of the faith: (1) Literal inerrancy of the autographs (the originals of each scriptural book); (2) the virgin birth and deity of Christ; (3) the substitutionary view of the atonement; (4) the bodily resurrection of Christ; (5) The imminent return of Christ. These twelve volumes were sent to "every pastor, evangelist, missionary, theological student, Sunday School Superintendent, YMCA and YWCA secretary." In all, some 3 million copies were mailed out. These ideas had been circulating for some time. The first, verbal inerrancy, had been finely honed by A. A. Hodge, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, and B.B. Warfield, a professor at Western Theological Seminary. They had argued that the scriptures were inerrant, but limited that inerrancy to the original, and - might we add - now lost manuscripts of the Bible. These autographs, it was held, were "absolutely errorless" as they originally came from God, but Hodge and Warfield allowed that some "apparent inconsistencies and collisions with other sources of information are to be expected in imperfect copies of ancient writings. . . ". Obviously, the idea of revelation is basic to Christianity, and particularly for Protestants for whom Scripture is the sole source of authority. But this insistence on inerrancy did not take the measure of the problem. In arguing the point as did Hodge and Warfield, one could claim inerrancy without any fear of empirical refutation since these original autographs do not exist. More importantly, such a claim is of no practical value for the Christian because if the manuscripts of Scripture we do have are corrupt, then it matters little whether the originals were pure. We must make do with an text that may not be fully trustworthy. This illustrates a problem that appeared time and again in fundamentalism: the tendency to draw a line on an important point of Christian doctrine, but to draw that line in the wrong place. Unfortunately, any discussion of fundamentalism must deal with any number of misconceptions. It is often assumed that the Fundamentalist movement was Protestant, filled with unsophisticated rural country bumpkins, and appealed to the uneducated. But the reality, at least in the early years, was different. Belief in the fundamentals was not exclusively Protestant. A number of these beliefs were also held by Roman Catholics. In addition, the movement was primarily urban in its early form. The principle centers of strength for fundamentalism were Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Denver, and Los Angeles. This movement was also closely associated with such prominent schools as Princeton Theological Seminary. In essence, three views of how the church might address itself to a changed world had developed in the post-Civil War America. The first was that of the Modernists "who sought to adjust the inherited faith to the new intellectual climate" (Hudson). The Second was that of the fundamentalists who rejected science, and embraced the world view of the Scriptures, insisting the old ways must be preserved unimpaired. The third view was that of Henry Ward Beecher and other Christocentric liberals who argued on behalf of the existence of two revelations from God - one in Scripture and one in the natural world - and argued these revelations are compatible with one another on some deeper level. Beecher pointed out that the church had produced the Bible, rather than the Bible producing the Church, and since it was a product of human beings, its understanding of reality might be contingent. Fundamentalists also differed with their peers on the issue of social reform. Where many modernists and Christocentric liberals were drawn to the social gospel, fundamentalism - heavily influenced by dispensationalism had their own scheme of social reform. Reform of the sort advocated by proponents of the Social Gospel was a waste of time. The world would soon end, and as a result, all the energies of the church should be focused on converting individuals, and getting them saved. These ideas had wide appeal in the country at large. But where the fundamentalists encountered difficulties was with the persons who served as spokespersons for their movement. For one thing, no one in the Fundamentalist movement was quite as gifted as Beecher, although J. Gresham Machen came close. Machen was an affluent, well-mannered academic. He studied at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and spent a year abroad at the Universities of Marburg and Gottingen. Much his career was spent teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary. His work was well-reasoned, and he attacked Liberalism at its weakest point. According to Machen: "the root of the movement (liberalism) is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism - that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity. . . our principle concern. . . is to show that the liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene. In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what he started out to defend. . . The plain fact is that liberalism, whether it be true of false, is no mere 'heresy' - no mere divergence at isolated points from Christian teaching. On the contrary it proceeds from a totally different root, and it constitutes, in essentials a unitary system of its own. . . It differs from Christianity in its view of God, of man, of the seat of authority and the way of salvation. . . Christianity is being attacked from within by a movement which is anti-Christian to the core." But other spokespersons for the Fundamentalist movement were perfect targets for caricature. One such individual was Frank Norris of Fort Worth, Texas. Norris was a showman. He would announce sermon titles like: "The Ten Biggest Devils in Fort Worth With Names Given," and draw large crowds. He also was of questionable morals. His church burned down under suspicious circumstances, and when a friend of the Catholic mayor of Fort Worth came to see him about a sermon in which the mayor had been salvaged, Norris shot the friend with one of the two pistols he kept in his desk drawers to kill "critters." Billy Sunday was yet another spokesperson who helped discredit fundamentalism. A "professional baseball player turned evangelist," his antics in the pulpit did much to undermine the public's respect for the new movement. "He had no use for the 'bastard theory of evolution' or for the 'deodorized and disinfected sermons' of 'hireling ministers' who had given up the old faith to please their liberal parishioners." Sunday preached a "masculine "muscular" Christianity which equated salvation with decency and manliness. He proclaimed, "the man who has real, rich, red blood in his veins instead of pink tea and ice water," was both a real Christian and a real American. Sunday believed Christianity and patriotism were one and the same, just as "hell and traitors are synonymous." He and those who sympathized with him helped make popular the slogan "Back to Christ, the Bible, and the Constitution." But perhaps the one person who did the most to do in fundamentalism was William Jennings Bryan, who fancied himself as one of fundamentalism's greatest defenders. In half the states, fundamentalists had succeeded in pushing bills through to outlaw the teaching of Darwinian biology or the view of creation put forward by Darwin. It was against the law to teach any other view than that put forward in the Bible. To challenge these laws a test case was planned, and John Scopes became the defendant in what came to be known as the "Monkey Trial." Clarence Darrow, a famous lawyer, volunteered to defend him. The trial should have focused on the right of the public to insist on what and what not will be taught in the public schools. Instead, the debate came to be focused on whether the Bible was literally true, the position that William Jennings Bryan championed. As a result of Bryan's decision to debate the Bible instead of the public's right to decide curriculum, popular interest was as great in that day as it has been in the recent trial in Los Angeles. It was the topic of conversation in such far-flung locales as Italy, Russia, India, and China. The atmosphere outside the courthouse was a carnival. Hot dog vendors, sold food and drink the multitudes who came to hear Bryan spare with Darrow, and copies of Darwin's book were available under the counter in brown-cover. Much as the hair styles of Marcia Clarke became the talk of the nation, when the Judge's daughter wore rolled stocking to court one day, it became a feature news story, and other women were encouraged to "roll' em girls, roll' em." Darrow and H.L. Menken, the most famous journalist of his day, helped to spread the image of the fundamentalists as hicks. And Bryan was their willing accomplice. Bryan has been referred to by George Marsden as the "George Custer of fundamentalism." He allowed himself to be tricked into taking the stand to defend God and the Bible. Darrow had a field day, mercilessly laying bare the flaws in Bryan's understanding of Scripture. In fact, it is widely assumed that Darrow and Scopes won the trial, but such was not the case. Bryan and the Fundamentalists won technically. Scopes lost and was fined $100. But the truth was in winning, Bryan lost the sympathy of many, because he managed to make belief in the inerrancy of Scripture seem so foolish, most people were afraid that they would appear as foolish as Bryan if they claimed to believe in it. Indeed, many Christians became indifferent to the issues Bryan and the Fundamentalists raised. Most became convinced that it was more important to do something about social problems than to argue about whether it had rained for forty days and nights in the days of Noah. Fundamentalism would not soon recover from this "victory." Some Consequences But that was not the end of it. As Robert Handy notes, "the prestige of Protestantism was further lessened by the bitter controversy that erupted between fundamentalists and modernists." Fundamentalists were determined to oust liberals from places of influence within the major denominations, and conducted witch-hunts not unlike those Senator McCarthy would use a generation later on a national level. The struggle between fundamentalists and moderates was fought in the years after World War I, and this total war evidently inspired the ecclesiastical combatants because it became an all out struggle in which the issues in question were to be settled once and for all. This campaign led to a bitter ten-year conflict that no one won. Fundamentalists enjoyed some success in their effort to purge those who did not profess faith in the five fundamentals, but they were unable to seize control of any of the major denominations. But the most significant aspect of this crusade was the resulting animosity and bitterness served to discredit religious institutions in general. Another consequence of the Scopes Trial and its aftermath was a growing awareness of Protestantism's inability to shape and inform American opinion. The pyrrhic victory in Dayton, Tennessee was matched by similar victories on behalf of Prohibition and the passage of Blue Laws to protect the Sabbath. But these victories did little to stop the emergence of new attitudes towards alcohol and recreation despite strenuous campaigns to reverse these trends. As the public came to see the clergy - not as intellectuals and leaders - but as boobs like Bryan and the assorted hypocrites who peopled such novels as Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, respect declined, and the best and brightest ceased to be willing to enter the ministry. Intellectuals and the more thoughtful began to leave the church in droves. The loss of prestige was such that by 1925 H.L. Mencken could taunt his religious opponents, claiming: "Every day a new Catholic church goes up; every day another Methodist or Presbyterian church is turned into a garage." "Protestantism in this great Christian realm is down with a wasting disease." Even Protestants had to swallow their pride and acknowledge that he was right, and admit the "sad disintegration of American Protestantism." For additional reading, see Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992. "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 "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: 'He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.' " - 2 Corinthians 8:13-15 ' 'What should we do then?' the crowd asked. John answered, 'The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.' " - Luke 3:10-11 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?" - Matthew 6:25 "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." - 1 Timothy 6:6-10 "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter." - James 5:1-5 The quotes of the early church fathers are mainly from Justo L. Gonzalez's invaluable book, Faith & Wealth: A history of early Christian ideas on the origin, significance and use of money : "Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in want, but thou shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt not say that they are thine own." - The Didache "Therefore all things are common; and let not the rich claim more than the rest. To say therefore 'I have more than I need, why not enjoy?' is neither human nor proper."; - St. Clement of Alexandria "From those things that God gave you, take that which you need, but the rest, which to you are superfluous, are necessary to others. The superfluous goods of the rich are necessary to the poor, and when you possess the superfluous you possess what is not yours."; - St. Augustine "If one who takes the clothing off another is a thief, why give any other name to one who can clothe the naked and refuses to do so? The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor; the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod."; - St. Basil "The rich have that which belongs to the poor, even though they may have received it as an inheritance, no matter whence their money comes."; - St. John Chrysostom "When you give to the poor, you give not of your own, but simply return what is his, for you have usurped that which is common and has been given for the common use of all. The land belongs to all, not to the rich; and yet those who are deprived of its use are many more than those who enjoy it."; - St. Ambrose - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In the eyes of Pastor Ted Haggard, the founder of "New Life", one of America's most powerful megachurches, and the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, as quoted by Jeff Sharlet in "Inside America's most powerful megachurch," in the May 2005 Harper's (speaking of emerging evangelicals in the Ukraine) : "They're pro-free markets, they're pro-private property. . . That's what evangelical stands for." "I teach a strong ideology of the use of power," he says, "of military might, as a public service." He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because "the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood." [ from http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html ] = 06/01/05 update "Christian thinking on wealth and property has "evolved" over the last 1,500 years. It is rather rare, these days, to hear a Christian assert or even defend the idea that "superfluity is theft" - yet that was the consistent and universal teaching of the church during the first four centuries of Christianity. This evolution or sophistication of Christian teaching is, likely, a concession - the gradual, frog-in-a-kettle process of accommodation to this world. Yet despite that, again, I'm willing to entertain the idea that this evolution is also in some ways reasonable and justifiable. But it is hypocrisy and nonsense when contemporary Christians who have sold off and abandoned every vestige of the traditional Christian understanding of wealth turn around and insist that the Christian understanding of sexuality is fixed, immutable and eternal. These people strain at the gnat of same-sex love while swallowing the camel of credit card usury. They are so obsessed with their mistaken belief that they live in the most promiscuous society of all time that they have failed to notice they live in the most affluent, the haughtiest, proudest and least concerned with the poor." = 06/03/05 update Polling info about "Evangelicals" |
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