As all of the dramatic examples on the previous page clearly demonstrate, calling ourselves "Christian" is no guarantee that God's vision is alive and well in us, or in our churches. Many of us in America today don't consider ourselves "rich", ( because we know of people like Bill Gates who have so much more than we. ) But, with all of the treasures the kings, queens and even emperors of the past possessed, they were not as rich as we, because they could not buy many of the luxuries and conveniences that we enjoy. In comparison to all of the generations that have gone before us, and compared to most of the world's population even today, many Americans and Europeans live and work in virtual palaces and travel between them in a style the fabulously wealthy of prior generations never even dreamed of.
Now, how many of our preachers are informing us of Christ's answers to life's MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, such as, "Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life?" "Go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me."? According to Matthew, ch. 19, "When the (well-to-do) young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich." and Jesus pointed out that "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say it again -- it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!"
What is likewise "almost impossible" is for preachers in prosperous countries to even preach this teaching of Jesus. They may mouth the words, but what would happen if they were to take them seriously? The congregation would not follow the rich young's man example and leave. Most preachers know that THEY would be the one forced to leave, by those who pay the church's bills and control the church's purse strings, and its hiring and firing! And knowing that, "it is almost impossible" for preachers to take Jesus' important teaching on these matters seriously and to preach the others the urgency of doing so.
Instead, millions of "Christians" have been led to believe that there is A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY FOR THEM TO BE SAVED. They have been told not to be concerned about having infinitely more wealth than the poor. That isn't the impediment to salvation that Jesus said it was, because any Fundamentalist preacher will tell you that you are saved "by faith alone". "Works", they assure you, "don't matter". God is so good that, instead of holding us to the keeping of his commandments, and punishing those who fail to do so, God has punished the one person who was totally innocent, Jesus. And, in doing so, God is sparing all of the rest of us who are guilty. ( These so-called Christian preachers even trot out a few ambiguous texts -- usually from Paul, NOT from Jesus -- to supposedly prove that most of what Jesus considered crucial, can safely be IGNORED! ) They succeed in making you reluctant to question a doctrine that makes God out to be SO GENEROUS ( while getting the well-to-do very nicely through the eye of the needle . )
"Where there is NO VISION,
the people PERISH."
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God help Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and the long line of other fundamentalist charlatans, when they have to answer to God for all of the innocent people whom these deceitful salesmen have led astray ! Click here, if you would like to pause here to read much more about
" the Blind leading the Blind".
When Jesus came into a world that wasn't working as the Creator had intended, this is the way he described the job that God had sent him to accomplish:
{ Luke 4:18 }
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;
he has appointed me
to preach Good News to the poor;
he has sent me
to heal the brokenhearted and
to announce that the blind shall see,
that captives shall be released
and the downtrodden shall be freed
(liberated) from their oppressors."
Of all of Jesus' titles, "Lord", "Master", "Messiah", "Redeemer", etc.,
"Savior" is the most popular among his followers.
But, for many the salvation in question is something
promised in this life, but only actually delivered in the
next life. Do you believe, as Governor Winthrop
did, that Jesus intended the poor, the blind, the
brokenhearted, the captives and the downtrodden
to spend the whole of their earthly lives in misery,
awaiting a liberation that will only come in another
life? If you do, then take another look at one
of his most powerful sermons, where Jesus
makes it abundantly clear that what God expects
of us is that we join Christ in liberating our suffering
neighbors in this life.
{Matthew 25:31-46 }
"When I, the Messiah, shall come in glory, and all the angels with me, then I
shall sit upon my throne of glory. And all the nations shall be gathered
before me. And I will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats, and place the sheep at my right hand, and the goats at
my left.
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."
We don't know why God -- who made the world all by himself -- has not chosen to make it right all by himself, or why Jesus has left so many poor, downtrodden and captive people still waiting to be delivered from their oppressors. What we do know is that-- there would be a lot less misery in this world, if we Christians paid more attention to the vision of brotherhood that is revealed in both the original and the later covenants, a vision that explains where much of that misery comes from and what WE should be doing to alleviate it.
Some of our Wiser Presidents have said:
Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 :
"I hope we shall take warning from the example of England
and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws our country."
and on another occasion :
"This country is headed toward a single and splendid
government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and
monied incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the
end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding
over the plundered plowman and the beggar"
and on another occasion :
"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more
dangerous than standing armies"
and on another occasion :
"Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours
his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to . . . the general prey of the rich on the poor"
Abraham Lincoln added :
"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to
fleece the people." (in the Illinois Legislature, January 1837)
Theodore Roosevelt added :
"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done." -
Franklin D Roosevelt added :
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe, if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."
Dwight D. Eisenhower added :
" Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the
sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
William Jefferson Clinton added:
"We have to make a world where there are far fewer
terrorists, where there are fewer potential terrorists and more partners. . . And that responsibility falls primarily upon the wealthy nations to spread the benefits and shrink the burdens. . .
It will cost money, but it's a lot cheaper than going to war. We will spend far more to pick up the pieces of destroyed lands and shattered lives if we do not do these things. . . We will never fight a conflict for less than a billion dollars a month.. But for 12 billion dollars a year, they could pay America's share of these initiatives of trade and against poverty and disease and have money left over".
The UN calculates that the whole of the world population's basic needs for food, drinking water, education and medical care could be covered by a levy of less than 4 % on the accumulated wealth of the 225 largest fortunes. To satisfy all the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only less than the United States and the European Union spend each year on perfume.
I am absolutely confident that we have the knowledge and the
means to make the 21st century the most peaceful, prosperous, interesting time in all human history. The question is whether we have the wisdom and the will." ( BBC's Richard Dimbleby Lecture 2001)
"The world's" best point the way
On the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prize, 100 Nobel laureates warned that our security hangs on environmental and social reform :
Toronto Globe and Mail
Friday, December 7, 2001 � Print Edition, Page A21
" The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.
It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If then we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor. The only hope for the future lies in co-operative international action, legitimized by democracy.
It is time to turn our backs on the unilateral search for security, in which we seek to shelter behind walls. Instead, we must persist in the quest for united action to counter both global warming and a weaponized world. These twin goals will constitute vital components of stability as we move toward the wider degree of social justice that alone gives hope of peace.
Some of the needed legal instruments are already at hand, such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Convention on Climate Change, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As concerned citizens, we urge all governments to commit to these goals that constitute steps on the way to replacement of war by law.
To survive in the world we have transformed, we must learn to think in a new way. As never before, the future of each depends on the good of all."
THE 100 Nobel laureates SIGNATORIES :
" In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. . . The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. :
"When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my own country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable." -- Thomas Merton ( Strength To Love, 1963 )
"We can have democracy in this country or we can have great
wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -- Louis Brandeis
As the Republican political writer and commentator, Kevin Phillips has pointed out, "The federal inheritance tax that conservatives are trying to scuttle, principally on behalf of the 300,000 families with assets greater than $5 million, was imposed by wartime Republican presidents Lincoln and McKinley and urged for peacetime by Theodore Roosevelt." . . . In 1953, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower declined to support GOP congressional legislation to reduce the top federal income tax rate of 91 percent, and on leaving office in 1961, he warned against the rise of the military--industrial complex."
"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one
of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country
has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media
all objectivity -- much less dissent." -- Gore Vidal
"Who are the oppressors? The few: the king, the capitalist and a
handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the
oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth, the workers..."
-- Mark Twain
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor." -- South-African Episcopal Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That is the essence of inhumanity."
George Bernard Shaw :
"Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good, but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell." -- Clint W. Murchison , Texas financier
Before you are impressed by the fact that the top 5% of Americans as a group pays 50% of our nation's income taxes, stop to reflect on the fact that the same top 5% are reaping 80% of the nation's income! The LAST THING the wealthiest country on earth needs to do is to give tax money back to those who already have more than they will ever need, instead of using that money to relieve the suffering of the needy !
Even among the RICH there are some who recognize the wisdom of taxing those with great wealth in order to help those most unfairly treated in our society. If you are not already aware of this piece, written by one of the mighty "robber barrons" , you will be amazed by Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth".
Please take a detour now to a site where you can add your name to a very important petition, and then plan to come BACK to this site afterwards, but take a few minutes now to review AND SIGN
This web site is not striving to promote any church,
denomination or person, but only Christ, and
what he himself identified as the heart of his teaching,
i.e. that we must strive to love God above all,
that we strive to love our neighbors as much as we
love ourselves, and that we particularly try to
love and rescue those of our neighbors who are most
in need of help and love.
In order to make the site more digestible, it has been
broken up into separate "chapters," so be
sure to bookmark the site and plan to return, as there
is much more to this story than has yet met your eye.
Chapter-B covers the very important contributions of the great prophets of the
"Original" Covenant to the Judeo-Christian vision.
Chapter-C spells out the wonderful vision
of love, justice and compassion that Christ lived
and died for. Here's the way it was summarized in { John's 1st Letter, 3: 16-19} :
"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth"
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