A Timely Quote from Honest Abe.

The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear.

Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.  Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed. — Abraham Lincoln


Some things, apparently, have not changed much in the last 150 years.

Regime Change

No matter who we voted for; no matter what political party is in power, when we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we are in effect praying for regime change. We are declaring ourselves to be aliens in the land where we are living… citizens of another Kingdom that always was, is and will be.

The Christian Wrong

It might surprise some to learn that a retired Baptist preacher has such sentiments, but I believe the Christian Right denies the very Scripture they purport to proclaim.  Those who identify with the Christian Right tend to believe that all undocumented aliens should be rounded up and deported. The Bible commands in very strong language that we treat aliens living amongst us as if they were native born (Lev 19:33-34).  


The Christian Right/Tea Party folks are opposed to increasing the minimum wage to a living wage. The Bible, on the other hand, condemns the practice of not paying hired hands fair wages and actually pronounces a curse on those who take advantage of poor laborers (Deu 24:14-15, Mal. 3:5 & James 5:1-6). Therefore, in light of Scripture, I think it is safe to conclude that the Christian Right is neither Christian nor right.

Time to Rethink How We Do Church?

There are over 2,000 verses in the Bible that deal with social justice issues; how God’s people ought to care about and for the “least of these” in our midst. A number of those verses contain prophesies of God’s wrath to be visited upon religious and secular leaders and their communities who do not adequately care for the poor and marginalized who live among them. (For a representative sample of those verses, click on "Scripture Verses" in the column to the right.)

How is it then that in “Christian” America, where our infant mortality rate rivals third world countries, where unemployment remains high, where everyday millions of children go to bed hungry, how is it that 99% of the average American church’s income is spent on itself? Maybe it’s time to rethink how we do church.

Lazy Jesus?

A conservative friend who purports to be a Christian, told me recently that poor people are lazy. Let’s test that theory with a syllogism:

Poor people are lazy.
Jesus, by His own admission, was so poor He was homeless (Luke 9:58).
Therefore, Jesus was lazy.

I don't think a true Christian wants to go there. Perhaps a new definition of poor is in order?

"The Righteous Care About Justice for the Poor"

Proverbs 29:7 – The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

The Hebrew word translated as “righteous” is tsaddı̂yq (pronounced tsad-deek'). It literally means just, justified or lawful (in this case, obedient to God’s law). The Hebrew word translated as “wicked” in this verse is râshâ‛ (pronounced raw-shaw'). Though râshâ‛ is translated as wicked in a number of the Old Testament passages, it is also often translated as “condemned” or “ungodly”.

As forceful as these words were when Solomon first wrote them, they are even more so when translated in the light of the New Testament. The righteous person who cares about justice for the poor is the one who has laid aside ego and picked up his cross to follow Jesus wherever he goes... even into the hood or the barrio. The person who has “no concern” for the poor is the râshâ‛, the ungodly one who is eternally condemned.

It amazes me that so many professing Christians in our state and national legislatures can ignore warnings like this in Scripture as they hurry to dismantle or severely cut programs that provide formula for hungry new born babies and adequate health care for permanently disabled veterans in order to pay for the tax cuts requested by their corporate sponsors.

Great Quote!

"Civil disobedience is, traditionally, the breaking of a civil law to obey a higher law, sometimes with the hope of changing the unjust civil law. ... But we should speak of such actions as divine obedience, rather than civil disobedience. The term 'disobedience' is not appropriate because any law that does not protect and enhance human life is no real law."
- Sister Anne Montgomery, R.S.C.J.

The Tea Party's America

A few months ago I stopped into a local fast food restaurant for lunch. It was after the lunch rush and there was only one woman working the counter and one cook in the back. The woman waiting on me appeared to be in her late fifties or sixties, and looked very tired. As I was placing my order, an older gentleman who had been in the dinning area began heading toward the exit. The woman behind the counter shouted at him and ran around the counter, grabbed him and ushered him back to his seat. She returned to the counter, apologized and began taking my order again. Once again she had to stop before I was finished and lead the older man back to his seat.

When she returned, she explained with tears in her eyes that the man was her father and he had advanced Alzheimer’s. I told her I understood what she was going through because my mother had died with the disease three years earlier. The woman told me, "Back when I had a full-time job I took him to an Alzheimer’s day care Monday through Friday, but they aren’t open on weekends.” She went on to say that her manager was not working that day, but she was pretty sure when her boss found out she was bringing her dad to work with her, she would lose this job too.

Our local congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn (TN), is a Tea Party Republican who voted against healthcare reform and was opposed to extending unemployment benefits. If anyone in her family is stricken with a catastrophic disease, she will certainly be able to adequately provide for their needs…with the nice salary, health benefits and perks provided to her through the taxes on low wage earners like the people in her district working multiple minimum wage jobs trying to make ends meet. 

Captain, Captain- The Everly Brothers

Qualifications for Being a Servant

"You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."

- Martin Luther King Jr.