RC Democrat and Jewish Democrat Conspire to Infiltrate & Fracture RC Church

[De Selby]

By comparison, the American liberal view-

Step 1: Choose an economics that benefits your base
Step 2: print copious commentaries and sermons explaining how "sell all you have and give it to the poor" really means "vote for the guys who will forcibly take money from some other guy so I don't have to sacrifice a single thing"
Step 3: join the line for free stuff

Helping the less fortunate doesn't require the involvement of government, liberals should put THEIR money where their mouth is.

This is equally true

[Perd Hapley]

Well, it’s Sunday. Morning service is over, and I’ve nothing to do until evening service (that's when we go out and lynch a poor guy).  I’d much rather be reading right now, but since somebody felt it necessary to attack me by name in this thread…

De Selby, I couldn’t complain, if you were just challenging Christians to live up to the whole feed the poor, love your neighbor ethic. But you’re drawing a whole political viewpoint from one teaching of scripture, and denying a whole lot of other things the Bible has to say. It’s not hard to spot the person who doesn’t really read the Bible, and just mines it for political ammo. Like this:

Something he did do was very clearly say that if you want to go to heaven, you should sell all of that property and give the proceeds to the poor.  Not sure how that squares with the modern American economy at all.

Um, He said that to exactly one guy. And I don’t know what churches you’ve been to, but the ones I’ve been around haven’t shrunk from reading that passage, or the book of James, or any other passages that skewer the rich. They’re kind of all over the place. The passages, I mean. And the churches that preach on them. (And the preachers and their congregations go to the voting booth later, and vote for lower taxes.) “The deceitfulness of riches” is not exactly an obscure theme in this very prosperous nation. And that phrase comes from the parable of the sower – only one of the most familiar sayings of Christ.

But let’s go to the deep cuts. For one of the less popular parables, try Matthew, chapter 20. Now it is dangerous to try and take a parable farther than it’s intended to go. Just the same, it’s hard to blame someone for taking that as Christ endorsing property rights and freedom of contract. Should Christians ignore the moral lessons of that parable, but take Christ’s personal advice to that one rich guy as a binding commandment on the whole lot of us?

Step 1:  choose an economics that benefits your base
Step 2:  print copious commentaries and sermons explaining how "sell all you have and give it to the poor" really means "oppose taxes on the rich and incentivise the poor to work by denying them any social welfare"
Step 3: profit

And for obvious reasons, that collapses under the thinnest of scrutiny.

You didn’t say who profits. The churches? The “base”? Both of them? Do you think churches should advocate an economic theory that impoverishes their base? What kind of economics would benefit church members, without helping everyone else? Church’s aren’t country clubs, after all.
Oh, wait. Who, within the church or without, opposes taxes on the rich? Are you talking about anarchist churches, here?
Talk about collapsing under scrutiny…

Ya gotta love how Christians get flamed for supposedly “imposing their morality” on an issue like marriage, and then we get flamed for failing to impose [some of] our beliefs about helping the poor. It better only be the approved teachings, though. Adhering to the Bible’s warnings about perverse incentives makes us bad Christians, according to – some Muslim guy. Wait, what? 

I was listening to a conservative Evangelical radio station yesterday, and I heard one of those heartless, fake-Christian laissez-faire Social Darwinist sickos complaining about how the government obstructs Christian groups’ soup kitchens and homeless shelters with overbearing regulation. I’ve heard this complaint before. I guess I need to inform these people that we only want to screw the poor.

I’ll go back to the scripture I quoted earlier (Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 3), so it can be ignored again.

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

More: I Timothy 5:8-13, 16 [NASB]

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desires in disregard of Christ, they want to get married, thus incurring condemnation, because they have set aside their previous pledge. At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention....If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed.

Now that one doesn't just jump off the page, but it shows the same concern for how government church cheese can lead to idleness, and can corrupt one's character, generally. This doesn't conflict with the first line, about the importance of providing for your people, even those outside your own household. Also, see the Old Testament, and its constant references to "upholding the rights of the poor." It turns out the Bible is more sophisticated than some give it credit for. Yes, it obliges Christians to help the poor. It also gives some guidelines. Who would have guessed the Biblical authors understood human beings better than the left-wing social “justice” set, which doesn't care whether people's souls are destroyed, so long as their bodies are fed.

The below website is kind enough to provide all manner of related versage.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/welfare

[Perd Hapley]

Coming up on 8 months, and still no answer to this one. 

[De Selby]

Coming up on 8 months, and still no answer to this one. 

This thing where you claim Jesus in the bible is all about market principles, low taxes, and booting poor people off welfare?

Yeah dude. It's not my response you should be waiting on.

[Perd Hapley]

 

[Hawkmoon]

Yes.  There's a long running meme in minority churches in America that somehow because the biggest number of Christians there are Catholic, they must be in on the Kennedy conspiracy to feed the poor in contravention of Jesus's teachings, which according to some "christians" are rooted in low taxes and heavy penalties for crime.

Not even close. I don't know that Wikipedia is spot on, but I doubt they're off by orders of magnitude. According to this article, Roman Catholics account for just 23.9% of Christians in the United States. Protestant denominations combine for 51.3%, and Evangelicals are 26.3% to 35%.

[De Selby]

Not even close. I don't know that Wikipedia is spot on, but I doubt they're off by orders of magnitude. According to this article, Roman Catholics account for just 23.9% of Christians in the United States. Protestant denominations combine for 51.3%, and Evangelicals are 26.3% to 35%.

Why do you amalgamate all the other churches?

[Perd Hapley]

Yes.  There's a long running meme in minority churches in America that somehow because the biggest number of Christians there are Catholic, they must be in on the Kennedy conspiracy...

Actually, when I identified Catholics with Democrats, I was relying on my university training (as incomplete as it was) in American history, where I learned that the Democratic Party has historically been the home of Catholics and recent immigrants, and recent immigrants that are also Catholic. Obviously, there has been some change in conditions, but that is the history, as I understand it.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I've never been particularly frightened of Catholics. Growing up not far from Saint Louis, that would have been a crippling condition, indeed.

[Hawkmoon]

Why do you amalgamate all the other churches?

Do you mean why does Wikipedia amalgamate all the other churches? I suggest you ask them, because I have no idea.

That said, YOU wrote "...  because the biggest number of Christians there are Catholic ..."

23.9 percent is hardly a majority.

[HankB]

Having to define what it really means for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle, as if that's remotely ambiguous, along with a host of things that favour regulation of wealth and behaviour

You DO know that in ancient times with walled cities the norm in the Middle East, "the eye of the needle" was a colloquial term which referred not to the main gate, but to a much smaller gate - not much more than a doorway - as an alternate point of access? Sized for people, it was a tight squeeze for a camel.

But nothing like a sewing needle, which so many people think today.

[KD5NRH]

23.9 percent is hardly a majority.

And Wikipedia is now referencing Pew's numbers showing 20.8%.

Using climate change methodology to extrapolate from those two data points, it wasn't that long ago that there were more Catholics in America than humans on the planet, and it won't be that long before they're all gone either.

[zxcvbob]

You DO know that in ancient times with walled cities the norm in the Middle East, "the eye of the needle" was a colloquial term which referred not to the main gate, but to a much smaller gate - not much more than a doorway - as an alternate point of access? Sized for people, it was a tight squeeze for a camel.

But nothing like a sewing needle, which so many people think today.

I had a pastor once say that the whole point of the camel in that verse was that camels are hilarious.  Jesus was a master storyteller.  A camel thru the eye of a needle was a ridiculous visual in that day, and Jesus was making a joke to make a point.   Doesn't really matter what the "eye of the needle" literally was; it was difficult (but not necessarily impossible) for a rich man to get to heaven.  Kinda like all of us.  The people of the day would have assumed a rich man was a shoe-in; his riches were an affirmation of God's blessings.

[Perd Hapley]

In fairness to DS, he's hardly the first guy to rail against certain tendencies or strains in the church at large, while labelling it "American Christianity." Or, per our friends at Issues, Etc, "Pop-American Christianity." It's very temptingly convenient to identify whichever distorted doctrine one most dislikes with whichever group you also dislike. So, for our Lutheran/Reformed betters, every Evangelical attends an "apostolic" (not in a good way) mega-church. To our correspondent down under, every Evangelical/Protestant is, apparently, a hard-hearted, Prosperity Gospel social Darwinist.