Christian ‘leaders’ need to learn from Jesus
It is six weeks from the mid-term elections for Congress and the Georgia Gubernatorial election and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is attempting a second term. Governor Perdue is the first republican governor of our state in a bazillion years, and what this means for Georgia could be devastating. Why do republicans occupy the Governor’s Mansion? It is because the political spectrum has shifted toward the right. The generations of Southern democrats are dying off, and being replaced by the Strom Thurmond party shifting mentality, and the republicans proclaim themselves as moral defenders.
Although in recent years our only two democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, were both Southern and Christian, the GOP has instigated a demoralization of their left-wing counterparts. Back in the 1980s, the highly politicized Christian Right, who happened to be the Republican Party’s proverbial “gun thugs,” attacked the left for being abortionists, Proto-Communists, tree-huggers and lobbyists for the gay cause. In the last presidential elections, President Bush ran his campaign on “Moral Majority” points, such as a ban on late-term abortions, a ban on stem-cell research and a ban on gay marriage, all the while orchestrating armed conflict in no less than two countries at a time.
When did the Democratic Party become so immoral? Is it because many of the democrats believe in ending the death penalty, or pulling out of Iraq? Are the democrats in fact “Godless,” as Ann Coulter put it? What makes the Democratic Party so immoral? Sure, while it is true that many democrats, myself included, are pro-choice on the abortion debate and are in favor of gay marriage, the left also believes in many of the teachings that the Christian Right claims to purvey as their platform.
Not to sound like an expert on religion, but did Jesus not teach his followers to “love thy neighbor,” and “turn the other cheek?” Frankly, I feel that the GOP and the Christian Right has failed to effectively implement these wholly Christian values that they so evocatively claim as their own. I feel, in all honesty, that the left is more in tune with Jesus’ teachings. But, this is America, where we are granted freedom of religion. And many on the left openly choose to practice this freedom, whereas the Christian right are making an attempt to proclaim this nation to be Christian, founded by God-fearing forefathers.
I believe that what the American public needs to realize is that these moral majority leaders, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, are not preaching the same message as Jesus of Nazareth. In recent years, both of these men have publicly said many things that directly contradict what they claim to preach. Falwell blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center on gays, lesbians, feminists, abortionists and other “sinful” peoples. Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venuzuela. Why on earth would anyone take these men seriously as Christian ministers if their views are so anti-Christian?
If the democrats are to be successful in future elections, they must defend their moral stances, which I believe is what Jesus would do.
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Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 6 2006. Filed under Opinion.
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