“Your budget,” a group of Jesuit scholars and other Georgetown University faculty members wrote to Ryan last week, “appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”
via Paul Ryan’s faith-based lesson – The Washington Post.
Jesuit scholars and I agree on something: Republicans don’t care about the poor, and they are the farthest thing from a political party which wants to emulate the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Christ washing the feet of his disciples. He served them, and he expected them to serve the poor as servants of God.
Christ told his disciples to serve and feed the poor because he understood that the poor are not poor because they choose to be. The GOP wants to cut the aid to these sons and daughters of God and calls them lazy for not being rich.
Christ told his disciples to cure and help the sick. And depending upon how you want to read it, he says to do it for free (Matthew 10:8). The GOP has no desire to do this. They hate the idea that the poor obtain healthcare without paying for it. According to the GOP, only the people who have money to pay for healthcare deserve it; the rest are too lazy and should lose everything just to stay alive.
Many conservatives even point out that if more people go to doctors who did not go before (poor people), doctors and the healthcare system will be overburdened, causing other people (the non-poor) to suffer. We can’t have that, now can we? We can’t have those with money burdened by the struggles of the poor, right? Jesus would have hated that. Oh wait. Maybe there’s something that says discriminating against the poor is a problem?
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”you are doing right.But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. [emphasis mine]
Why, that sounds like socialism! Class warfare! Class Warfare! CLASS WARFARE!
Nope. It’s just the Bible. James 2:1-10.
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Communism! Communism! COMMUN—Wait Jesus said that? Sure. Matthew 19:21-24.
Christ told his disciples to turn the other cheek when someone strikes them in the face (Matthew 5:39). The GOP’s doctrine is to punch the other guy first when you’re afraid he might punch you.
Christ told his disciples not to judge other people (Matthew 7:1), but the GOP has judged for themselves who has the right to marry whom. And in the case of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Rick Santorum, and Rick Perry, the GOP supported giving governments the right to criminalize the sex people can have in their bedrooms (they dissented in the SCOTUS decision in Lawrence v Texas)—because that’s why Christ saved that poor prostitute from being stoned and quickly sent her to jail. Oh wait. No he didn’t. He said he did not condemn her. No, really. He did (John 8:9-11).
Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” This is known as Jesus’ “golden rule.” I wonder how a GOP audience would respond to that.
Oh.
Christ said “woe unto the rich” and “blessed are you the poor” (Luke 6:20-26) which the GOP has apparently translated as: “Give the rich more money so that they might have more money to hire the poor, but only if it makes them more rich in the process (because, you know, that’s how capitalism works)—so that it’s even harder for them to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Blame the poor and desperate. Defend the rich and powerful. Just like Jesus did.
Paul Ryan.
In short, the ideals of the GOP and Paul Ryan are the farthest thing from the best and greatest teachings of Christ. Maybe the GOP agrees with me on something: Christ never existed so we don’t need to follow his rules.
I believe in these teachings anyways, though; not because Jesus was real or the son of a god, but because these teachings understand that the people who need help most are those who are the weakest. You don’t tell the weak to stop being weak like the GOP does. You reach out and offer help.
And honestly, all of these Republican positions would be well and good with me if the GOP didn’t cloak itself as the party of Christ. If they took a hardline stance saying that it’s good macroeconomics and is the way to make our nation stronger, then all right. I can see the argument there. But, they take it a step farther and suggest that cutting aid to the poor coincides with Christ’s vision. That’s just insane. It’s the opposite of his teachings, like many other GOP positions, and it’s an insult to the New Testament.
The insult to Christ and his “Word” doesn’t bother me very much, but the hypocrisy does. And it should bother all Christians more than it bothers me.
The Republican party is not the party of Christ, and that should be pretty obvious to anyone who’s ever read the New Testament.
Loathsome Human 