On Sin and Politics –

Culture Wars!

 

 We are entering a very interesting time of the year – elections!   The administration comes across as the savior of the average person and protector of traditional values.  But is it really?  Let’s examine the record: 

 

 

Is the administration really a friend to the average American?  Will “Joe six pack” vote down the present administration?  Probably not and for two reasons:  First, the government controls the media and can spin the news priming the pump of “fear” of terrorism and culture wars.  Second, this administration claims the high moral ground on issues such as “gay marriage” and the need to draw a “moral line in the sand” by passing a constitutional amendment.  This will blow away the liberal democrats who don’t believe in “absolutes”.  And as usual, the “Church” will fall in line behind their “evangelical Christian” President who increasingly sounds more like a preacher than a politician.

 

The American evangelical church is fixated on sexual issues and what they see as “traditional moral value” issues!  Once it was abortion.  Now it is Gay marriage, not that I condone or support it myself.  But they focus on the “mote” in the gay eye and miss the “beam” in their own!  So I decided to do a study of the gospels and see what Jesus had to say.  Out of 64 parables, 25 or 40 percent deal with economic issues (employer, employee, investor, master/slave, riches, etc.)  None deal with sexual issues.  Please see the analysis in the appendix below.  Jesus was more concerned with financial exploitation of the wealthy and the hypocrisy of the religious leaders than he was of the sins of the average person!

 

As you read through the gospels, you see a lot about adultery, lust and divorce (Matt 5:22-32) but nothing about homosexuality.  You have to get to Romans 2 before you see anything about that.  When it comes to immorality, Jesus was very gracious toward sinners.  Jesus told “woman at the well” to go and sin no more, even though she had had five husbands and the one she was living with wasn’t her husband.  (See John 4:5-29)  He told the Jews that were about to stone the harlot, “he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)   But when it came to the religious leaders and the wealthy, he didn’t hold back.  He cast the money changers out of the Temple and tossed over their tables.  He called the scribes and Pharisees a den of vipers and white washed sepulchers!  If he hated the “merchandising” of religion back then, how does he feel about the “mega churches” and “mega Passion spectaculars – the “market driven” churches and “market driven” messages?

 

I find it very interesting that we “Christians” find homosexuality so abhorrent, but don’t seem to regard divorce, affairs and “living together” as equally “sinful”.  The rate of infidelity and divorce is as rampant in Churches as it is in society as a whole.  It is not uncommon to find gross hypocrisy in our churches.  For example, one of Sacramento’s wealthiest and most prominent Christian businessmen and largest benefactor to the largest charismatic church in town dumped his wife of many decades to take a trophy wife.  Where is the outrage?  There is none.  This is all too common, especially if you are a man of power and wealth.  We are so outraged by the sins of the gay crowd but seem to ignore our own.  We are outraged by abortion but ignore and pamper the children we have.  We are outraged by homosexual sin but see little wrong with our own lust and the heterosexual sin amongst us. 

 

We are appalled by the half time show of the Super Bowl but see nothing wrong with our sitcoms.  We are angry at crime in our cities but are unconcerned with the “collateral damage” of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hidden damage from the nuclear hardened debris used in bombs and shells that will keep on killing for years to come.  We are shocked by a bare breast but blind to the greed and avarice of our corporations exploiting workers abroad while abandoning workers at home.  We are pleased to have a President who is righteously indignant about Gay marriage, but don’t even realize he refuses to support our children’s education!  He may say he doesn’t  want any “children left behind” but then underfunds the bill by $27 billion.   We are happy to have a tax cut and low interest rates but don’t realize we are spending the inheritance of our children and creating debt we can never pay off!  He continues to cut Medicare, long term care, education, job training and everything else except for defense – and we think he’s working for us?

 

As long as we can keep consuming, we support a President who lies to us about the true state of the economy, the war on terror, jobs, etc.  As long as we can get an unlikeable Martha Stewart behind bars (who hurt herself more than anyone), we can ignore Bush’s friend Ken Lay who bilked employees and investors out of billions!  As long as we can make a few examples of corporate wrong doing, we can ignore than fact that the Federal Reserve is running the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised by man (creating money out of nothing), that the Stock Market is there to take your money ($8 trillion was lost following the 2000 recession), not make it for you; that the government is taxing you to death, going into debt and devaluing your currency at a record rate.  None of this matters as long as they can divert your attention to outrageous issues such as “gay marriage.”

 

The present administration will capitalize on the fact that “Christians” have tunnel vision when it comes to cultural issues.  Gay marriage, Janet Jackson and Howard Stern overshadow the issues that should really be important.  Fear of “terrorism” and loss of “traditional values” trumps all of the other issues.  The big question is whether the administration can keep the economy pumped up and Iraq from collapsing for another six months.  The bubbles are about to burst but the government is spending and printing money in record quantities to keep it all going.  The debt bubbles are just getting bigger and will lead to an even greater fall when they finally burst.  Please see our analysis of the economy. Economic Deception – Are You Ready for Meltdown?
 

As Christians, we should know that it doesn’t really matter that much who is elected.  Nothing is going to hinder God’s prophetic time table.  The Bible tells us there will be wars and rumors of wars, political and economic upheaval, famine, plagues and persecution – not prosperity and spiritual revival.  Above all, there will be deception.  Things are not as they appear to be.  We had better get used to it and learn to see through it, lest we be caught up in the deception ourselves.  Please see the book on line Recognizing Deception and Apostasy. 

 

Appendix

The Parables by Subject Matter
 

ON RICHES, ECONOMICS AND THE POOR

WEDDINGS AND FEASTS 

LOST AND FOUND, FATHER AND SON 

OPEN & CLOSED DOORS

PARABLES FROM NATURE