So says Christian ministers from 22 states who plan to endorse candidates and give political sermons this coming Sunday. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times , Reverend Wiley S. Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, CA, went so far as to say this, "I'm going to talk about the unbiblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him." Says who? And just who are you?And we wonder what has happened to the moral leadership in our country! Here we are agonizing about the collapse of our financial institutions because of greed from the unqualified buyer to the greedy lender and are wondering how this could happen! How un-American! Well, when the clergy bands together to defy a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups, why shouldn't anyone or everyone who has an ax to grind thumb their nose at the law? Let chaos reign as long as it suits my purpose!
Let's look at this from the top down. Part of the reason this country exists is so people can worship as they choose. Worship their deity; not have their political views dictated to them under fear of divine damnation.
The Bible has been dissected and translated and interpreted by so many for their own ideology over the centuries, if it is looked at as anything more than a template for right and wrong, good and evil, you're not thinking for yourselves.
How about that? Have we become such sheep that we think this act by these preachers is right? Are we so lazy that we need them to dictate how we think and who we should choose to lead us? Do we hold these men, and that is all they are, men, to be so all knowing? Do we not suspect they just might have a teeny weeny agenda of their own?
The current administration has already stripped us of many Constitutional rights. Now we have clergy trying to strip us of more. The world is watching this election along with the struggles we're having as a nation. What they see is racism, gender bias, greed, manipulation - a Congress that can not get beyond the self interest of it's individual members and a segment of the religious community thumbing its nose at the very institution that allows it to exist. And the people. The voters. We, the sheep.
Is it any wonder why we are defied when we try to force our way of life upon others? We don't have to look at what has happened to them when we have failed. All we have to do is look at ourselves. What we've become. And what we haven't.
6 comments:
Give'em hell, Gal! And I'm right beside you! We the sheep is so right on. What does it take to get the people of this country to wake up and see what is happening for themselves and not "lap dog" after the clergy. And, believe me, the world is watching and everything you listed there is exactly what they're seeing!
The day my minister tells me who to vote for... is the day I walk out of that church for the last time.
Isn't it kind of ironic that they feel they have the right to talk about the government, when they themselves do no pay taxes... as they are exempt.
Well said. I agree.
Hey, Toadman!
Thanks for dropping by.
Now that Google has let me back into the world of blogging I can leave comments again! Yeah.
This is such a good post. I am rabid when it comes to issues of Separation of Church & State. My roots are Southern Baptist that's where I got my belief in Separation of Church & State. But the fundamentalists began their move in the late 70s or early 80s and drove Southern Baptists further to the right. The first teaching they threw out was Separation of Church & State. I had to leave and say "I never knew you" to my denomination when they began to tell me, from the pulpit, how to vote.
My only comfort in this, if there is any, is that right wing religion is nothing new. Abraham Lincoln also had trouble when he ran for president. He wasn't good enough because he was a deist.
I happen to completely agree. First of all, the clergy seem to be unknowing of Article 6 that precedes the bill of rights. They are also woefully unable to understand anything about the first amendment. If it doesn't exist for Barack Obama, then it clearly can't exist for these clergy either. Unfortunately, they don't believe in those "moral absolutes" do they? Called, love thy neighbor?
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