It is absolutely amazing what happens when Christians become embroiled in politics on either the left or the right. “Faith” and what we have learned concerning faith is left conveniently behind and filed under “Sunday: 10 – 11:00 am”.

Take for example this little piece being emailed around:

Kareem Shora Arif AlikhanWell, boys and girls, today the fox is guarding the hen house.The wolves will be herding the sheep!Obama appointed two devout Muslims to homeland security posts.Feel’n safer ??Obama and Janet Napolitano appointed Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development.DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swore-in Kareem Shora, a devout Muslim, who was born in Damascus, Syria, as ADC National Executive Director as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). NOTE:Has anyone ever heard a new government official being identified as a devout Catholic, a devout Jew or a devout Protestant…? Just wondering. Devout Muslims being appointed to critical Homeland Security positions?Doesn’t this make you feel safer already?That should make our home land much safer, huh!?Was it not “Devout Muslim men” that flew planes into U.S. buildings 9 years ago?Was it not a Devout Muslim who killed 13 at Fort Hood ?Please forward this important information to any who cares about the future of our Country.

Of course the intent is for you to declare your patriotism by mailing this hateful piece of garbage on to people in your mailing list and perpetuate the presumption that these two men who are  Muslim and devout – that is practice their religion faithfully – are just like the major at Fort Hood , who was also a Muslim, are exactly like him and will fly airplanes into buildings and will shoot soldiers whenever they see them.

Of course, devout Christians would never do that. They would never pick up a child and smash the child’s head into a brick wall because the child was Jewish. A devout Christian would never beat and torture prisoners, defecate on them, urinate on them and make them perform all sorts of obscene acts on their fellow prisoners at Abu Grab. And of course a devout Christian would never take an evening stroll and slaughter old men and women, mothers with babies in a village near where he is stationed. A devout Christian who is the leader of a nation would never sanction the telling of lies to move the nation he was elected to lead into war.

What happens to ordinary people of God who in other circumstances would help their neighbor, feed the hungry, kiss their children on their head and tuck them in at night, and they turn into ideologues who are blinded to some of the deepest tenets of their faith and go on a rant stereotyping people of a particular race or religion as evil?

In Grade seven my pastor had us memorize what he called “God’s Ten Words” to us. I was raised in the Swedish Lutheran Church in the United States. We were encouraged to work with all people of similar good will. We were especially taught Commandment 8 in the western catholic tradition which goes:  ”You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.” Now this is not just about lying. Luther teaches thus:

And so it continues. The Roman Catholic Bishops, the “princes of the church”, who have pranced around spouting accusations of persecution, have continued to stoke the flames of division and rising distrust among Christians. They have set the “ecumenical” agenda back to the 16th Century. They, like the so called “evangelicals” of the press and news media, have decided to make a political banner of the gospel.

“Good” Christians are supposed to fight against Shari’a Law by supporting a Republican Party plank to protect the U.S. Constitution. Of course, most of the Christians they are pandering to have no idea of Shari’a Law and its place within Islamic culture.

“Good” Christians should have attended a vigil of Freedom on the Fourth of July because the Roman catholic “princes” and their “evangelical” partners see the Affordable Health Care Act as a means to persecute the Church, ie. the morning after pill, condoms, etc.

It is rather amazing that the Bishop of Peoria IL would cry out that at no time in history has persecution of the Church been as great as it is now in this country. “Persecution”?

I think the United States government is a piker when it comes to the persecution of religion in this country compared to the history the Roman Catholic Church has, let alone Lutherans, Episcopalians, Calvinists, and yes – those Puritans we are so fond of calling to mind when claiming this to be a Christian nation. Talk to Ann Hutchinson about tolerance and freedom of religion and Salem “witches”. The fact that Christian teaching for nearly 2000 years enabled the Nazis to so easily convince Western Christianity in Europe to turn a blind eye or even enthusiastically participate in the destruction of one-third of the worlds Jews in the Holocaust would seem to indicate that lessons in persecution and hate are mastered under Christians in Europe and the United States. I say the United States because the majority of lay people and Christian Bishops and priests and pastors remained silent during the Nazi drive to persecute Jews in Germany.

The fact that princes of the Church called for several Crusades against Islam – and on the way to Jerusalem Western Christians had no problem killing and burning Jews and Eastern orthodox Christians and did not differentiate Christian, Jew or Muslim when it came to the sacking of Jerusalem.

The US government needs to sign up to learn how to persecute from the Church.

As to the cry “We are being persecuted!” please take a read of the article on MSNBC:

Pakistani Christians live in fear after girl’s blasphemy arrest

All cries of persecution of the church and Christians in this nation are a sham in light of what is unfolding elsewhere in the world. Bishops have the luxury of pontificating from their comfortable “cathedra” in their diocese surround by the faithful pre-Vatican 2 mobs who prefer Latin and “legitimate rape”. Evangelicals can pontificate from their pulpits about gays and putting them in concentration camps and forcing women of incest and rape to bear the fruit of the violence. But what persecution? What war against the Church?

It is empty and meaningless and should be met with contempt. Instead, take heart from those who are a minority in a country where justice is mob mentality, and is something towards which the princes of the Church and the evangelical bible pounders are moving this country by the ignorance and hate and bigotry.

The Bishops need to beg the forgiveness of every woman who has been raped and bears the scars of incest. The princes of the Church need to get on their knees and beg the forgiveness of every child raped and molested by a priest. When they do this perhaps, just perhaps, they will have some degree of moral integrity.

During the 1980 presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter and the Liberals, Ronald Reagan asked a question: Are you better off today than you were last year? The election revealed that most Americans dwelt on that question and voted him and the Republicans into office.

And that’s where it all began to turn inward. Martin Luther defined sin as “turning in on oneself.” And that is exactly what the Moral Majority, the so called Evangelicals (the word evangelical coming from the Greek ‘euangelion’ which means ‘good news’) and the religio-political right today, have done today. The Tea baggers, the latest entry into the political melee, have been pushing the Reagan question to the extreme. Two of the top pushes of the inward turning on John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who swore an oath to impede the governing of this president. Treason at worst to undermine the presidency. They are also Roman Catholic which makes it all the more interesting to raise the question, “Where were you when the National Conference of Catholic Bishops were putting forward far reaching social teachings which asked the question: Is your neighbor better off today than last year? Of course the other next question, “Who is my neighbor?” can be answered by any child in Sunday School except the Republicans in the House and Senate.

The American public was led into a tantrum of voting against Democrats because the Bagger rage against bailing out the banks ( that is, stabilizing the global financial market) and rescuing the American auto industry this saving a million manufacturing jobs, was a rage based on selfishness and a total turning in the self – in other words – sin. Baggers fed into the idolatry of the individual, the pull yourself up ideology which is totally untenable. None the less, the Baggers are stoking the rage – a rage which veils a deep bigotry and racism and xenophobia unkown since the days of the No Nothing Party.

The Baggers have managed to skew the accountability of the rich for the wider community. It is is alright to build a factory and make money and make the town dependent upon the product you produce and if it is cheaper to make elsewhere you just pack up and leave with no accountability to the community, the state and the nation. You see it is about making money, putting it into the pockets of those whose pockets are already bursting.

Are you better off today than your were last year? It’s a selfish question and one which Ayn Rand would love to put on a T shirt and Paul Ryan is wearing it – a good Catholic boy who is too young to have been cultivated by socially responsible bishops and instead would rather tell a woman who was raped that she must bear the child she is carrying.

It is no longer the question “Are you better off today than you were last year?” It is now “Do you really think you know better than I do when it comes to your body, your human relationships?” It is a question of business health not peoples health. It is a question of governance by corporations and not people.

There is more at stake in this election that a health care system – the future health of this nation if placed in Republican hands will bankrupt what is left of the middle class, turn laborers into serfs. Your soul will belong to the company store.

It all began with self centered question of Ronald Reagan. And now the fearful thing is – will the American voter turn over their democracy to the board rooms of corporations.

It was a comfort that both the President and Mr. Romney halted their sniping at each other in the wake of the Aurora shootings – at least for a couple of days. However that did not prevent congressional preachers from Texas and the christianists from the American Family Association from spreading the venom of GOP-vangelism. what is a “christianist”? It is someone who uses Christianity and Christ for political gain in both power and control. There are Muslims and Islamists. There are Christians and there are “christianists”. Both Islamists and christianists worship not God but their religion. If you listen to the broadcasts of the American Family Association on radio they may sicken you but in their attack on “liberals” they raise up their teaching and their interpretation of biblical teaching and their reading of American history and the history of Christianity. The reading of the bible and history and Christianity is so far out of whack from reality you have to wonder what planet these people are from.

But perhaps the greatest “sin” of the American Family Association’s Newcombe is his setting himself up as God. And he does so with fanfare. Rabbi Donniel Hartman of the Hartman Institute of Jerusalem came to Grand Rapids (the same area of Dave Agema Chair of the Republican Party of Michigan who demonized Islam and then announced President Obama is a Muslim) spoke at the Triennal Jewish-Muslim-Christian Dialogue several years ago. Out of his tradition and Christian tradition, he spoke about the human being and sin. He said what we need to recognize is this: when the opportunity is given in the assembly for confession we always say “I” have sinned or “We” have sinned. For me to say “You” have sinned is to commit the idolatry, that is, to set yourself up and play as God.

When GOP-vangelism is spewed from the mouths of Dobson and Newcombe, the American family Association, Pat Robertson and so many others including Rick Warren the CEO of Saddleback Church, they are all committing idolatry. That is to say, they are playing God. Listen carefully to their preaching and teaching and commentary. It is always “YOU” have sinned. Their talk is always of the other sinning – because they are gay, democrat, liberal, latino, women who have had abortions, couples who practice birth control.

Why do they do this? I believe it is quite clear. Go to their church services. Look at the content of their worship. Hands are raised praising Jesus, voices are raised giving their lives for Jesus, BUT where is the opportunity for the GOP-vangelists to utter the words together “I” have sinned, or, “We” have sinned, and then receive the proclamation that all who seek forgiveness are forgiven and brought back into the ranks of human beings and are no longer separated.

So called “Evangelical” Church worship is a stage for labeling the other, the one who is not of their church or congregation, a sinner. It is always “WE” are saved “YOU” are not.

This is idolatry of the highest order.

GOP-vangelism has its purity laws and means of identifying the other – R.I.N.O. – Republican In Name Only. To label some one a RINO is to say you are not really a Republican according to “my” definition. You are an outside, a traitor, a sinner. The GOP god has spoken and Tea Party are god’s priests serving purity.

You see, there is no substance to the claims of GOP-vangelism or the American Family Association or the Tea Party Priesthood of Purity. They are simply playing god, and doing a bang up job in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, Lousiana, Alabama. Look at the laws they are passing. Most of them are not written by their own legislators. These laws come from conservative think tanks and associations run by the controllers and power seekers. Check out who is behind the small business laws in these states, to the laws limiting union negotiations and rights, tax laws, laws against Shari’a, family protection amendments to the US Constitution.

Americans really need to do their homework and ask “Where are these laws coming from?” Why are these laws being passed? What are they meant to do? Are businesses and corporations people and are people property to be disposed of at the whim of employers and the state?

We are in deep trouble folks. We are facing groups whose understanding of humanity is divided between the insiders and the outsiders, the sinners and the saved. Be careful when you get in that voting both. Are you voting for what is best for the your neighbor or for business because some one has got you voting out of fear? Are you voting for what some one says is pure and righteous and holy or are you voting on laws which seek to make us more humane and give others the opportunity to reach their potential?

Beware the wit of those who are undermining public education and welfare and health care and programs which help the poor, the homeless, children. They will talk about the failure of a system but they will not work to change it and invest the energy to strengthen it. They want it replaced – but with what? Corporations? If education of your child in Kindergarten is in the hands of a corporation, to whom are they responsible? What rights do you have to say what should be taught? Will they be taught to think critically or to toe the line according to the party?

This is a dangerous time folks. GOP-vangelism is strong and clearly separating the sheep from goats, the sinners from the saved, the pure from the impure. In fact it sounds like the Islamists who are terrorizing their own people, bombing, destroying and offering nothing to enhance the future of humanity. They make change only to hold on to power.

The new head of the Republican Party in Michigan and tea party poster boy for all the whackos in this state, made the incredible announcement that President Obama is a Muslim. This is no mistake. This brain dead bigot has also sought to pass laws generating fear of Muslims over Sharia Law following examples of other Republican bigots in southern states. The Sharia law was not written by him but rather by a Muslim hating bigot from Brooklyn NY and supported by the Thomas More Law Institute and a former prosecutor in Macomb County Michigan.

Couple this with Pete Hoekstra running for the Republican nomination for US Senate against Debbie Stabenow who aired a racist ad during the Super Bowl showing a Chinese girl speaking broken English and capitalizing on generating fears and building on a history of anti-Asian feeling and bigotry in the US, seems to reveal that Republicans declaring themselves as Christian are in fact supporters of the Christian identity movement since no respectable denomination would support such outrageous charges and obvious bigoted sentiments.

It says a lot about the current state of affairs in the Republican party and who is running things and why they want to control the country. As a Michigander I must apologize for their stupidity, arrogance, ignorance and racism. If they go on to win at the polls in this state then its obvious the majority of people from Michigan either don’t care about truth, are not what they claim to be as Christians, and are certainly not patriotic given their desire to place this country in the hands of such fascist minded persons.

Islamic fundamentalists or rather Qoranists, are rampaging through the Timbuktu area destroying all structures and signs of what they consider to heretical; that is, any structure or site or manuscript that they consider to be a voice outside the Qoran – at least their spin on the book of the Prophet. We have seen this in Afghanistan with the willful destruction by Al Quaeda of Buddhist and Hindu shrines more ancient than Islam. But is appears such tirades against documents which have defined a people for centuries is not relegated to religious book worshipers.

The GOP has undertaken a crusade of its own and its more reactionary than you could ever know. Just read the Romney policy pages. The strides to up hold the dignity of citizens in this land with adequate protection in old age from investment bankers of the depression are being ripped away as the doom of Social Security is near and the greedy eyes of Wall Street hover ever near ready to sink their teeth into 401K’s, siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars of your savings through hidden charges and costs. Is it any wonder why Republicans are teaming up with business to create a mega fund to cats lies onto Democratic candidates who are trying to get the word out?

The crusade against the Affordable Health Care Act – given its racially bigoted named of ObamaCare by Fox and the GOP – which draws upon the stereotypes used by Conservatives to picture blacks as welfare users – is another attempt to undo Medicare and leave millions of elderly helpless before Wall Street and Health Insurers.

There are a few in the banking industry who have been honest and fewer in the health care industry. But the barbarians are at the get and Romney will, when and if he is elected, will shred the last vestiges of programs meant to enhance human dignity of the citizen.

Even Public School education is under attack with the creation of business operated schools for profit. Now honestly . . . has business ever sought to help and uphold human dignity because they really care about people? It is all about profit, the bottom line and it is the citizenry of this country upon which the GOP will spew its greed and denigrate the human person.

And they will do it with the help of Christians – conservation bible worshiping, doctrine before people leaders – by denigrating women, undermining public education and attacking minority groups in this country playing on stereotypes and phobias.

The Roman Catholic Church along with their evangelical partners speak loud and shout down smaller voices. They are the nationalist bullies. You would think that the Roman bishops would remember their role in the Holocaust in Europe and the still unrepentant participation in Rwanda with the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsi men, women and children in 60 days. And not a word uttered from any bishop calling for the church to repent in a land where they were the majority! Evangelicals have not learned from history. They claim the lineage with the Puritans and Pilgrims but refuse to acknowledge and repent for their traditions intolerance towards those who believed differently; their strong support of slavery. No Christian group is exempt from the decimation of American Indians in the drive to wipe out their culture, language and religion.

The christian church married to the GOP form a “jihad” of their own and if voters do not think before they vote about the consequences of a GOP take over – and I mean takeover, which Mr. Romney is very good at and then selling off the pieces – there will be many voices marginalized and silenced by the Cantor-Boehner-Romney Triumvirate in Washington.

It will make it a lot harder to work for human dignity and the enhancement of the image of God in each person within the nation let alone the world. Please read Mr. Romney’s policy statements. he will have us in a war with China very quickly with his corporate mentality. He will have us starving people and letting them die in the streets because they are poor or immigrants who are “illegal”.

It is a risky business to consider the GOP in charge in Washington. They have an agenda to undo – not to do. If the Affordable Health Care Act is thrown out what will they put in its place? They have nothing proposed! They want to scrap medicare upon which all health insurance is based. They want to feed investment banking through 401k’s and get rid of Social Security. Consider it was the unregulated and hidden greed that undermined the present economy and has led to jobs lost, homes lost, schools closed, incredible debt loads for college students without hope of paying them back because the anti-union actions of Scott walker and the likes of him will keep students in bondage to banks.

The GOP trusts in business to get us out the present circumstances – BUT – it was business that got us into the mess and keeps us there. The Democrats trust in government but government is not a panacea. Both business and government are operated by human beings who are broken and selfish. There are very few Mother Teresa’s in business or government. There are some who try to live her level of faithfulness and it is always a challenge.

I do not put my trust or bank my hopes on either political party. I only know that the GOP has been hijacked, as Islam has been hijacked by reactionaries who are ideologues and worship not God – with what ever is given – but worship their own ideology and that is idolatry. The GOP married the Christianity is as wrongheaded as thinking secularism will frees to do better things. Hitler and Nazis provide the argument against that.

The person for whom you voter: does she or he seek to enhance the life of those who are living, the lives of the fringe groups, the voiceless – like the elderly in nursing homes andand the homeless in shelters and cars, the children left behind on government scraps in in public education, students burdened by excessive loans, people with pre-existing conditions forced from their homes because they have been bankrupted, uninsured thrown out of hospitals and left to die on the streets.

Christians in the evangelical GOP fail to remember that the “hospice” movement was initiated in Christian tradition to care for those along the way – immigrants, the sick, the dying, orphans. abused children, the old, the homeless – the marginal people, the voiceless, the left behind. They have become business promoters and worship business and the corporate model. Their thirst and lust for power has become their god. Any Christian group that be on the same wagon with Tea Baggers who are fueled by reactionary  racists and bigots and birthers needs new leadership. Instead of healing they have brought sharp division – look at Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas. Jindal with political motivation says no to healthcare – but he has a city still in ruin from a hurricane and has done nothing – the  Mennonites are doing more than him. Florida can pass Stand Your Ground but cannot pass the muster on care for the poor, the elderly, children. Wisconsin loses big to GE jobs and slams its teachers and government workers spitting on public service as an honorable vocation.

If the GOP gets control and assumes power it will pass legislation to keep that power playing on fear and bigotry. But they do not have the last word. They may be kindred spirits to the marauders in Timbuktu but they will not win in the end. The God of Jesus who is partial to the poor, the weak, the littlest, and the last always wins out. The GOP-vangelicals will make it harder but not final.

The “teaching of contempt” refers to Christianity’s resistance to the idea that there can be any new revelation, any events which offer up new revelation, for Judaism. To admit that such an event is possible is to deny the claim of the finality of the Christ event. That is to say, Christianity has argued in the past, and many still do in the 21^st Century, that the Old Covenant revealed in the Old Testament, the tanakh, is finished. The old olive tree is ripped out, cut down and it no longer bears fruit. Any hint of new revelation contradicts the Church’s understanding – some claiming it is made very clear in scripture – that the old Israel and Judaism have been superceded, and would therefore destroy the structure of authority the Church claims for itself.

The “teaching of contempt” was sown by the primitive community of Jesus, built on by the early church fathers and crowned by the medieval church. The Reformation church was not exempt from this supercessionism as revealed by Martin Luther in the Lutheran church, and, in the reformed tradition of Calvin, there was a respect for the covenant people but still an understanding of the superior revelation of Christ.

This “teaching of contempt” arises as a defense mechanism to build the superiority of the church over the synagogue and justify the church’s existence in the world, and to under gird its authority to interpret and thereby dictate a “Christian worldview”. It is nothing new in the world. There is always one community vying for the predominance of its worldview over against any challenger. Christians used it on Judaism and on Muslims in the crusades, and Muslims used it on Judaism and Christianity and Hinduism in its history.

In fact the mechanism works so well that it is employed by each community on its own when there is any attempt at reform and new or renewed revelation. New communities use it as a survival mechanism. In Christianity it is very easy to discover the “teaching of contempt” uttered from the pulpits of various traditions. The problem with this approach I think is very clear to those with eyes to see and ears to hear and brains to think.

For Christians to claim that God no longer walks with Israel, that the adherents of Judaism are not “saved”, that they have been replaced and cut off is to say that God is not faithful to his promises. This claim undermines whatever promises the Church declares God has made to her. If God can turn his back on Israel, God can certainly abandon the Church in the drive to usher in the Kingdom. There are in fact many groups of Christians which say just that, and, would agree that God has abandoned not only Israel but also the Roman Catholic (despite the fact they may agree with Roman teaching on birth control and abortion these groups at their very center have practices which says the Roman church is no church), Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, United Methodist. Only certain kinds in these various denominations are exempt, but for the most part because these groups do use enough water, or believe that the bible was handwritten by God, accept sacraments and creeds, they are not “really Christian” either. The sectarian congregations who believe they alone are the saved and have “the” truth and “the” only true interpretation of the bible, teach contempt and in doing so cut themselves off from their roots as Christianity has been tempted to do with Judaism throughout history. In other words, sectarian communities and their pastors deny there is any revelation of God in any other group other than their own.

In effect Christianity has become the one thing it was never meant to be – a “religion”, from the Latin word “ligare” which means to bind; as a ligament attaches and holds muscle to the bone. When applied in an appropriate manner, it is not a bad thing. It provides a structure by which to live in and understand the world. When applied to bind through doctrine and practice to an authority who desires power, then it is not positive, but detrimental. When ligaments harden and calcify one becomes stiff, rigid.

For example, in the Nicene Creed, which many sectarian groups dismiss, we confess, “On third day he was raised, in accordance with the scriptures”. I always liked that phrase because it recognizes that scripture address the resurrection in a number of ways, through various stories, recognizing that word used in Greek for rising, raise, resurrection are employed not only in the resurrection narratives but also in the healing stories. The Creed does insist that this was a bodily resurrection ( “crucified, dead and was buried”). More on this later. Suffice it to say, we are encouraged to recognize that the resurrection though bodily, is not limited to one perspective, one way. It is an elastic clause so to speak to address the question: What does it mean for me to say “Jesus is risen”?

Sectarian communities cut themselves off from history by either ignoring it, as if to say some one waved a magic wand and “poof” we were called into being, or by insulating themselves and demanding allegiance to doctrine and practice rather than to God. Faith as “believing in . . .” becomes more of “I believe that . . .” and is therefore no longer a relationship word.

The “teaching of contempt” has become viral. The clear indication of this is in the degree of distrust sown by conservatives in the political arena towards government. It has become contagious in the last few years as those who controlled the American scene for 8 years under President Bush has to relinquish “power” and “control”. Almost immediately their creed become one of obstruction ( the first remarks of sitting Republican in the House, John Boehner, was that he would do everything possible to stop this president and undermine his leadership – and no one thought this treason?) and their goal to sow further discord and distrust, feeding on a latent racism and bigotry directed at the current president Barak Obama. The degree to which this group has gone to gain “control and power” is one thing – but they are using the control and power they have to build further control and power for the future by passing legislation which undermines the ability a certain people to vote who would not normally vote for their candidates, and to attack the organizations which are a power base for those who do not normally vote for them, and making them “the enemy”. The only god is “business” and its fruit, “profits”.

And it is from that god and its fruit that they are launching an attack on the constitution to promote the general welfare of the nation by guaranteeing bigger and better profits for business and the wealthy on the backs of children, the poor, the elderly and the working class. And of course – these are the voiceless,

At the same time, conservatives in the Churches have renewed their teaching of contempt and have rallied their forces. Roman Catholic bishops have joined the ranks of those in the conservative wing to attack workers, the poor, women and children. This is even more disheartening because of the way the bishops and conservatives talk about God and morality. It makes one realize that Christians have not and have continually failed to take responsibility for the roots that gave rise to the Nazis and the Holocaust. The Roman Catholic bishops of all people should have recognized and remembered at what cost Pius XII played politics by choosing Hitler’s fascism over Stalin’s communism. He turned a blind eye and became dumb before the ever-increasing murder of six million Jews. It was the traditional “teaching of contempt” which numbed any response of the Vatican, and its investments in business that were profiting from the war including the production of Zyclon B for the gas chambers and companies selling insurance to European Jews.

The Roman bishops and their counter parts in Reformation and Protestant churches that claim the moral high ground on the gay marriage, birth control and abortion issues lack the moral authority for such pronouncements by the unrepentant attitude and actions and talk of God before the burning children of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rome moved forward with John XXIII, who as a bishop, rescued and found ways of rescuing hundreds if not thousands of Jews. Other priests and bishops helped Nazi officials, SS butchers from the camps to escape justice. The of John XXIII was side tracked by Paul VI who denied church culpability for the Holocaust and failed to recognize the state of Israel or even to speak out as the Arab states attacked Israel in 1967. Again it took John Paul II to once again address the failure of the church in history towards the Jews. And now we are again seeing the quick step with Benedict XVI reinserting liturgical customs filled with antisemitic nuances that could build renewed hatreds.

It is no accident that conservatives in politics and religion are joining hands in cooperation to return to a climate of bigotry and distrust. It is no accident that the Vatican has turned to a Fox News advisor to help with its image given the number of blunders committed by church leadership and the climate of denial fanned by conservatives over the various scandals and have sought to turn attention towards birth control and abortion and launching an investigation of American nuns. This is an unholy alliance as formidable and foreboding as the German-Vatican Accord of 1933 engineered by the future pope Pius XII. The Church wrapped in the Swatiska for the sake of patriotism and nationalism or the conservative Christians and conservative Republicans wrapped in red, white and blue for the sake of God, morality and America – either way it’s a bad sign when such a marriage occurs. It always gives birth to greater idolatry – even greater idolatry than secularism.

I do not pretend to have all the answers or even some answers to the questions posed by gay marriage. I do not pretend to have absolute answers to anything. I do believe that Jesus Christ is God and God is the risen dead man Jesus of Nazareth and I am trying to work out what that means in this world and in my life. However, as Obewon Kenobi put it to his protege, the soon to be Darth Vader, “Only a Sith speaks in absolutes”.

Ambiguity, living in the grey areas, is where most of us humans live and breath and work and play and raise families. Even when we are in the pews of our faith communities, the grey areas encompass the sanctuary. And listening to the sermons of some of my fellow pastors in the so called evangelical congregations, I wonder if there is even any grey matter present. Be that as it may, preachers emulating the entertainment style of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News from their pulpits, have grown in their numbers and in their ignorance. Even the Vatican has decided to hire a Fox News Consultant to overcome their bad PR over the past few years and now with the attack on nuns, and the political favouristism towards Republicans and a strengthening of the anti-health care initiatives, they do need a spin on reckless decisions. For the Vatican, this may be a moment more poignant than the period of time under Pius XII when there was silence in the face of 1,000 Polish priests being shot, Poland decimated and 6 million Jews murdered, all because of playing politics – of choosing Hitler’s Fascism over Stalin’s communism.Only this time it will be the poor and women and the working class that will pay more dearly for the Roman Catholic Bishop’s playing God.

Entertainment evangelism has led to the flair in preaching style. Style has overcome credible theological substance. And that goes for the pronouncements of bishops in the Roman Catholic Church who crush truth as they attack the President as a Stalin or a Hitler. It plays well to the ignorant of the religious right but it does nothing to still the opinion of the religious fundamentalists that Catholics are a danger to this country and are going to hell for praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Church is not a democracy, neither is it the dictatorship of those who are pastors be they in a congregation, or pastors of a diocese or of their denomination. There is no “infallibility” – and that includes the bible.

Religious people attack “secular religion” and “humanism” for being devoid of morality. And yet by the same token Christians who are religious have never faced up to the horrible truth of their history. That truth is the abject failure of the Church – Protestant and Roman Catholic and Orthodox – to address the one event which calls into question the very presence of God in this world; that is, the planned and deliberate murder of 6 million Jews – one third of all the Jews of the world, the wiping out 80% of its leadership – rabbis, teachers, students of Torah, university and medical professionals. In point of fact it was Christians who loaded the trains and powered the trains and drove the trains to Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau filled with millions. In point of fact it was highly educated people who were part of the killing squads, the Einsatzgrupen, who shot 2 million Jewish men, women, children – doctors, lawyers, teachers and yes, clergy.

When “the church”, when “Christians” attack programs such as the health care initiative and claim “socialism” and “communism”; when Roman Catholic bishops enter the fray touting slogans of morality over abortion and birth control; when the Vatican attacks nuns because they prefer to aid the poor and promote program to enrich lives and do not wave banners against pet moral issues of abortion and birth control; when religious leaders attack gay men and women for wanting legal recognition of their status as partners, as family; when political figures pray for the death of the President; when elected officials are no more than demagogues claiming Jesus is with them and demand the expulsion of Moslems – THEN . . . THEN I must say: First address the moral failure of this nation and your faith before the burning children of Auschwitz and Treblinka; first address the weakness of your own doctrine and the scriptures which have fed antisemitism for 2000 years and continues to this day. When you have done that – when you have corrected the very nature of that which you claim gives life – the Bible – and renounce the anti-Jewishness embedded in the New testament through teaching and renunciation -THEN and only then may you, with integrity, converse on issues of health care, abortion, birth control and gay marriage.

When you, the bishops of the Church, and you the elected leaders who claim Jesus as your personal Saviour can fully explain your failure before the killing fields of Cambodia, the slaughter in Bosnia, the machetes of Rwanda, the gassing of Kurds, the rape and torture in Darfur, perhaps then you will be taken seriously concerning your moral arguments. Until then you are devoid of moral authority, devoid of anything to say of substance before the burning children of Auschwitz. When you can address honestly and forthrightly the question of God’s presence and God’s absence for this world shaking event then perhaps you will be leaders with integrity. Until then you are a noisy gong and clanging cymbal and you should be addressed as such.

Do not be like the Bishops of Germany under the Nazis who thought they could reclaim Germany as a Catholic state and put nationalism before faithfulness to the gospel. That led to the fires of the crematoria. So too in the U.S. your blatant absolutism will stoke the flames of nationalism in this nation and burn us with hate. Beware what you unleash dear Bishops and politicians embracing Jesus. Woe to you!

Only when you face your moral failure in the past will you have the right to enter the dialogue of morality in today’s culture. And that you have not done. Repent dear Bishops and religious Republicans who dress God in red, white and blue, repent! Your patriotism is as shallow as your faith.

“God is my Fuehrer” is a collection of sermons written by Pastor Martin Niemoller between 1936 and 1937 in Nazi Germany. Anyone with a limited knowledge of history recognized that these years are part of the increasing grasp of the Nazi Party on every aspect of Germany life and the ever increasing persecution of Jews in Germany. The Evangelical Church – that is the Lutheran Church and German reformed Church, no to be confuse with the shallow and biblical errant so-called  “evangelicals” of America – was under the gun by Nazi authorities. The Roman Catholic Church was in the same boat as the Lutherans and Reformed though the German Roman Catholic Church was looking to be more patriotic by proving itself in spirit with Germany. There was a dream emanating from Rome that Germany would once again join the rank of Roman Catholic nations.

Be that as it may, Nazi interference with Church policy and program was very much on the minds of Roman bishops and Lutheran/Reformed church leaders. The Evangelical Church faced the crisis of losing its confessional grounding as the German Christian Church was being promulgated by Christians who had all b ut sold their souls to the Nazis and whose worldview was interpreted through Nazi propaganda and dogma.

Those Lutherans who decried state interference and broke away to form the Confessing church sough more independence from the strictures of the state. Others like Niemoller stuck it out in the Protestant Church. They were at first supported of the Nazi leadership but because disenchanted as the state sought to replace God and the scriptures. However the Lutheran Church and some Catholic leadership had no qualms about opening their record to discover who was baptized as an adult Jew. This was especially true of those priests and pastors who had been Jewish and converted. When discovered they were removed and turned over to the state.

While Neimoller castigated the government in more and more poignant ways,any words concerning the state’s mistreatment and removal of civil rights from Jews were completely absent. Even when stripped of German citizenship, the right to own property or businesses, to attend schools, to practice law and medicine, to publish and to hold teaching positions – Neimoller and the church said nothing. Their Christian antisemitism, the acceptable antisemitism of old Europe was their world view when it came to German domestic policy. Neimoller and the church said nothing as the Nazis began medical programs to euthanize the feeble minded, the mentally and physically handicapped /challenged. Oh yes, a German catholic Bishop attacked the policies by the Protestant Church said nothing. After a short interruption in the program, Hitler ordered it to begin again in secret.

The collection of sermons by Neimoller mentions not one thing concerning about the the euthanasia programs , the Jews or the restriction of civil rights. What Neimoller decries in the interference of the church by the state.

Randall Terry and other right wing Christians lift up Neimoller as a hero, taking him out of context and employing the sick and perverted view of some bizarre Roman Catholic bishops of President Obama as Hitler.

In point of fact, Terry and those right wingers are espousing a fanatical fascism which looks forward to the undermining of a democratic United States. Like the legislatures of Ohio and Wisconsin and Michigan with conservative majorities, they do not pass law for the benefit of the people, but rather are passing law which will guarantee their dictatorship and hold on power.

The amazing thing is people do not recognize their loss and will not till they are left naked and a nation based on law has become totally and completely the will of one party. If Terry and others pervert the teachings of the church through historical amnesia and middle class people – at least what is left of the middle class – out of selfishness and security supported them, then we truly deserve the rule of the ignorant and the loss of democracy.

The conservative Republicans and Tea baggers are domestic terrorists who with the money of Karl Rove – a frustrated and inept politicians who should have been convicted of crimes while under George Bush II – will warp the truth but have the money to repeat the lies over and over and ignorant Americans who have not read a book or a newspaper and have reflect only on the latest sports score.

We are in trouble. We are in trouble because we have forgotten history. We have not learned from the past because like Sarah Palin who believed – and her followers tried to get into Wikpedia and change it to her view that Paul revere was riding to warm the British we try to bend the facts to our way of thinking and make them fit our world view.  Beware my friends. The barbarians are not at the gates – they are in the Congress and may be in the White House like they were for the years before Obama. Eight years of lies and lies and two wars and thousands dead and a collapsed economy and the wealthy becoming wealthier and a Republican house which is the antithesis of Robin Hood. Your 90 year old mother is being raped and robbed by the Republicans and it appears that most Americans are going to tell her: “If you are being raped and mugged just lay back and enjoy it”.