Posted by Herm on August 29, 2010 at 09:54:17:
In Reply to: ...forgot the author posted by Leo on August 28, 2010 at 18:48:01:
: Frank Rich... NY Times
Leo,
I listened live to Glenn Beck’s entire “sermon on the memorial”. I witnessed all of the good folk, especially the 240 clergy (black and white), who bought into the patriotism, Christianity and the spirit of unity under God he was selling, as did I. I sang along with all the songs. I carried that riot fever glow most of the day and couldn’t understand why I went to bed depressed.
This morning it hit me so hard that I really hated my weakness to not react correctly to false premises. Maybe, I hope, it is not my weakness but it is my strength to feel the moment without prejudice and then form opinion later with research. A small part of my research is available to all here in the submission above yours; subject: “Beck: People don't recognize 'Obama's version of Christianity'”.
I have some credentials and have had time to exercise those validations. I am a once strongly active but now inactive ordained Presbyterian Deacon, Seventh Day Adventist Elder and a Roman Catholic Corsilista. I have seminary training and a strong spiritual relationship. I can debate the Bible exceedingly well and would love to sit down with anyone conflicted with what the Son of Man/the Son of God said and is saying, did and is doing. It ain’t nothing like what was actually preached yesterday or that Mr. Beck exposed today.
Yesterday Glenn Beck’s “divinely guided” rally was dedicated to “Restoring ‘Honour’” and we were all urged to return to God and country. What honor are we restoring that we no longer have? Are we talking pre-torture, the Patriot Act and the unilateral choice to preemptively invade another sovereign country … or … do we go back to women not allowed to vote and full fledged legal slavery … or … perhaps we just restore to pre-1950’s when there was no middle class and child/women sweat shops were rampant? Is any of that the nation we believe to be a more perfect union under God?
Mr. Beck said today that his rally … “was intended to reclaim the mantle of the civil rights movement from politics for "people of faith."”. He said “he didn't agree with King's calls for economic justice.” and "The real agenda should be equal justice, an equal shot,".
“The conservative commentator said he regretted his infamous comments that President Obama is a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of white people." He said he was "miscasting as racism" the president's "liberation theology" ideology, which he said relies on the lens of "oppressor and victim" to understand the world. Beck said Obama made the case in a speech to students that "your salvation is directly tied to collective salvation," which Beck said was "a direct opposite of what the gospel talks about ... Jesus came for personal salvation." Beck said "people aren't recognizing [Obama's] version of Christianity."”
I have to say that I know that is what most, but not all, of the Christian churches are preaching today in the USA. That is exactly why I am not beholding to any organized religion today and solely (or soul-ly) to a direct relationship with my God in Heaven, heart and mind. Jesus taught to be of humility and recognize the beggar at the gate, the tax collector and the sick of body and spirit throughout the world. Jesus taught to love your enemy and that who you considered your enemy might just be your neighbor, as in the parable of the “good Samaritan in relationship to the Jew” … and that the rulers and wealthy who appear to be your neighbor might just be your enemy, as in those who passed the Jew by. Jesus taught that we should never worry about amassing wealth to survive for our Father in Heaven would provide as our children trust in their parents to provide. Jesus taught that we cannot earn eternal life except by loving our LORD God with all we have responsibility to and our neighbor as our selves. Jesus asked that we who know Him go out into the world and let “all” in the world know that our Father in Heaven loves them all and does not hate them. The Bible teaches right at the beginning that God created Man in His image, not just the individual cells, children, men and women, who make up one created specie known as Man. We can support each other if we recognize that we are dependent upon each other to survive, especially through the uniting and productive bond of love. To separate ourselves into the haves and have nots is not the message Jesus or Barack brings us but is certainly the message being preached to us by Sara, Glenn, Rush, Mr. Murdoch and the Koch brothers.
The saddest part of Glenn Beck’s message yesterday, my recognized day of Sabbath, was that it was clearly a call to go back to the way it was while at the same time we go forward into an exciting new future. Why do we always seem to think it was better in the old west, the roaring twenties, and the great depression? How do we ever go forward if we insist on returning to the “good ole’ days” that really never was? What is so un-Christ like about learning a little more tolerance religious, racial and especially of our ignorance relative to the omnipotence of our benevolent God in Heaven? Mostly perturbing to me is why can’t we learn from the past so as to grow in maturity rather than insisting on going back to when we were even more childish than we are today?
The Koch brothers are the classic example of the human oppressor and we are the victims. If we buy into their, and their kind in spirit, message with full understanding of the ramifications we are no longer the victims but are the perpetrators and are fully responsible to the consequences. Welcome to the responsibility of a government of the people, by the people and for the people under God.
That’s my mortally much too insufficient sermon for this Sunday morning.
Herm