It’s another Sunday morning, and millions of Americans are beginning their day. A good portion of them like to call themselves Christian; it is, after all, very fashionable to belong to the religious group that founded their country. They pull on their expensive clothes with resolve and hop into their SUVs, setting their hearts away from sin and preparing themselves to hear the message of the true and divine God. And so, driving past a number of missions, orphanages, drastically under-staffed homeless shelters, over-crowded prisons-and the occasional halfway house-they arrive at their illustrious houses of God. For a few hours, they all sit in reverence and listen to a man tell them to be more like Jesus. Thank God we live in a Christian country.Mikhail Gorbachev once said that the first socialist on the planet was Jesus Christ. He was a man who resolved to make things better for everyone (Jesus, that is). Kurt Vonnegut, in his semi-memoir A Man withou0t a Country argues that socialism and Christianity are essentially the same thing; ideologies that argue that everything should be equal and all men and women are, in essence, the same under God. Ridiculous! If Christ intended his people to support welfare for people who cannot take care of themselves or pensions for the elderly and disabled, he wouldn’t put those concepts into the heads of those murderous liberals, right? The same liberals, I may add, that support the murdering of thousands of unborn fetuses. The same, of course, could never be said of our trustworthy, God-fearing conservatives. I’ve never heard of a Republican who supported state-sanctioned murder. (Note: The War in Iraq doesn’t count, as Iraqis are mostly Muslims, not beautiful, Christian babies).
So we all know that there are a few holes in the entire “Christian Conservative” argument; that goes without saying. Further proof, perhaps, is the fact that while many of those same faith-based initiative volunteers often gasp in horror at the thought of the 10 commandments being excluded from a courthouse, I have yet to hear even one of them suggest any of the adages of Jesus Christ to be put up in government buildings. “Turn the other cheek” just wouldn’t look right if we put it up on any of the walls of the Pentagon. “Blessed are the meek” isn’t exactly something that would sit well in the Capitol building (especially with congressmen being paid $165,200 or more per year).
I hold no personal qualms with those people, as most of them have their hearts in the right places. However, a shocking trend has gripped a number of Christians living in this beautiful country. Apparently, good Christian charity and meekness has been completely crowded out by the number one enemy of anyone who respects a fair society; capitalism. In the United States, a surprisingly large number of Christians believe that there is nothing wrong with amassing a great amount of wealth. Indeed, many religious leaders make over $100,000 a year. The people who preach to you that the poor will receive the kingdom of heaven (Luke 6:20) are making quite a lot of dough!
Just a short read through any of the gospels makes it obvious that this was never a part of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Even from the perspective of an agnostic, the interpretation of lines like, “woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24) is obvious. Of course, many people read a different version of the beatitudes; in Matthew, Jesus claims that the “poor in spirit” are the inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Later in Matthew, however, Jesus restates the principles of the evils of wealth, saying “No one can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24). The only conclusion one can draw is that Christ never intended for his followers to be super-rich hyper-industrialists like the so-called “men of God” raking in thousands more than their followers, indeed, his outrage at the temple being used as a place to sell things proves his inherent aversion to capitalism.
Yet with all this, Christians have taken an Old Testament Job-had-a-lot-of-money-why-shouldn’t-I stance on the nature of wealth. Indeed, if God showers a Christian with the blessings of wealth shouldn’t it be that man’s responsibility to share his treasures, not hoard them? Your earthly blessings were never meant to be locked away in your bank accounts (take a look at Matthew 6:19 if you don’t believe me), but rather given to those who have not the means to care for themselves. Part of the creed of socialism is “while there is one man poor, I, too, am poor”; without a doubt something Jesus would easily agree with.