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A Very Lefty Festival: No Wonder The Christmas Story Sounds So Progressive, There's Nothing For The Right
Why do the seasonal messages from all the world's Christian leaders sound like Guardian editorials? The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of our duty to the environment - no surprise there from a self-confessed "bearded lefty". But the Queen is neither of those and she too got in on the act, emphasising care for the poor and vulnerable. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, appealed to people to welcome immigrants. Even Pope Benedict XVI, sitting in all his finery, took a stroll down the well-worn progressive paths of poverty, injustice and war, focusing attention on the situation in Iraq and the Holy Land.
Traditional categories of right and left don't always work when applied to faith. Yet it's tough to think of a single rightwing message that originates in the Christmas story. The best try goes to the Republican presidential candidate and former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, who recently released a campaign advert in which he is pictured standing in front of a Christmas tree saying: "God bless and happy Christmas." In the context of the US, where saying anything other than "Happy Holidays" is read as cultural chauvinism, Huckabee's manner of salutation was loaded with political purpose.
It's all a part of a wider strategy, with Huckabee feeding off those who attack him, letting their outrage make his point that Christianity is under threat. It's not a message that has anything whatsoever to do with the Christmas story. Indeed, the fact that there is supposed to be a firewall between politics and religion in the US enables candidates like Huckabee conveniently to dodge the fact that the politics of Christmas are so little like his own. How else could he profess Christmas and simultaneously take part in a bidding war with other Republican candidates as to who is toughest on immigration?
An unmarried couple, homeless Jewish refugees, find refuge in a cowshed. That night a child is born amid predictions that he will bring peace and goodwill to the whole world. From the beginning it is clear he has a particular commitment to issues of poverty and social justice. Imperial soldiers seek his destruction, fearing he threatens the status quo. The child is forced to seek asylum in Egypt.
Given the repertoire of imagery that religious people have available to them in order to describe God - the fearsome warrior, the magnificent monarch, the mysterious other - the fact that the core image of the Christian faith is one that emphasises hope, all-too-human vulnerability and a mother's gentle love offers no hook for a politics of violence, fear, nationalism or greed.
The Christian festival beloved of the right is Easter; more specifically, the retributive and often bloodthirsty philosophy of punishment inherent in some misunderstandings of the cross. Here is the justification for capital punishment and the centuries-old Christian superiority complex alike. But there is no room at the inn for all that stuff at Christmas.
Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney giles.fraser@btinternet.com
© 2007 The Guardian
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17 Comments so far
Show AllHuckabee should keep his religious beliefs out of the fucking election process--as should they all.
What? Just because this bozo is a slobbering evangelical (c)hristian, that he is therefore qualified to be President?! What the hell is going on in a country where--when choosing a candidate to vote for--ISSUES are at the bottom of the priority list?!
I got yer issues right HERE: http://www.dennis4president.com/go/issues/
If there is a god he owes the world an apology.
Hoa binh
now that comment is indeed sorry.
why would an intelligent being who (possibly may have) created this which appears brilliant - even I think to a scientist - in every regard even to the untrained eye, need to apologize for anything? ok, should one exist.
allow your thoughts to wander over different possibilities and what they might mean, but keep your skepticism if you must.
Priests scuffle inside Bethlehem church
AP - Thu Dec 27, 7:27 AM ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.
...and so it goes...
Wonder how the 10,000+ raped alter boys celebrate this joyous time of year? Cardinal Law, any thoughts?
"The Christian festival beloved of the right is Easter; more specifically, the retributive and often bloodthirsty philosophy of punishment inherent in some misunderstandings of the cross. Here is the justification for capital punishment and the centuries-old Christian superiority complex alike. But there is no room at the inn for all that stuff at Christmas."
This part is odd given that Jesus was a victim of rendition, torture, and eventually execution by the imperial state on the grounds of national security. Crucifixion itself was reserved for political crimes, such as insurgency.
Maybe today's right wing religious demagogues seem much more comfortable playing the role of the torturers and executioners in their particular passion plays as they do in real life.
Matthew 25:31-46 says it all.
"Why do the seasonal messages from all the world's Christian leaders sound like Guardian editorials?"
So cold lazy wanna see peacers can still feel good while they just sit back doing nothing about World Oil Production Decline Nuclear Ice Age Global Warfare, just as long as they said their prayers.
Jesus "he who has will be given more and he will have an abundance, he who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."
Jesus "you may presume I am here to bring peace, I am not but the sword."
Jesus "since before the days of John, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and violent men do take it by force."
Read the Youngs Literal Translation or be fooled.
I invite all comments:
rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
http://biblegateway.com to arrive at a search facility that allows search of the Youngs literal translation bible, as well as many other bible versions.
Jesus faked his death to subdue Jewish aspirations of being SAVED from the empire.
The cause of death when cross hanged is drowning on the fluids that were in the arms. Jesus "cried out" just before he was taken down, after just 9 hours, as John records Pilate was quite distressed regarding.
3 days is what's required to literally die on a cross. 9 hours, 3 days, big difference.
Jesus "give to Caesar what's caesars"
Translated: "Pay your taxes so Caesar can pay for this army to oppress you."
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2006/04/the_historicity_of_the_resurre.php
"It is also quite obvious that Christ could not have survived the crucifixion. The fact that water flowed with his blood shows that he was indeed drowned by the fluids in his own body - the common cause of death during crucifixion."
Drowned and capable of crying out a whole sentence... Impossible!
The spear stab was surgical to drain his lungs. There is no vital organ between the bottom most and next rib. The sponge was wet not with vinegar but with what the romans were using to drug people out of conscience in the first century. The fact that his blood flowed proves he was at that moment alive. Blood congeals in dead bodies. The seeming spontaneous thunderous earth quake, explosives in underground caverns.
christianity - UG, the religion that teaches that unless we believe in a particular deity, we are all going to some place of torment forever. funny how the endless articles and posts about the "jesus the great teacher" forget to mention this. horrible religion it is
"the fact that the core image of the Christian faith is one that emphasises hope, all-too-human vulnerability and a mother's gentle love offers no hook for a politics of violence, fear, nationalism or greed."
Amen, Vicar.
Peace to you
---PEACE, where's the profit in that?
Every catastrophe in human history has had to do with either religion or financial greed, both intimately related, so I have nothing but disgust for KKKhristians or any other group of cultists.
You have to be a retarded 5 yo. to believe in God or in the Bible and not realize that God didn't create men, it was men who created God instead, with the sole purpose of controlling, inflicting fear, guilt and manipulating weak-minded fools in order to achieve political power and financial gain.
What's truly repulsive is to see a flesh-eating bacteria like Bill O'Reilly talk about the War on Christmas when his own network represents everything that the legend of Jesus Christ spoke against.
Haters,
Look at yourselves.
It's pathetic.
I think it would be good to look, really look, at the hate spewed in some of these posts.
When people trash the left, it's statements like the one above "You have to be a retarded 5 yo. to believe in God or in the Bible..." that take center stage. We are supposed to be about respect and tolerance...but I see as little of it on the Left as well as the Right these days!!!!!
It's crap like this that makes me sad...there are lots of Americans who don't feel welcome by the Right OR the Left...and we wonder why 1/2 the country doesn't bother to vote.
Mr. Fraser is certainly correct: there isn't anything in the Christmas story that even remotely justifies the war-mongering of the Bush administration.
Perhaps the problem with the Bible is that since it has so many conflicting messages it can act as a one-size-fits-all mirror, reflecting the moods of its readers at the time of reading, whether they're believers or not and whether the mood reflected is fear or love or charity or prejudice or hate or whatever.
In this sense the Bible is a sort of bi-polar book, intensifying the kindness of a kind person and the anger of an angry person. And whether a person is kind or angry often depends on what's happened in their life to make them that way. Give a kind person poverty and threaten them incessantly with outside attack and maybe they'll become angry.
Maybe if our government would do more toward helping the poor and middle class to have safe and happy lives, instead of trying to jack up their fear and hate and poverty, the mirror of the Bible would reflect back mostly good things, instead of a polarized mix of good and bad. Of course if that were the case then it wouldn't be a very useful tool for the military/industrial complex. And that would nice.
RocYaSoul,
You moron, there were NO EXPLOSIVES in Jesus' time. There was "Greek Fire", which was a form of crude napalm made from asphaltum, but there were NO EXPLOSIVES.
Facts be damned! Anyone who isn't drugged into numbness by the MSM knows that the Crucifixion was an INSIDE JOB, a grand conspiracy by W's ancestors (the great patriarch of the family, Burnie Bush was tight with Moses). go to: calvarytruth.com for the real story!
Today, they destroy the tapes. Back then they just made sure that the body conveniently disappeared, so we'll never really know if Christ was waterboarded before they nailed him to that cross . . .