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This is the opinion of a stalwart
Reformed Calvinist. I don't necessarily endorse his views. David "Free
speech is meant to
protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition,
needs no
protection."—Neal
Boortz -------- Original Message --------
8 Biblical Verses That Leftists Have Gotten Completely Wrong2010 October 25
Politicians of all stripes endeavor to invoke the Bible for many reasons. Some try to use God's Word to score points with the Christian or Jewish communities. Others employ a Biblical analogy or story to drive a point home. A few even share impactful passages out of sincere faith. However, it appears that most politicians — on the Left as well as on the Right — use the Old and New Testaments to prove or further their agenda. One of the most insidious and troubling areas in which politicians have co-opted scripture is the "social justice" movement. Since the 19th century, Leftists have attempted to use particular passages from the Bible to achieve progressive and often radical or statist ends. From communitarians to eugenicists to early 20th century progressives to New Dealers, evangelists of various strains of the Social Gospel have attempted to utilize the Bible to justify their views. Civil rights leaders from the 1950s until today have used scripture to prove their point. Jimmy Carter made no secret of his Christian faith, and he claimed to center many of his policies around it. The environmentalist movement has attempted to lure Jews and Christians into its fold by using the Bible, even coining the term "Creation Care" to make radical environmentalism palatable to believers. The progressive Social Gospel concept has come front and center in the Obama era, with Leftist religious leaders like Jim Wallis and his group, Sojourners, peddling their peculiar band of radically Leftist religious conviction. One of the most disturbing traits of the progressives' co-opting of Biblical passages to prove their ideas is that they often take scriptures out of context, twisting them to fit their agenda. (Yes, the interpretation of scripture is quite subjective, and yes, there are people on the Right who take the Bible out of context, too. But that's another topic for perhaps another day.) When any politician uses a verse or passage from the Bible, Christians and Jews should search the context of the scripture for accuracy and to get the full picture. Even those who do not believe in the Judeo-Christian God should check out how a politician is trying to use a particular scripture. With careful study, it's easy to discover that the Religious Left is a particularly pernicious threat. With that said, here are eight examples of Leftists taking Biblical passages out of context or getting the scriptures completely wrong. One theme we'll see is that of Leftists applying ideas from scripture to collective or government policy, when the concepts in reality apply to the personal lives of God's followers. A brief note on Biblical translation: when I quote verses, I'm using the New International Version unless I state otherwise. It is the translation I use the most, and while some may argue that other translations are more accurate, I believe the NIV strikes the best balance between accuracy and readability.8. Al Gore Screws Up The Cain & Abel Story It's possible that no single human being has meant more to the radical environmentalist movement than Al Gore. Gore was environmentally aware when environmental awareness wasn't cool (not that anyone would ever confuse Gore with anything remotely cool), and he published his radical environmental tome, Earth In The Balance, in 1992. In the book, Gore went so far as to compare the supposed impending environmental doom caused by man-made global warming to the Holocaust. Throughout Earth In The Balance, Gore attempts to reconcile his Christian faith with his environmental evangelism. In doing so, he also invokes several other religions (even some somewhat obscure ones), putting forth an odd, syncretic eco-theology. Gore also takes a well-known Bible story far out of context in order to tie any diversion from radical environmentalism to sin. Gore has the audacity to say:
Of course, the passage Gore is speaking of, from Genesis 4, has nothing to do with pollution. The Lord is disappointed with Cain's sacrifice but pleased with Abel's, so Cain murders his brother:
Clearly, the Lord is angry at Cain not because he committed "pollution," but because he killed his brother. Al Gore's attempt to tie Cain's individual sin to what he views as a collective sin of environmental irresponsibility (while barely acknowledging the murder) is remarkably weak, but then again, collective sin and collective redemption are the hallmarks of the Social Gospel, and its proponents will make any connection, no matter how flimsy, to support that point. 7. Jim Wallis & The Minimum Wage Verse Jim Wallis is a megastar on the religious Left. He became a hot property when he publicly admitted to supporting John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004. Half a decade later, he essentially replaced Jeremiah Wright as President Obama's unofficial "spiritual advisor." Wallis' brand of Christianity represents the Social Gospel at its most extreme. Ardently anti-capitalist and anti-free market, Wallis has claimed to be a Marxist, and has professed his affection for the radical Dorothy Day. From 2006 to 2008, he also authored a blog he arrogantly called God's Politics. Wallis believes that the Gospel of Christ compels him to call for radical "social justice":
Wallis doesn't believe that justice will be achieved through individual effort. Rather, he sees government as the means to achieve a heavenly kingdom on earth. In February 2007, Wallis stood alongside Senators Ted Kennedy and Tom Harkin to celebrate the passage of a minimum wage bill. Purporting to claim that "God hates inequality," Wallis quoted from Isaiah to attempt to show God's support of a minimum wage:
Not only do the verses Wallis quotes have nothing to do with a minimum wage (or any other kind of wage, for that matter), but they also have nothing to do with life on earth as we know it. The second half of Isaiah 65 concerns the "new heaven and new earth" that the Lord will build for His people at the end of time. Furthermore, Wallis' claim that God hates inequality is refuted by Jesus' parable of the talents, the point of which is that God gives all of us different abilities and talents and it's up to us to serve Him with those talents. In this speech, Wallis either displayed an ignorance of scripture or a disregard for it beyond what suits his progressive agenda. I think it's the latter. 6. John Kerry on George Bush's "Faith Without Works" During the 2004 campaign, Senator John Kerry spoke at the New North Side Baptist Church in St. Louis. Personally, I'm always a bit unsettled when a politician speaks at any church (I mean, does the church lose its tax-exempt status?), but it's also amusing to see these lily white people behind the puplit at African-American churches. In his speech, Kerry made a not-so-veiled slam at the Bush administration, which was presumably one of many:
Kerry claimed that Bush's faith is lacking because the United States government had not shown sufficient "works" to back up his faith. The verses Kerry referenced are James 2:14-17, which, in the New King James Version, read:
The problem with Kerry's argument is that James' words do not refer to governments but to individuals. In these verses, James, the brother of Jesus, says that God calls each one of us to live out our faith by serving others. But the Social Gospel isn't concerned with individual salvation or individual faith. Rather, the architects of Social Gospel see faith and works as collective endeavors, only undertaken by governments, and that's how John Kerry got these scriptures totally wrong. 5. Howard Dean's Favorite New Testament Book One of the most infamous moments of the 2004 campaign came when Howard Dean was asked what his favorite New Testament book was. His answer was, "the book of Job," which is in the Old Testament. Yes, Dean, who described himself as "pretty religious" and claimed to "know much about the Bible," didn't know that the book of Job wasn't in the New Testament. ("Big deal," some of you may say. But it just stratches the surface of Dean's Biblical ignorance.) Later at the same event, Dean admitted to his gaffe, and he went on to talk about why Job resonated with him:
Once again, Dean revealed his ignorance. It's actually pretty clear that the Lord allows Job to suffer as a test of his faith:
Of course, Job passes the test, and the things he lost are restored to him. Job is a harrowing story of suffering and strong faith, not a book that "sort of explains that bad things happen to very good people for no good reason." Sadly enough, Howard Dean didn't quite get that.
4. Obama's Interpretation Of The Sermon On The Mount In a 2006 speech at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference in Washington DC, then-Senator Barack Obama invoked the most famous of Christ's sermons, known as the Sermon on the Mount, to criticize the United States' commitment to strong defense. He said:
Clearly, Obama hadn't been reading his Bible at the time of his speech either, because there's nothing in the Sermon on the Mount that fits his flippant statement. I've read the Sermon on the Mount countless times and have never thought of the Department of Defense while reading it. Obama took some heat for the statement:
I'll give Obama credit for one thing: the Sermon on the Mount is radical, but it's radical in terms of how we should interact with each other on a personal level and on how our attitudes should shape our behavior, again on a personal basis. I can think of a passage from Matthew 5 that might have inspired Obama:
It's a brilliant way to conduct your personal life, and I believe that's exactly what Christ intended, but I also think it wasn't intended as a basis for public policy. And for Obama to think the Sermon on the Mount is justification for weak national defense (among other things) is completely misguided.
3. Where Al Gore's Treasure Is. Or Is It His Heart? We're back to Al Gore for our next Leftist scriptural bungling. In the second presidential debate in 2000, Gore addressed the environment (what else?), when he said:
So, what's with the phrase "faith tradition"? Who calls their most cherished and personal beliefs their "faith tradition"? But I digress. Gore's statement was presumably heartfelt and sounded nice, but he got Matthew 6:21 completely mixed up. That verse (in context back to verse 19) actually says:
Here, Jesus is clearly saying that if we invest our treasure, and thus our heart, in the things of earth (including the environment, Al), our investment is misplaced. In botching the verse, Gore turned around the meaning completely. Ann Coulter put it well when she wrote:
Al Gore proved yet again that he probably should stay away from quoting the Bible.
2. Abortion: It's In The Bible (Kinda Like It's In The Constitution) As I was researching this post, I stumbled upon one of the most egregious and offensive examples of the misuse of scripture by a Leftist. I came across the blog of one Brian Elroy McKinley, a self-admitted former Christian who apparently has now devoted his life to attempting to use the Bible to refute Right-wing politics. (I hadn't heard of him before either.) Among McKinley's entries is one entitled "Do Unto Others: A Guide to Striking Back at the Religious Right," which advocates, among other things, setting up a show with an anti-Christian band, billing the event as a Christian concert for teens, and using the band to attempt to sway kids away from their faith. Obviously this guy isn't a fan of honest, civil discourse. The article I actually came across was entitled, "Why Abortion Is Biblical." I bristled at the very title, because I had a strong feeling that it was intended for shock value, though I may have been giving the author too much credit for cleverness. McKinley accuses pro-life Christians of taking verses out of context that support an argument that life begins at conception, passages like Psalm 139:13-16, which reads:
Pro-life Christians and Jews obviously treasure the notion that God cares for each one of us from the time we are conceived, as is written in this verse. McKinley then wanders off on a diatribe basically explaining how to take scriptures out of context before he settles on a couple of passages from Ecclesiastes that he claims advocate both abortion and euthanasia on the basis of quality of life.
McKinley cites another verse, in which the accidental killing of a woman's unborn child is not punished with death as evidence that God is in favor of abortion. It doesn't take a Biblical scholar to conclude that McKinley makes some giant leaps to justify the notion of abortion advocacy in the Bible. McKinley clearly isn't an important or consequential Leftist like Al Gore or Barack Obama, but his is another example of the dangerous thought that arises when those on the Left take the Bible out of context to support their agendas. 1. Matthew 25 The scriptural passage that is possibly used the most by the Left in their attempts to attach God to their agenda is Matthew 25. In the last section of this chapter, Jesus uses a metaphor from farming to describe how, at the eternal judgment, He will know who his true followers are by their service:
Like many of the passages listed earlier in this post, the sheep and goats represent individuals, not governments, organizations, or agencies, but that doesn't stop the Left from co-opting the passage to apply to American policy. In 2007, the author of the blog Imitatio Christi attempted to use the passage to argue for socialism and universal health care:
This much is true, but to use the Bible to argue for socialism is irresponsible. There's also a political action committee called the Matthew 25 Network, which is committed to swaying religious voters to elect Leftist politicians. In their own words, the members of this PAC are "dedicated to promoting candidates who support Christian principles of social justice and the common good." Since 2008, the PAC has supported only two candidates: Barack Obama and Tom Perriello, a Democrat who represents the 5th Congressional District in Virginia who supported, among other legislation, the stimulus and health care reform bills. There have been plenty of other uses of this scripture by the Left, but I've gone on enough. As we've seen here, the Left often stretches Biblical passages or takes them out of context to fit an agenda of "social justice." Often, Leftists do so by inaccurately applying personal scriptural truths to governments and societies. Other times, politicians completely bungle the verses or completely miss the point of them. Honestly, as good as it is for people to incorporate their deeply held faith into all areas of their lives, it's a bad idea for politicians on either side of the aisle to use the word of God to support their positions or achieve their own ends. As one writer for Free Republic eloquently put it:
— Chris Queen is a freelance writer and communications consultant from Covington, GA, where he writes a weekly religion feature for The Covington News. You can read his non-political writings on his blog, Random Thoughts From The Revolution, or follow him on Twitter.
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Title: "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech
