Christian Right.....or Wrong

I don't believe the Christian Right knows or understands Jesus Christ at all. They don’t practice what he preached. They don’t do what he did. They most certainly aren’t willing to suffer as he suffered. Here in the twenty-first century, Christian is simply a moniker that has no relationship with the person or preachings with which it is synonymous.

My grandmother was a big fan of all things Catholic. She believed in God, Christ, the Bible, saying the Rosary, the whole shebang. If she were more mobile, I think she would have made pilgrimages to the Promised Land. I would often come home to see her praying the rosary at the dining room table or in her bedroom. We would have conversations about who Jesus was, what he preached and mostly why he died. It still makes no sense to me why he couldn’t have simply died of old age after a long and successful life of preaching the word, but that’s another blog entirely. Concerning this one, I understand what he said and what he meant, at least according to my dearly departed grandmother.

My grandmother believed in Catholicism so much, that the priest that eulogized her said one of the most amazing things I had ever heard a Catholic priest say. He told the listeners that if my grandmother was not in heaven right then, with Jesus Christ himself, then he and everyone in attendance had no chance of going to heaven. That’s how much a Catholic priest who couldn’t even speak Italian – my grandmother only spoke Italian – understood what Jesus meant to my grandmother. 

The Christian Right, particularly the Tea Party, aren’t interested in knowing the Jesus my grandmother knew. They don't believe the things my grandmother believed. They can't. Are you hungry? Get a job. Are you sick? See a doctor. Are you poor? Get a better job. It’s all so simple, these solutions should have occurred to me. I guess they didn't occur to me because I'm Christian in a non-Christian way.

What ever happened to feeding the hungry and comforting the sick. I don’t remember anywhere in the New Testament where Jesus said feed the hungry unless they refused to get a job. I’m also guessing that Jesus would have found the very idea of the Healthcare Industry being for profit to be the most unchristian thought in the universe.

Another thing; ninety-nine percent of the people I have ever met would rather work and support themselves than ask for a handout. Does the Christian Right actually think people are unemployed because they would rather monitor Drew Carey and Vanna White’s career than go to work?

Most people don’t understand the teachings in the New Testament. When Jesus talked about the Good Samaritan, that was a person from Samaria. Samaritans were heathens; people not respected in Christ’s day by the holy rollers to whom he was preaching. It was shocking in those times in the Middle East that a Samaritan would stop to help a stranger. You might as well believe an atheist would help you out in this day and age.

My understanding is that Jesus didn’t ask for health insurance when he comforted the sick. He didn’t ask people for work cards when he gave them fish and bread to eat. While he said the meek shall inherit the earth, he had more than a few choice words about the rich. In the New Testament, Jesus is supposed to have said it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the gates of heaven. If you believe in heaven, that's pretty powerful stuff.

My question is, does the Christian right read the New Testament? Do they know the stories of Jesus, what he did in his last three years and what he actually believed? I’m not so sure they do. As a matter of fact, I doubt that most Christians have read the New Testament and actually know what Jesus preached according to it. But if they do know, I say Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.