If you read the Gospels, the Religious Right is most often wrong

Religious Right? It seems more like the religious 'wrong'

Date published: 11/28/2004

By RICK MERCIER

WAS JESUS a big winner in the last election? You'd sure think so. If the pundits and Religious Right zealots are correct, the Son of God scored a knockout victory on Nov. 2.

We've had it drilled into our heads that something known as "moral values" was decisive in the election. Some worked-up commentators have even said we're on the brink of a second Great Awakening.

All this hype about the God talk swirling around in our culture prompted me to do a little research (a big departure from how I usually prepare for writing a column). I cracked open my Bible and started rereading the Gospels.

And you know what? I can't see what all this sanctimonious values rhetoric has to do with Jesus. I've compared what I read in Gospels with what I've been hearing from the Religious Right, and I've concluded that the holier-than-thous must have traded in their red-letter editions of the Good Book for red-state versions that omit most of Jesus' teachings.

The truth is, if you depend on the Christian right for your theological sustenance, you probably won't recognize the Jesus of the Gospels.

Jesus was quite a troublemaker. In fact, I'm thinking the Bush administration would have a special place for Jesus were the swarthy Nazarene to take up his ministry today in the U.S. of A.--in a cell with other Middle Eastern men awaiting deportation.

Let's recall what the Jesus of the Gospels espoused. "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you," the sandal-wearing rabble-rouser was known to say.

That sounds pretty good, but it makes you realize that JC would never have reached "Ranger" or "Pioneer" status in the Bush fund-raising machine.

Then, of course, there's Jesus' encounter with the rich ruler who said he was a righteous man because he'd followed the Ten Commandments since his youth (though he gave no indication that he'd ever erected a monument dedicated to them in a public place).

Jesus told the ruler: "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

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Date published: 11/28/2004