WHAT YOU NEED NOW - CONTENT UPDATED THROUGH THE DAY
June 26, 2005
MANN TALK: The Different Delineations of the Christian Diety
by Perry Mann
Hinton, WV (Special to HNN) – John Warner, a teacher and minister, wrote an
article titled “How can true Christians support Bush’s policies?” He made a
case that Christ would not give the wealthy tax cuts, give the military
unlimited billions and cut every program that helps the children, the aged,
the sick and the poor.
Anyone who reads the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Christ could
come to no other conclusion, except Jeff Spenser, a right-wing conservative
that apparently worships Jehovah rather than Christ’s Father. In a Readers’
Forum piece, he begins with an attack on the person rather than an attack on
the argument, a beginning that manifests Spencer’s irritation at the cogency
of Warner’s essay. He deduces that Warner’s article “shows that some
churches are biblically illiterate---they’ll ordain anyone.” It’s true; but
Warner is not just anyone.
Then Spencer warms up with this assertion: “Warner assumes that it’s the
state’s function to meet the needs of the people not God’s.” It’s clear from
that deduction that Spencer believes that it is God’s function to meet the
needs of the people, not the State’s. God meets the needs of the people in
mysterious ways, the proof of which is the latest gift of God to meet the
needs of the people, namely, the tsunami that washed away incalculable
homes, children, and people of Indonesia, India and other countries in that
area. But it’s true that He brings the sun and the rain to the rich and the
poor without preference. The state is society. Government is society’s
instrument. It is through that instrument that it evidences its empathy and
sympathy by policies and agencies that help those who are poor, sick, young
and victims of God’s tsunamis and other disasters.
Ever warmer, Spencer declares: “He [Warner] assumes that all people are
entitled to a certain level of comfortable living, even if it means stealing
from others---which clearly opposes God, who says, ’You reap what you sow’
and elsewhere ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat.’”
In this sentence there appear the politics of Reagan and Bush as practiced
by them, the theology of Jehovah as found in Leviticus, and the sarcasm and
meanness as found in most of Spencer’s fuming. Neither John Warner or any
other liberal ever assumed that all people are entitled to a “comfortable”
living or ever proposed stealing from others to provide one for them.
Spencer equates using taxes for the poor with stealing from the rich. And he
goes even further to imply that God would find such a transfer of wealth an
abomination. This sort of thinking is apparently inherent genetically among
right-wing capitalists and, believe it or not, evangelical Christians.
Spencer presumes there is a God and presumes that God said “one reaps what
he sows” and “if one doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat.” There is no conclusive
evidence that there is a God much less that God ever made such statements.
Spencer’s premise is faith-based. He was taught as a child that the Bible
is God’s word and he never questioned it. I suspect that a wise man,
sitting around a fire in a cave, figured out that, what one does often
results in good or bad depending on what he does, long before there was a
Bible or long before the Hebrews conceived their God. And the
don’t-work-don’t-eat admonishment is purely Levitical; that is, a concept
that is primal and part of the culture of the stone-age. A man on the street
without a hoe for cultivating or an acre to cultivate or a job cannot work
or eat. At a corner with hat out in supplication is often the only job
available. Such destitution is an abomination in a nation that is fat with
wealth. And Christ would agree.
Further, there are many people in this world who do not work, but play full
time and yet eat well, very well indeed, and are entitled to a really
comfortable living. This nice situation wasn’t the result of stealing but
was the result of a system whereby thousands of workers were paid less than
the worth of the value they created. The difference accrued to someone who
put the difference in trust for his scion to receive all the days of his
workless existence. The system is called capitalism. Where on God’s earth is
a capitalist that would venture capital provided that his return from it
would be confined to the actual value of his labor in the employment of it?
The God of the Gospels through His son had a different approach: The
prodigal Son did not reap what he sowed. Instead, his father welcomed him
home, forgave him and killed the fatted calf for the feast of thanksgiving
for his return. And Christ advised: “Give to him that asketh thee, and from
him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”
More Spencer: “Biblical law [read Leviticus] protects the person and his
property from all forms of theft and coercion. When the state claims
ownership over man’s property and wealth, it is assuming Messiahship, thus
socialism is idolatry.” What a stretch! Public schools and the military are
forms of idolatry. And social security is undoubtedly Satan worship in
Spencer’s judgment.
Again Spencer: “In response to Warner’s steal-from-the-rich (tax) mantra,
biblical law requires every male 20 and older to pay a flat-tax. That
motivates people to work harder and earn more. Warner would rather steal
from these folks who create wealth and use their God-given talents to build
and create things which make our lives more comfortable and pleasant.”
Poppycock! Taxing is not stealing, nor is expropriating labor’s surplus
value stealing, since the statutes duly enacted by the people and a
constitution duly ratified by them, so say---the Bible to the contrary
notwithstanding. Without labor, capital is an habitué of the mattress. And
so it would molder until some anonymous creature with callus hands and
strong back agrees to work for a pittance to advance the dreams or schemes
of someone whose mattress was the depository of more than he needed to meet
his needs. If FDR, hallowed be his name, heard the mantra flat tax, he would
forthwith petition God to chastise the preachers thereof. And God, if He is
in the image of Christ, would forthwith chastise them with His son’s
admonishment to the rich that they had the same chance of entering the
Kingdom as one who could thread a needle with a camel.
If one reads Warner he notes that his delineations are accordant with Christ
and the Gospels. If one reads Spencer he notes that his are accordant with
Jehovah and Leviticus. Liberals quote Jesus. Conservatives quote Jehovah,
even though they claim to be Christians. It is the God of the same book but
it is a God of very different delineations. How can one reconcile the
Pharisees’ stoning to death for adultery and Christ’s merciful probation:
“Go and sin no more?”
Perry Mann is a former teacher, a lawyer, a former prosecuting attorney of
Summers County and a regular columnist for the Nicholas Chronicle in
Summersville. Born in Charleston, W.Va. in 1921, he lives in Hinton.
