Faith gone wrong...Christians need a Jimmy Carter, not a George Bush

[mtnsnake]

Carter's Christian spirit exemplified a genuine global compassion and he never shoved his faith down everyone's throats.

Bush's Christian followers profess strong moral values, yet they back a leader who's all about aggression, war, deception, and intolerance.

I'm not a very religious person, so can someone please explain to me how Christian values have gotten so turned around?

[Booster]

1. Carter is a true Christian; Bush is a phony. Apparently, there

quite a few phony Christians in America, and Carter's view of peace and harmony just doesn't fit into their lust for blood. If these people really read the Bible, they would find tolerance mentioned in there often.

[greyfox]

3. We (Christians) also...

need to explain the Bible to Shrub... he cannot ever bring world peace, the idiot! It's not going to happen according to GOD... there will ALWAYS be wars and rumours of wars... they will cry PEACE PEACE and "there shall BE no peace!" Does Dumbutt ever even blow the dust off the Word? He embarrasses me as a Christian.

[Quill Pen]

5. Get him a children's Bible...

...he was struggling with "My Pet Goat," so he'd probably have some difficulty with the Revised Standard Version.

[greyfox]

8. I seriously doubt

he has ever opened a Bible. You can tell by his lack of knowledge of it.

[greyfox]

2. Hallelujah

to that, my cyber friend! The Shrub could not hold a candle to Jimmy so far as Christian principles. Bring him back, and cast the demon out of office! LOL

[Metrix]

4. At the time I did feel like he was shoving his faith down my throat

And by `80 I was tired of him. I didn't want to be lectured to about malaise; I wanted competence. But I voted for him anyway, even after finding out, in California about 5 p.m., that the election was already over, Carter had lost, and my vote was irrelevant.

The AlterNet article going around is very good. I'm reading this Joe Lyons guy, but haven't finished it yet. http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/index.html

[Quill Pen]

13. Jimmy Carter would make a better president now than he did then.

During a conversation with my dad recently, I said something about wishing we had Carter back, and Dad shocked me by saying "Carter's one of the worst presidents we've ever had." Since Dad's politics are somewhere between Nader's and Kucinich's, I was shocked. But I was under 10 when Carter left office, so I really didn't remember.

Dad said Carter's economic policies were incompetent. He reminded me of the double-digit interest rate, skyrocketing inflation, high unemployment and long lines for gas that I'd forgotten or hadn't paid much attention to as a kid. He also said that Carter didn't do much at all for the flight of blue-collar manufacturing and fabrication jobs that began in the '70s. And even though there was a Dem majority in Congress during the Carter administration, Carter was unpopular with them and distrusted, and consequentially didn't get much legislation through. Carter got reamed for the disastrous Iran hostage rescue bungles in 1980, but I wonder how much of that was actually his fault, and how much of it was the fault of aging Patton-type military commanders who figured they'd just go in there and teach them Aaayyy-rabs a lesson with their big guns.

I would agree that Carter is a first-class diplomat and peacemaker, but we need more of a cross between Dean and Clinton for domestic policy, and Carter and Wes Clark for foreign policy. Just my $0.02.

[indigolady]

16. The inflation and high interest rates started before Carter.

It was OPEC raising the cost of oil that started inflation...or maybe it was Nixon taking us off the Gold Standard. It wasn't Carter.

[Metrix]

20. Not a question of blame, but remembering what really happened

There were gas lines in 1973 because of Arab reaction to the Yom Kippur War. Then more gas lines in 1979 during Carter. The double digit interest rates and inability of most to buy houses occurred during Carter's term, and was Paul Volker's Fed policy.

Reagan rode in as relief from this mess, and from that point on, his "sunny optimism" was substituted for reality. I remember that a comment of Carter's was briefly covered when he emerged from whatever banishment he was in, and Jim Lehrer on NewsHour made some comment in line with the emotion it evoked. There was almost a palpable longing for reality embodied in Carter's words.

[4_Legs_Good]

6. I agree completely! n/t

[glarius]

7. Carter exemplifies what Christ was advocating on earth

Jimmy Carter, since he left office has gone on to work tirelessly for the poor and downtrodden and is an example of what a true Christian is......Bush's brand of Christianity is a joke....If Christ were on earth today, talking about forgiveness and turning the other cheek, he would probably be vilified by Bush and his ilk.....IMO...

[pnorman]

9. "NOT a Card-Carrying Christian"

is how I occasionally describe myself, so I'm probably in the same category as you are. But working with the local Jobs with Justice, I'm in perfect harmony and amity with the explicitly religious types there. But I draw the line at people whose visualization of Christ seems to be that of a swaggering bully, with a chip on one shoulder, and a tommy-gun slung over the other.

Thanks for pointing out the differences between Carter and Bush. I'll use it from here on. Although I'm an admirer of much of what Noam Chomsky writes, I strongly disagree with his very unfavorable assessment of Jimmy Carter.

pnorman

[Alpharetta]

10. Christianity was hijacked by the radical right

IT's all you hear on the radio. A new Christian zionism. Rapture Ready. A new dispensationalist theology which claims anyone who disagrees is apostate (a non-believer).

Here's my favorite link about its dangers. A sermon by a Methodist minister who names names regarding the hijackers. Look for Bush, Falwell, etc, late in the sermon.

link: http://www.wesleyumcnaperville.org/2004_05_23_archive.html

[indigolady]

18. Bush is the "anti Christ"

The one that fools the people.

[ROakes1019]

11. Dostoyevsky

I'm reminded of that passage in The Brothers Karamazov in which Christ is imprisoned by the Christians because his message is messing up what the Christian message has become in the modern world. Christ was a liberal and not at all what Christians today claim to worship. They love the god of the Old Testament with all his wrath and retribution and favoritism to the Israelites. Christians today should be called Yahwahists and not Christians.

Oh, dear, do I sound like an elitist Liberal?

[mtnsnake]

14. "Christ was a liberal". Bingo! I think you just hit on what our party

needs to do.

In the future, there is no reason we can't come up with a winning combination, a candidate who makes all of us happy, and one who does it without giving up any of our core liberal values...someone who embodies goodness as well as leadership. There is already at least one person who comes to my mind.

[indigolady]

17. Jesus was way left of liberal!

[Magnulus]

21. Was Jesus really a liberal?

Lets not lose sight of the fact that Jesus went into a temple and whipped people for selling stuff. He also would probably take a dim view of a culture of sexual license, and also believed that divorce was wrong. At least according to the New Testament.

It's true he definitely was not a rightwing in the modern sense. He told a rich man to part with every penny he had, after all. Are the rightwingers in power now doing that? And one story that should terrify every Rightwinger for sure: the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Lazarus was a poor man who lived on the street. Rich man walks past him, doesn't even give him a glance. Lazarus dies and goes to heaven, rich man dies and goes to Hell. Rich man begs for God to tell his family, to warn them. God says the Law and the Prophets are warning enough). How many times are Republicans walking past poor people and giving not even a glance?

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. There is the theology of Christ and the theology about Christ.

Carter exemplifies the former, Bush exemplifies the latter. I blame it on "Christians" from Paul to Falwell.

[Frogtutor]

15. You are SO right

My theory about what has gone wrong is this: Somehow, I guess through churches and the media, many Christians have fallen for the "values" propaganda of the right wing. I mean, they're the ones who are spouting off about values all the time, so people assume that means the Democrats don't have any. They think that the only issues out there are abortion and gay marriage, and they are going to run fast in the opposite direction from those! In general, the average person has forgotten (or probably never learned) the core values, beliefs and ideals of each party. Frankly (I'm embarrassed to say), I knew very little of it myself until I started college, and I didn't start college until I was 28!! If they DID know about the ideals and concerns of the Democratic party, most of them would discover that they have more in common with us than with them. I guess the problem is we Democrats just don't make enough noise, and don't go around forcing our agendas on others...

"Why is it that he who has the least to say, says it the loudest?"
Believe it or not, I saw that quote on a church sign one day!

Frogtutor

[Nicholas_J]

19. Well this twisting of Christianity has occured often in history

Most recently during World War II, When the Nazi's completely redefined Christianity in terms of its racial philsophy.

It has become necesary, since WWII. to try to create a myth that the Nazi's preferred Teutonic Paganism but the fact are that this was an ide held only by a small group of the NAzi's and of the Nazi Leaders, only Himmler expinded it, a few quotes from high level Nazi's should make this clear:

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God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany.
-Hermann Göring (Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990)


How shall I give expression, O my Fuhrer, to what is in our hearts? How shall I find words to express your deeds? Has there ever been a mortal as beloved as you, my Fuhrer? Was there ever belief as strong as the belief in your mission. You were sent us by God for Germany!
-Hermann Göring (Reden und Aufsatze, Munich, 1938)


The Führer wanted to achieve the unification of the Protestant Evangelical Churches by appointing a Reich Bishop, so that there would be a high Protestant church dignitary as well as a high Catholic church dignitary.
-Hermann Göring (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)


With all our powers we will endeavour to be worthy of the Fuhrer thou, O Lord, has sent us!
-Rudolf Hess, address to political leaders, Munich , 21 April 1938 (Rolf Tell, Sound and Fuhrer

We have a feeling that Germany has been transformed into a great house of God, including all classes, professions and creeds, where the Fuhrer as our mediator stood before the throne of the Almighty.
-Joseph Goebbels, in a broadcast, 19 April 1936


This stuff sound familiar?
Any candidate who ran this year who has supporters who claim he was
put in office by God?
Any candidate whoo tried to unify evangemical churches with the Catholic Churches to accomplish their goals.
Any of these goals seem to be based on discriminating against a small minority who are attacked as being a danger to social institutions?
Any of these candidates have a policy of taking pre-emtive actions agains smaller and more vulnerable nations?