Lame. Very lame.
In what seemed more like a Sunday church service than a Capitol Hill press conference, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., called out for his fellow lawmakers and all Americans to do "the Lord's work" as a solution to fixing the debt ceiling.Funny, but I don't ever recall anything about massive debt in the Bible. But don't let that stop a crooked pol from injecting religion when it suits him.
"These are not political questions," Rangel asserted. "These are moral questions."
The raspy-voiced congressman urged spiritual leaders to highlight the role federal programs including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security play in protecting the vulnerable, sick and poor despite Washington's concern about the $14.3 trillion deficit.
"Why don't you call your pastor, your rabbi, your imam? There has to be a moral answer," Rangel preached to reporters. It was just a year ago that the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was censured by his colleagues for various ethical violations.
While lawmakers from both parties are asking what President Obama is going to do about the debt ceiling, Rangel continues to ask, "what would Jesus do?"He'd have lived within his means.
5 comments:
<p>Mark 12:17 - Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.
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</p><p>The woeful state of Christian "education" today, and the inability of Christians to understand the Bible in Context is appalling.
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</p><p>This verse is not Jesus authorizing His people to pay a pagan empire what it demanded. It was magnificently worded to remind the Sanhedrin of the depth of their crime against G-D. Show me one instance in scripture where G-D authorizes His people to bend the knee to pagan tyrants. What? You can't find that? Because it isn't in there.
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</p><p>The priests of the Sanhedrin were responsible unto G-D for keeping the people unto His Word. What Jesus reminded the Sanhedrin was of their responsibility to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's - death for trying to subjugate G-D's people and claiming rulership over G-D's land, and then to come back to the Temple to be stoned to death for leading Israel awat from G-D and into bondage with Rome.
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</p><p>Jesus would not have paid "taxes". And the Bible, furthermore, speaks volumes about the awfulness of debts.
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</p><p>Let's be clear about this. It was the paganization by Rome and Constantine of the Christian faith that developed into the policy that paying taxes to governments is God's will. Self serving and wrong wrong wrong.
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Jesus threw people like Rangel out of the temple.
Charlie Rangel wouldn't have paid his if he hadn't been caught cheating. What next? The moral outrage of Turbo-Tax Timmuh Geithner?
<span>The Prophet Jeremiah pointed out, ‘Many shepherds [Church leaders] have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my position under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and being desolate, it mourns [mourneth] unto me, the whole land is made desolate because no man lays it to heart’ [Jer 12:10, 11]. God was speaking through the prophet about the religious leadership of the nation of Israel. They had mistreated the people and brought destruction on the land. The leadership you follow is going to govern what you are and who you are. You will rise or fall depending on the leadership you follow.</span>
A Church Or Nation Rises Or Falls By Leaders http://bit.ly/eJvc0F
If we consider ourselves Christians then we must accept what we have chosen for our selves either by our own choice or by our inaction.
Ours is to spread the Gospel to all and build the numbers to influence our sociery and get the leaders we want.
Thereafter our ONLY weapon is Prayer.
May Jesus Bless You.
You're right that "render unto Caesar" is somewhat ambiguous regarding Christ's tax compliance. That Mark does not show that he paid does not show that he did not any more than Mark not showing that Christ despised sandcastles means that he was an enthusiastic beach shoveller.
We have direct, on point, evidence of Christ's tax paying. Matthew 17:27 ends with "<span>you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." Read the whole story (Matt 17:24-27) and you'll see that he specifically supports paying unjust taxes. Go a little further afield and you'll see that Peter was telling us to "</span> Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, <sup>14</sup> or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. <sup>15</sup> For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. <sup>16</sup> Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. <sup>17</sup> Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."
Both 1 Peter 2 and Matthew 17 were written centuries before Constantine. There's lots of good anti-tax stuff in the bible, and lots of good small government stuff, but to claim that Jesus didn't pay taxes is demonstrably false (He accepted pagan secular authority on a host of other occasions, too).
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