THE SUNDAY UN-FUNNIES
THE TEA BAG PARTY
I suspect most of the dimly intelligent people who belong to this "party" probably do not know that at the time of the Boston Tea Party, tea did not actually get delivered in bags. They surely do not know that the idea of of confronting King George of England was an effort of unification and dissatisfaction with unfair treatment of colonial citizens. They absolutely do not know it was not about literal tax dollars, but about being treated as less than the rest of the Christian British World. Throwing the tea into the bay had nothing to do with certain of modern interpretations of St. Paul's notions of useful work. St. Paul believed in poverty. St. Paul believed in giving everything away, to whomever asked for it. St. Paul believed in giving his life to the service and benefit of others.
The only person in perhaps seven hundred years who has truly walked in the steps of St. Paul, and his Lord, Jesus, is St. Francis, who died a miserable death of poverty, giving his life to the well being of others, whomever they were. If anyone in the "Tea Party" wants to know more about how they should direct their efforts towards what Jesus would have wanted them to do, or are interested in being actually "Christ-Like", as is the purported goal of any believing Christian, including myself, read about St. Francis. Give away everything you own. * Attempt to become like Jesus in earnest. Attempt to see Christ in everyone you meet. Then give them whatever they ask of you, as Christ directed you to do. "No shirts, No shoes, No service." What are the greatest two commandments? If you do not know them, you very likely have never done Jesus's service (although Jesus taught such simple precepts, it is not impossible that you have), and you will most likely get little help from Him when you need it most. Like the moment just before you drop into Hell, and will quite possibly not know love, ever again. Without love, I suspect you will never know anything, ever again. You may in fact cease to exist. I think most Christians agree that Hell, whatever else they might imagine it to be, is in essence a dire absence of love, without which nothing Is.
The only person in perhaps seven hundred years who has truly walked in the steps of St. Paul, and his Lord, Jesus, is St. Francis, who died a miserable death of poverty, giving his life to the well being of others, whomever they were. If anyone in the "Tea Party" wants to know more about how they should direct their efforts towards what Jesus would have wanted them to do, or are interested in being actually "Christ-Like", as is the purported goal of any believing Christian, including myself, read about St. Francis. Give away everything you own. * Attempt to become like Jesus in earnest. Attempt to see Christ in everyone you meet. Then give them whatever they ask of you, as Christ directed you to do. "No shirts, No shoes, No service." What are the greatest two commandments? If you do not know them, you very likely have never done Jesus's service (although Jesus taught such simple precepts, it is not impossible that you have), and you will most likely get little help from Him when you need it most. Like the moment just before you drop into Hell, and will quite possibly not know love, ever again. Without love, I suspect you will never know anything, ever again. You may in fact cease to exist. I think most Christians agree that Hell, whatever else they might imagine it to be, is in essence a dire absence of love, without which nothing Is.
* "Do not worry about your life."
Jesus of Nazareth
Interesting thoughts. The blog seems to be mostly about the Tea Party movement, which, in fact, doesn't identify itself as Christian. There's many Christians in the movement, but probably most, aren't. It's a conservative, libertarian leaning movement, NOT a Christian movement. They're also fond of using the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag.
ReplyDeleteThey are also very fond of quoting St. Paul and what he said about useful work. No political party that hopes to be successful can call itself Christian because of separation of Church and State. I find a lot of deeply ingrained tendencies in Tea Baggers that are un-reflected upon and invisible to them, like the romantic notion of endless westward expansionism, that if you dig deep enough you'll eventually hit a vein of gold, that bare-knuckle work still exists a-plenty and that if you just stick to it, you'll one day make your mom proud.
DeleteWe all still have, or at least accept, many Puritanical ideas so ingrained that we don't notice them: as in, you will never see a female nipple on network television, that harsh punishment is the road to redemption (as in, we have more people incarcerated than any other country in the world).
And if you don't agree with the Tea Baggers, you're not... what? A Christian? An American? Aren't they the same? Isn't that the kind of thinking that they may not say, but constantly imply. Some Supreme ideology usually steers the cars of the angry righteous.