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...in the 1980's there was an organized effort with wing nuts to infiltrate and destroy liberal churches. It worked to a degree. This is because liberal churches were addressing things like racism, poverty, and war, which are money makers to elitists who actually believe God loves the rich more and empowering anyone else was a threat to their quivering rationale.
Liberal religion is thoughtful and mostly about social justice. It is not about fear mongering so it can line some gaudy preacher's pockets to fly his corporate jet and live in a mansion. I have seen the same with liberals in the Jewish and Muslim communities as well. Almost always fear trumps God and using religious fear is a known pocket liner. Just get those people afraid and their wallets open up like the flood gates of hell. Whether it is Bin Laden or Pat Robertson, fear works. I believe this is because people are more attuned to fear than love and some believe if they simply fill the coffers, this will some way pay for their own downfalls instead of doing the work of actually thinking and doing.
This is why Liberation Theology put the Reaganites into a tizzy because it empowered the little guy instead of allowing the rich to exploit them to enrich themselves further. It took fear out of the equation and replaced it with the empowering of all (the ancients called that agape or "love of the world"). Ironically the wing nuts took over the mechanics of Liberation Theology and used it to enrich themselves, trampling on the message. Because they knew it worked ~ worse, they were AFRAID it would work since uh-oh, capitalism wasn't the only thing that worked. So they called it "communism" (while adopting the method themselves to enrich a few) and went about going to nations who were adopting it, orchestrating wars, the assassination of a saintly arch bishop, raping nuns, killing babies, and decimating entire communities.
Yet Jerry Falwell used the same method himself ... Those mega-churches with mini-malls hawking their wares in a sense is an adaptation of Liberation Theology. Simply put, it came from out of the scriptures, which said, "If one man has a plow and another a horse, put them together and help one another so you both eat..." Of course the Falwells of the world simply "forget" (and want others to forget) that their own prophet Jesus went amuck in in rage that such a place was in his place of worship. He went through such a "mini-mall" selling sacrificial offerings, food, pilgrim's needs, and turned over the tables of the money changers who were greatly profiting off the poor in the name of God.
Liberation Theology was *not* about profit, it was about sharing so all have enough, which was put into practice by the poor in South America. To their astonishment it worked and instead of laboring for "the man" communities burgeoned where they had no need of him anymore. They developed co-ops and health clinics to help one another. It began to cut into the profits of their rich overlords and we can't have that. The elite believed they "deserved" to enrich themselves on the backs of the poor and thus the perversion by reintroducing fear instead of embracing love (agape) as is taught in most religions. This "agape" means literally putting into practice the "love your neighbor as yourself" no matter whether your neighbors are of your faith, part of your blood family or live across the world.
(sigh) Though I guess this is because I have been greatly influenced by a group of awesome people like those at the Poverty Institute, a seminary master's degree that ALL religious leaders are invited to take, whether Christian, Jew or Muslim.
It makes me sad when folks think we ALL are at fault for the perversion of the message that has caused so much misery and war ~ because some use fear to in the name of God to mask their greed. Those of us are put together with people who in truth, horrify us. Many of us actually believe in "silly" stuff like, "It is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle". We would point out this saying is telling us that greed is the ultimate sin. But the difference is we can SEE it in economics, politics, not because "God says so," but because greed causes the miseries in this world where one hoards it all with indifference ignoring the fact their hoarding, usually in the name of God, causes their own neighbors to starve.
Cat in Seattle
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