Politics: Who would Jesus vote for?
a donkey or an elephant? would he be anti-choice, anti-gay rights, and anti-social welfare programs? no way to tell. I'm pretty sure Paul would vote straight elephant. Anyway, this article is at least moderately interesting, and points out that there are some liberal churchgoers in even the most conservative of places. glad to see i wasn't totally alone.
2 comments:
I'd be very interested to know why you think Paul would vote Republican. I'm not disagreeing, just interested in more elaboration :).
Paul always seemed to be the social conservative, decrying homosexuals, women w/ short hair in Corinth, etc, just simply given the nature and purpose of his letters to churches, and his position as a prominent Jew converted to Christianity. Paul is very preoccupied with the mores of his day, and some of his statements, such as his condemnation of homosexuality (the pederastic nature of homosexual relationships in the classical world differ greatly from the lifetime partner relationships that are more common today) and his condemnation of short hair in Corinth (since Corinth was the Vegas of the day, and the prostitutes marked themselves with short hair) and other seemingly misogynistic statements throughout, are ambiguously dated and somewhat culture specific, but very strict.
So basically, the moral hangups by the religious right seem to be derived mostly from interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the Old testament and Paul's letter's. Jesus' politics are much more ambiguous, and if Jesus were alive today, I imagine he wouldn't spend much time watching the news, and would probably skip the voting booth (his dodging the bullet on tax issues-give Caesar what is Caesar's-seems to support this). I don't believe Jesus ever addresses homosexuality or the beginning of life. Legalism wasn't his cup of tea. He was an ideas man, much more interested in personal relationships.
At least that's my theological exegesis for the week :)
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