LIMITED, INC.
“I’m
so bored. I hate my life.” - Britney Spears
Das Langweilige ist interessant geworden,
weil das Interessante angefangen hat langweilig zu werden. – Thomas Mann
"Never for money/always for
love" - The Talking Heads
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Every once in a while, it is a good thing
to think about Jesus.
I read a typically odious oped by that typically odious
neo-con, Pascal Bruckner, in the Sunday Le Monde, and I thought of this post I
wrote a while ago in my blog. This is the reason I like Jesus more than creepy
Nouvelles Philosophes:
Jesus’ politics.
As the few who have actually read the
Gospels know, Jesus said relatively little about sex. For him, it was a thing
that occurred in the structure of families. Jesus didn’t much like families. He
was only half joking when he said that he had no patience for him who didn’t
hate his mother. He thought if you entered into a marriage, that was the end of
it – no divorce for you. Of course, marriage, back in Jesus' day, wasn't the
love match it is today, but an exchange between parents and clans in which the
individuals exchanged had little say. So this is a hard saying to understand --
was it a way of warning men not to desert their wives and children?
In any
case, he looked upon the marriage and family racket as hopelessly perverting --
there'd be no giving and taking of wives and husbands in the Kingdom of Heaven.
On
the other hand, Jesus had numerous opinions about wealth. He unequivocally
thought that the wealthy would not be in the kingdom of heaven. He thought that
they were scanty in their sacrifices, and pushy in their lives, and in general
a diabolical nuisance. Just getting wealthy, Jesus thought, probably entailed
doing things that would send you to Hell. He had no hesitation about saying so.
When a rich man came to him who had sacrificed much of his wealth, Jesus
famously said that it was harder for the rich to get to heaven than for the
camel to get through the eye of a needle. This saying is one that the most
literal American fundamentalist suddenly gets all liberal about. But the
meaning is made clear by what Jesus did before he made that comment – he
clearly thought that the rich man hadn’t given enough. He hadn’t really
destroyed his wealth.
While there is, currently, a great deal of kowtowing to
a bunch of pissants who call themselves Christian in contemporary American
culture, one can be confident that, if Jesus is within the ballpark of being
right, most of the Christian right, from George Bush to Pat Robertson, are
going straight to hell. It isn’t really even a close call. All are wealthy. All
retain their wealth in the face of a world in which masses starve. All have let
these people starve during the whole course of their lives. Some, such as Pat
Robertson, have acquired their wealth through such bloody associations that
they are obviously immoral. But Jesus really didn’t make a lot of distinctions
here. Gays are never condemned by Jesus. The wealthy are, time and time again.
As for the clergy that coddles the wealthy and themselves become rich, they are
what Jesus called Whited Sepulcres, filthy on the inside. Among the certainly
and for sure damned, one can spot some easy prey: the creators of the Left
Behind series (sin against the holy ghost, wealth), Dr. James Dobson (wealth,
refusal to visit those in prison, definitely on the left side of the Son when
he judges the quick and the dead), Newt Gingrich (are you kidding me) and many
others who are going to go where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is,
of course, Limited Inc’s burden that, as an atheist, we are probably ending up
spending the afterlife with a bunch of yahoo evangelical leaders. Just our
luck. Many of these men are under the misapprehension that Jesus gives his
unconditional approval to heterosexuality, confusing viagra with virtue. Jesus
made know his contempt for the family whenever he got a chance; his contempt
for the mere industriousness that leads to wealth (behold the lilies of the
field), his contempt for profiteers on the poor (you have made my father’s
house into a den of thieves), etc. As for the collectivity of Congress, they
have as little chance of making it to heaven as a vampire bat has of winning
best in show at your local kennel club. If there is one crowd that has beast
written on their foreheads, it is this one. Hopeless, from the divine point of
view.
However, as George Bernard Shaw pointed out long ago, hardly anybody
believes Jesus anymore, especially Christians. Shaw said that Christians are,
almost to a man, followers of Barabbas: worshippers of ostentatious power,
self-pitying about their cruelties, absolutely unable to sympathize with those
lower than them if they aren’t allowed, at the same time, to strip those lower
than them of all dignity – in other words, cannibals and freaks and the usual
good booboisie you see buying steaks in the grocery store. Shaw thought certain
of Jesus’ communistic ideas might work in today’s society. We don’t. That is,
as a majoritarian stance, what Jesus taught leads to chaos and cruelty. The
Grand Inquisitor is right about that. But as a minority stance, here and there,
it is an experiment well worth doing.
Posted
by Roger Gathman
