by Richard Rohr, OFM
Every viewpoint is a view from a point, and that includes the viewpoint from the side of George Bush, from the side of Michael Moore, and I would like to propose a third: the viewpoint from the side of the poor and excluded in any system. If we are to be people transformed by the Biblical text, it is always from this deliberate bias that we must read reality...
From the very beginning and throughout the Bible, God’s privileged one is consistently the enslaved instead of the supposed free, the outsider instead of the insider, the sinner instead of the righteous, the wounded instead of the healthy, the lay instead of the clergy, the poor instead of the rich. I dare you to try to disprove that. It is the “theme of themes,” so consistent and so demanding, that it has been ignored and avoided throughout most of Christian and Jewish history.
The true Biblical text will always be a subtext in history.
The Right seems largely incapable of any self criticism, as we see personified in Rush Limbaugh, or George Bush who cannot think of any mistakes he made his first two years in office. That, of itself, puts their ideology totally outside the prophetic and Jesus tradition. The Right is usually the glorification of self interest, while frequently hiding behind the language of religion and patriotism.
3 comments:
I have a t-shirt with a picture of Galileo looking at the globe and saying "Oops!" And the text goes: "Galileo was wrong. The world revolves around me!!!"
"Forget thy liberal label, fellow pagan! Join me! For Sheryl is love, and love is pure. For am I she, born of they, come to take thee on a journey of truth and hope. Cast off thy seeds of doubt. Inspiration and truth were not born of cowardly minds. Dare into the unforseen and inexplicable. The virtue of thy destiny lies not in what is now, but what could be." (The Book of Zettner 1:1-9)
Hey, can't say I didn't try. X-)
When I think about it, I guess it tecnically should be "born of them" rather than "born of they." Born of they just sounds more dramatic to me.
I guess the question is whether I am aiming for the grammarians or the agrarians to my new religion.
Thanks for these words, Ryan. Having just gotten flamed by someone identifying themselves as a Christian who accused me of gross ignorance, it's nice to see that there are, in fact, Christians out there who recognize the Right's perversion of the message. As I recall, Jesus said, "Blessed are the Peacemakers," and he wasn't blessing weapons of mass destruction such as GWB and his minions.
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