Good morning fellow Gusties, and what a morning it is! Spring has finally come, and the wonder of God’s majesty is in full force. But hark, what is that sound? ‘Tis the trumpets of God’s chosen warrior in the fight to save America: Rick Santorum! And what’s that he’s saying? That there is no such thing as a liberal Christian? GASP.
But wait, if there is no such thing as a liberal Christian, then what’s the deal with all these phony Gusties? They must just be pretending to be either liberal or Christian, right?
What Santorum actually said in reference to being asked whether or not Obama was a true liberal Christian was “I don’t think there is such a thing. To take what is plainly written and say that I don’t agree with that, therefore, I don’t have to pay attention to it, means you’re not what you say you are. You’re a liberal something, but you’re not a Christian. That’s sort of how I look at it.”
This presents a serious identity crisis to millions of Americans. If Santorum is right, then what is a “liberal Christian” to do? Santorum has also said, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and visions of our country.”
He clearly has the wrong idea of the role religion had in the founding of our nation. It may be prudent to analyze his comments on liberal Christians a bit further, before we begin hopelessly leading empty lives of no meaning before being sent to Hell to pay for our hypocrisy.
Let’s begin with Jesus (since, you know, he was kind of important to Christianity). This is a man who preached against war (“I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you.” [Matthew 5:44]), argued against individual and corporate greed and for charity and redistribution of wealth (“Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 19:23] “You cannot serve both God and money.” [Matthew 6:24]), proposed a separation of church and state (“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” [Matthew 22:21]), condemned public displays of faith (“And when thou pray, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men … But thou … pray to thy Father which is in secret…” [Matthew 6:6 & 7]) and promoted equality of wealth (“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” [Luke 14:13 &14.]).
It seems fair to say, given what the founder of Christianity himself actually said, that being a liberal and being a Christian aren’t that different after all. I can understand Santorum’s rage at scum like me who defend a women’s right to choice, same sex marriage and (duh duh duhhhhhhh) refuse to outlaw sodomy, but given that he is directly disobeying what Jesus Christ, the son of God, the light of the world, the Lamb of God said, and he is instead preferring obscure passages from Leviticus that depict a far less merciful God, I refuse to agree that all Christians can be broken down into liberal, conservative or any other political theory, philosophy or even theology.
In the words of Stephen Colbert, “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”