Ron Sider had a few comments in the previous post……I would privately or in Church folks company, use the phrase “Biblical Evangelicals”, as a way of confronting the hihacking of the concept of Biblical by narrow, culturally captive Christians who flock to the candidate who mouths the “litmus test words” and that “he is a man of prayer” and declares he is God’s man, without applying the ultimate litmus test of actual predidential responsibility to work for the people. This president, while he mouths pious platitudes, sells off the leadership of the agencies charged with protecting the public, and appoints the biggest transgressors of those protectors to “self-regulate”. It is a “Capitalism Worship; but a capitalism devoid of democratic principles. It is a worship of the “Almighty Dollar”; Al Franken calls this “Supply Side Jesus”. Ron Sider provided some pointed quotes:
I spoke with Ron Sider, a born-again Christian who heads the group Evangelicals for Social Action. Like most evangelicals, Sider opposes gay marriage and is passionately antiabortion. But he also opposes Bush’s tax cuts and is passionate about fighting poverty, arguing that the Bible compels Christians to care about “both the family and the poor.” During a panel discussion suffused with references to biblical passages–Luke 1, Amos 5, Isaiah 58–Sider called for expanding the earned-income tax credit, more generous food stamps, a living wage and “an end to the scandal of 42 million Americans without healthcare.” Said Sider in explaining the basis for his beliefs, “I don’t think God is a Marxist, but frequently the Bible suggests that people get rich by oppression or are rich and don’t share what they have–and in both cases, God is furious.”