Fundamentalists and free-marketeers make unholy allies

From WorkingForChange:

Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian activist, editor of Sojourner's Magazine and author of the book "The Soul of Politics," points to what I'm talking about. It's worth quoting him at length.

"The word 'evangelical' is a good word, although it's got lots of baggage and people have all these images and fears," he said. "I understand all that, what people think it means, but the word harkens back to a wonderful biblical word, the 'evangel,' which means the good news. So it's supposed to be good news. The fact that evangelicals aren't often thought to be good news is part of the present problem," he says.

But what kind of good news? "Jesus, in his first sermon -- his Nazareth manifesto, you might say -- said, 'The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' To be evangelical means to preach and live and act in a way that is good news to poor people."

And

Progressives, liberals and leftists can't engage them on this because they don't have the vocabulary. They've allowed their fear and ignorance of the Bible to prevent them from seeing that it contains some of the most radically egalitarian, progressive ideals in Western civilization.

Click here for the rest.

Well, having been raised as a Southern Baptist, I have the vocabulary. The bottom line is that, when one considers the plain language of the Gospels, it's completely clear that Jesus was a total radical, purposely living in poverty, among the poor, healing the sick, befriending the tax-collectors, feeding the hungry, rescuing the condemned. Fundamentalists completely ignore this and continue supporting the Republicans.

It's time to rub their noses in their Bibles.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$