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Republican Conservative Hypocrisy
The GOP has successfully linked christian conservatism to filthy politics in the battle for religious votes
By J.K. Genda
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 J.K. Genda
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-1434-0
Chapter One
Conservatism Is Not Christianity
It is very hypocritical for so-called conservative evangelical politicians to present themselves as morally upright as they talk about values, while they sweep their transgressions under the carpet. Most Christians will continue to deal with such hirelings who claim to be conservatives until the hoax is exposed. They are hoodwinked by the hubris of conservative leaders who are solely in office to fulfill their own purpose. These conservative politicians demand fealty from Christians in a close election, all in the name of preserving values. Christians should guide the church from republican conservative hypocrisy which is presented in the name of religious values. Republican conservatives are nothing but imposters of Christianity. It bothers me greatly when these hypocrites link Christianity to nasty politics. Jesus called this type of behavior hypocrisy:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.(Matthew 23:13 New International Version)
The Pharisees were political and religious leaders in the days of Jesus. When it comes to politics, the Pharisees were the lawmakers, but when it comes to religion, they were hypocrites. The priests were entangled in political affairs, and politics influenced their ministry. In other words, Jesus was saying that as long as your religion is entangled with politics, your ministry will not be effective. Instead of converting people to the faith, they were actually causing people to depart from the faith in large numbers. People will say, "Oh, if these Republican evangelicals represent Christianity, I don't want to be a Christian." The truth is that these evangelicals are not real Christians. They will not only cause others to depart from the faith, they also will not make it into the kingdom of heaven. The political linkage of Republicans to the church has been very destructive. The scripture clearly admonishes us not to associate or link ourselves with those who claim to be conservative Christians but involved in all sort of immoral activities:
But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. (1 Corinthians 5:11 New International Version)
It is definitely not an easy task, the task to keep the church as the church and Republicans as Republicans. This problem was caused by powerful Christian leaders with large followings and has become a big monster to deal with. They linked the church to a corrupt and filthy political party. Removing this link has become a bigger problem than they think. It is this corrupt link that Jesus warned about when a Pharisee questioned him about taxes:
"Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?" And Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's." And they were full of wonder at him. (Mark 12:14, 17 Bible in Basic English)
The Pharisees, who questioned Jesus about linking religion to the politics of Caesar, were both religious and political leaders. They desired Jesus to link the kingdom of God to a corrupt political system. This was what the pharisaical sect of Christianity was about. They wanted to benefit politically and religiously. In other words, they want to serve both God and Satan, by wearing the face of the cross and with Satan behind the face.
The religious leaders in the days of Jesus attempted to link Jesus with the political system. Jesus quickly addressed the issue by letting the folks understand that his kingdom was not political. He was not interested in being a conservative or a liberal. There is nothing wrong if a citizen becomes politically involved. But I have a problem with linking politics to Christianity. For so long, Republicans have succeeded in linking their dirty politics to Christianity. There is nowhere in the scripture where Christ recommended that the church be linked to a political party or that the people of God should make politicians their God. Why do popular preachers have to endorse someone if God is that powerful to them? Most of these preachers do not believe in the power of God, so they make up for their unbelief by endorsing political candidates. They want political influence in addition to divine power. The scriptures clearly noted that such preachers are "greedy for gain" and practice deception:
"From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit." (Jeremiah 6:13 New International Version)
During the ministry of Jesus, he completely kept the church separate from politics. He wanted the church pure and did not want to associate the church with anything nasty and filthy. Although Jesus kept the church separate from dirty politics, there existed sects of Christianity in his day that linked themselves to various political agendas. One such sect was the Pharisees. The Pharisees were politically involved. Because of their political link, they completely lost the spiritual effect of ministry. They preached a gospel mingled with dirty politics and devoid of spirit. Evangelicals or conservative Republican Christians can be compared to the Pharisees. Dirty politics has made the Gospel; they preach of no effect, life, or spirit.
Jesus preached several times against this type of religious hypocrisy. A good example of this today is John Hage, a popular TV evangelical preacher, and his pastor friends, who linked themselves and their churches with John McCain and Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential election. This hypocrisy backfired on them, as John McCain denounced their endorsements, because he did not believe what they preached. But these folks will never stop and will never learn. This is how they run their churches: they ordain whomever they like according to the flesh. A servant of God should be humble and not arrogant, regardless of the size of their crowds (not church). In other words, John McCain was basically saying, "Hey guys, you can't endorse me and preach against homosexuality and abortion and cause me to lose votes. If you want to support me, you can't preach what you want. I should control your preaching."
Arrogance and hypocrisy do no good but add fuel to the fire. It has come to a point where conservatives will gainsay the truth just to be in line with the American public, and still call themselves Christian. It is about time for these conservatives to prove and authenticate the values of the candidates they support, or just separate themselves from politics period. They claim to vote based on righteousness, but most of their candidates do have lecherous, licentiousness, and corrupt immoral natures. Just a few examples: Rush Limbaugh has been married and divorced several times; Newt Gingrich has been married three times; Neal Horsley, who claimed to be conservative and a strong pro-life and antigay activist, confessed to having sex with a mule (http://www.newshounds.us/2005/05/06/bizarre_sex_ habits_of_the_extreme_rightwing.php). Philip Giordano, a former Republican mayor, was sentenced to thirty-seven years for engaging in oral sex with underage girls (sexual abuse); Sarah Palin resigned from office as numerous corruption and nepotism charges mounted against her. The list goes on and on, from Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Helen Chenoweth, Ted Haggard, to Jimmy Swaggart and many others. The pages of this book will not be enough to list Republican hypocrites.
The understanding of conservatism will help us comprehend that conservatives are quite different from Christians. There is a good biblical example of Republican conservative hypocrisy in judgment. These hypocrites love to point fingers. These were the same Pharisees in the days of Jesus, who came to Jesus complaining about a woman they caught in the very act of adultery. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, games, gimmicks and tricks, knew exactly how to deal with them. This same Jesus knows how to deal with Christian evangelical hypocrites today. Jesus gave a good example of this type of Republican conservative Christian hypocrisy:
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." (John 8:3-11 New International Version)
Just like the Pharisees, the politics of the Republicans is their religion, and their religion is their politics. These same political and religious leaders who accused a woman of adultery were the same folks who were selling blemished animals in the Temple courts for sacrifice to a holy God. Besides, they had no business watching people having sex. They thought adultery was a more terrible sin than corruption, covetousness, and hatred. This sounds like our evangelical friends today, right? They believe that all sins are excused but homosexuality and abortion. This is why they will support dysfunctional candidates. Hypocrisy in religion is nothing new. Most evangelicals or religious leaders link themselves to political parties to gain favor and to lobby. In politics, they carry the label of "evangelicals" or "conservatives," but down within, they are worse than infidels. Understanding the difference between conservatism and religion will help us see Christianity in a better way. It will also help non-Christians to understand that conservative Christianity is real and that conservative Republicans do not represent Jesus.
According to Encarta, conservatism is: 1. Right-wing political viewpoint-a right winged political philosophy based on tendency to support gradual rather than abrupt change and to preserve the status quo. 2. Reluctant to accept change-unwillingness or slowness to accept change or new ideas. 3. Desire to preserve current societal structure-an ideology that views the existing form of society as worthy of preservation.
According to Encarta, religion refers to: 1. Beliefs and worship-People's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life. 2. System-an institutional or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to the divine. 3. Personal beliefs or values-a set of strongly-held beliefs, values and attitudes that somebody lives by. 4. Obsession-an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by.
Christians worship the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who delivered Israel out of Egypt; the God who sent his only begotten Son as the perfect sacrifice for mankind. Christianity is simply a way of life. Politics have made Christians become illogical and irrational people. As for religion, I would define it in the simplest of terms: it is man's ways of trying to handle God. The point is that Christians are becoming too secular and expect the president of the United States to be their priest. Have we ever asked ourselves whether conservatives can stop the sins of America? In order to answer such a question, we need to understand who conservatives are.
Conservatives are a bunch of people who want to tell the government to get out of their business. But when they get into trouble, they need the full assistance of the government. They want to be represented without taxation. They want everyone-except them-to pay taxes. They want business with no regulations. They do not mind giving their business friends the full authority to make a billion-dollar profit out of every dollar. They want the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. They will fight any reform against or that limits the powers of the rich and powerful. They will fight for principles that have been watered down and are unproductive and useless. By doing this, they will completely eradicate the middle class. When they talk about religious freedom and rights, they want it exclusively for themselves and their followers. They want to place themselves in the place of God to stop or remove the God-given right of choice.
They utilize the same principles that the so-called conservative evangelicals use to adulterate the Gospel. They fail to understand that acceding to one's wrong provides great relief. They will never admit their wrongdoing. They are programmed to pretend as hypocrites do. Their goal is to sit on the judgment seat and judge others for transgressions of which they are guilty. They do not realize that scriptures are distorted by their secret and shameful ways, which will be exposed later:
"Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (2 Corinthians 4:2 New International Version)
Conservatism is the warfare to pass laws that will control people's personal beliefs, values, and attitudes. This sect of Christianity does believe that they are the door to the kingdom of God. They are obsessed with the ideology of political religious conversion. They believe that preaching and the voice of God are not enough and that conversion has to be mandatory. Their idea of America as a free nation is that you get to think like us, be like us, live in hypocrisy, or you are not part of America. This is the false pretense of righteousness they present to Christians. They are full of anger and ready to argue, shout, and fight. They have no spiritual sense, period!
For many years, Republicans have used Christianity or evangelicals to beguile the multitude of Christians. When it comes to politics, Christians seem to be beholden to Republicans and not Christ. Most of these Republicans are not Christians, because they do not follow Christ. They want the vote of Christians. It is all formality in the name of Christianity. If Christians are wise, they should be able to see the effect of conservatives in adulterating the Gospel. How can the church support folks who fail to address nepotism and corruption? Or refuse to acknowledge their wrongdoings.
"You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:6 New International Version)
Church leaders have become more secular and mingled with corruption by allowing politics to control them. Such leaders have become super Christians and think that they are above correction. At this point, they do not only find themselves in trouble but also those who follow them. When people are at death's door, they become very stubborn. The same method that conservative false preachers use to deliver deceptive messages to the people of God is the same method that conservative Republicans use to deceive the masses. Even when they recognize the ignorance of their followers, they will say nothing to make a necessary correction. The church has been deceived to the point that they have failed to see how Jesus separated religious and political issues. Folks enter politics of their own volition, not commanded by Christ to do so, and have nothing to do with Christianity. There is nowhere in the scriptures where Jesus commands people to physically and violently convert others to righteousness by arguing, fighting, and chaos.
Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." (John 18:36 New International Version)
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Republican Conservative Hypocrisy by J.K. Genda Copyright © 2010 by J.K. Genda. Excerpted by permission.
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