Ignorance of actual biblical language by the liberal media perpetuates the fallacy that Jesus was a great guy worthy of emulation, and it indirectly empowers Christianity.
For example, on Friday’s Countdown, Guest host Lawrence O’Donnell refers to Rep. Michelle Bachmann championing less regulation and restraint for insurance companies as a deviation from the “What would Jesus do approach to health care.” Markos Moulitsas (Daily KOS) replies that when he was growing up, going to Sunday school, he learned that Jesus would help the poor, the sick, the needy, he didn’t care, he helped them all.
But, said Moulitsas, apparently that was liberal propaganda because the conservative Jesus asked them if they had insurance, and if they couldn’t afford it, he turned them down. “When leprosy was considered a pre-existing condition, those guys were out of luck.”
Well, Markos got it wrong. Jesus didn’t heal all of the sick and care for all of the poor. He showed off his magical healing powers relatively few times, ignoring some pleas for help, and offering no beneficial information for those following him that would help them heal the sick or care for the poor. Jesus is supposedly God, and therefore all-powerful and omniscient (if he wanted to be), yet for some reason, he did not give the people information about, say, bacteria? Cures for disease? Some basic science?
When we talk about reforming health care, we are limited by many things, including funding and medical knowledge. No one can fault us for not being able to treat everyone for everything. We can certainly be faulted, though, for not trying. Why, then, does the most powerful creature in the universe get praised for healing maybe a few dozen people when there are millions suffering and many millions more set to suffer in the future who could have not suffered if we had known how to treat and prevent illness when Jesus roamed the earth and could have just let us know? If it’s because Jesus didn’t really care about this world, but was preparing us for the next, that ignores the often lengthy suffering many must endure through their lives here. It also creates a condition — believe and have faith in Jesus or suffer now AND perish in the fires of hell later. That’s praiseworthy?
The statements made by Moulitsas, and often Keith Olbermann when he criticizes right-wingers for saying they’re Christians, but, according to Olbermann, not doing what Jesus would have done, perpetuate the idea that what Jesus would have done is something good. Jesus came to earth to teach people about hell (a concept not seen prior to Jesus in the bible), not to be buddy-buddy with everyone. He came with a sword, and his mission was to convert people, and threaten them with hell if they didn’t follow him. His parables were ambiguous riddles, not insightful analogies.
Why are left-leaning media pundits invoking Jesus? For two reasons: one, because right-leaners claim to be “good Christians,” but are often caught red-handed doing something they’ve advocated against — like saying “fuck it” to “traditional” marriage by having an affair. Sometimes with those of the same gender. Double whammy! What’s the problem with attacking them based on their belief system? Well, traditional marriage is ambiguous, but mostly favors whatever the husband wants to do. He can, traditionally, have sex with whomever he wants. The wife was chattel (property). So, when these men advocate traditional marriage, they’re in fact living it. To attack them for being hypocrites for what they say they believe is a baseless attack. On the other hand, some of the perpetrators actively hunt, with laws and political platforms, others who behave in the exact same way. That’s a prime and just target for attack.
The second reason left-leaning media pundits invoke Jesus is because they don’t read the bible. They don’t know that the right-wingers just chuckle and roll their eyes when left-wingers talk about how altruistic and great Jesus was, when, in fact, he was a passive-aggressive asshole who went around proclaiming himself a king, but who couldn’t make any friends without threatening them with eternal torture or promising them eternal bliss. I’ll love you and send you to heaven if you do exactly as I tell you, which, by the way, is so fucking confusing that there’s no way you’ll ever be able to do it, ha ha, Amen.
Instead of invoking Jesus and focusing on the alleged hypocrisy of belief compared to scripture, the leftist media should, instead, focus on the hypocrisy of punishing others for behaving the same way as the punisher. By giving any credulity or positive reflection of Christianity, they make themselves look uninformed, and they give credit where it’s not due.
The real question we should ask is whether health care should be conditional, and, if it should, whether the imposed conditions are fair. I think that’s probably what Moulitsas was trying to say — we shouldn’t abandon someone due to inability to satisfy the unfair conditions of the current health care system, and we shouldn’t modify the health care system to perpetuate or create new unfair conditions. Unfortunately, in O’Donnell and Moulitsas’ attempt to show the unfairness, they brought up yet another system with unfair conditions, put up the “Can’t touch Jesus” flag, and assumed everyone would get the picture.
The picture is that Moulitsas has confirmed that what you learn in Sunday school is not what’s in the bible, and that the trend of invoking Jesus and Christianity as something good on leftish politico television is becoming tiresome and trite, if not distracting.
