Americans are stunned by the growing numbers of devout Socialists who’ve been exposed living among us in these United States. Barack Hussein Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the likes of Van Jones (along with 30-plus fellow Obama appointed Czars) are the most famous examples.
And, we already suspected, correctly, that the ranks of educators from grade schools to famed universities were fully infiltrated. But now we are discovering Socialism thriving among friends, neighbors — and, disturbingly, religious leaders.
This is not about extreme, radical, vein popping racists like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is about the gentle, nurturing men of God in our own communities
The pastor of my family’s Protestant house of worship seems generally well liked and respected. Still, a few months ago, a passing comment linking faith and health care-for-all jumped out as a red flag. “Did he just say …?”
After all, Socialism is a sneaky thing. It lurks in hearts and minds like an undetected cancer, a slowly advancing disease. Otherwise intelligent people can be convinced that compassion is not a normal part of the human condition, that it must be imposed on a society and its culture. The Socialist playbook calls on Big Government to force compassion on people, believing that those with the resources to lift up and save the have-nots will never do enough and always possess too much.
Constitutional defender Glenn Beck specifically warns about churches becoming forums for the Socialist agenda. He advises turning up your Socialism radar from the pew, listening for buzzwords such as “social justice.” Beck notes that radical author Robert Creamer’s handbook for Socialists instructs foot soldiers in the War on American Values to promote socialized health care through “the faith-based community”.
How is it done? It is subtle. By taking the opposite approach of a Rev. Wright, Socialism can be calmly, logically ascribed to behavior that God himself would endorse. Recently, my wife’s pastor “uncovered” Biblical support for redistributive justice in the New Testament Book of Matthew.
The story of the loaves and fishes is not merely a tale of the miraculous powers of Jesus. What tired thinking! The loaves and fishes miracle actually is wealth redistribution in action.
“The theory is worth considering,” my wife’s pastor said. “Sometimes we have more than we realize.”
He mentioned at the outset that he, himself, tends to believe it was a supernatural act that fed 5,000-plus people in the story described in Matthew 15. Yet, he went on to invest 20 minutes detailing what “others” think happened and why.
The pastor continued. ”The principal issue confronting humanity today,” he said, “is that too few of us are willing to put the few loaves we have in the hands of Jesus.”
In other words, the act of eating as much as you want necessarily causes countless others to go without, or to have less than they need. That’s Socialism 101. If you drive a car, somewhere a polar bear floats away on a melting chunk of glacier. If you have “too much” money you should be punitively taxed to subsidize some other guy’s surgery. If your house is too big, so, too, is your carbon footprint.
In the same sermon, the pastor suggested those with abundance are still hungry, longing, unfulfilled. How can we say we’re happy when there is “a giant chasm between races and cultures and classes”? After all, “despite the recent economic downturn” most of us have managed to accumulate too much wealth. Everybody knows that the past 50 years have seen the “greatest rise” in global wealth “in the history of the world”.
And there was more from the Pulpit of Socialist Logic. Try out these morsels.
By re-directing “one quarter of the $450 billion Americans alone spend on every Christmas, we could supply clean water to every person on the planet. … We could guarantee an ongoing supply. … Think of the multiplier effect on health.” And …
“If all of the people who name themselves as Christians simply (boycotted) the humanity degrading stream of electronic media that passes as entertainment. … We’d have billions and billions more to invest in health care and security concerns (by giving up) our Blockbuster money, our (cable TV) money.”
Thus, my well heeled, disgustingly rich, Capitalist churchgoers, it is your fault that poverty and illness exist. And it is your fault that the evil American entertainment system thrives and pollutes our porous minds, and turns our children into monsters!
Jesus asks, “How many loaves do you have?” (the question he posed to his disciples in Matthew), and we adapt that to the contemporary question: How much bread do you have?
As Socialism creeps, the answer to that from Obama and his legion of newly empowered disciples will be delivered sternly. Perhaps even by your own pastor, some Sunday morning.
You have too much bread and you’ve hoarded it long enough. Turn it over. Pass it around. Everyone deserves to eat. Says so right here, in the Bible!
Had they started confronting and taming corrosive labor unions decades ago, Americans today might find Toyotas and BMWs little more than a passing curiosity, just as we did say, in the 1970s, when the odd Alfa Romeo or Renault was spotted amid a sea of Cadillac Sedan de Villes or Lincoln Continentals or Oldsmobile 88s. (C’mon, was there anything sexier on the road around 1970 than a Buick Riviera coupe?)