Found another interesting site regarding the religious right and theocracy. Check out Talk To Action
Great article by Mainstream Baptist and I love this painting
Who Speaks for God?
By Mainstream Baptist Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 09:45:56 AM EST
Those on the right are constantly searching for someone that they think speaks prophetically every day. They identify the voice of prophecy with unyielding moral denouncements and they think they hear it in the voice of televangelists, fundamentalists, and dominionists.
Those on the left are reluctant to identify anyone that might speak prophetically. Experience has taught them to be suspicious of anyone who presumes to speak for God.
Those in the mainstream or middle believe that, on occasions, God speaks prophetically through one of his servants. At times the prophet speaks in the tones of unyielding morality, but more often the prophet gives voice to an unrelenting demand for justice.
On occasions the voice of the prophetic speaks both in the tones of unyielding morality and the unrelenting demand for justice. Today is one of those days. Today, Ethics Daily has published an essay by Miguel de la Torre in which he speaks out against the Southern Baptist academics who have offered justifications for the use of torture. Here's a little of what De la Torre says:
When this past January the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (along with three of his professors) defended the use of torture, they represented the antithesis of Jesus' mission found in John 10:10, to "give life and give it abundantly."
To be satanic is to exchange the glory of God for the pride of humans. Religious leaders serve the forces of darkness when they justify death, destruction, torture and thievery with high-sounding words like democracy, liberty and patriotism.
Like the false prophets of old, who prostrated themselves before kings and tickled their ear with flattery so as to carve out for themselves a sphere of power and influence, today's leaders of the Religious Right have traded serving the Prince of Peace for the emperor of war.
posted by yelling_at_the_radio @ 10:54 PM
3 Comments:
If you are looking for a prophet you will find one, just as those who searched for witches, in the not too distant past, found witches. However, I will try to answer your questions. To be a prophet you must accurately predict an event. There are many different christians who claim to have "the gift of prophecy." You can find them on any christian television or radio stations. They are all fraudulent and basically make enough predictions in the vaguest of terms that a few may be right every so often. For example Pat Robertson will predict that in 2006 there will be a major earthquake. Well any geologist will tell you the earth averages about two major earthquakes a year. So does Pat speak for God? Do these occasional correct guesses make him or anyone a prophet? I would say no. Prophets manipulate people's belief and faith in God in order to take advantage of them, for monetary gain or for attention.
In modern society man uses the same tool to determine God's word as he did since the dawn of society or tribes. Religion. We have many different brands and views (even within Christianity) and religion has also been the perfect tool in keeping us separated from each other and away from ever finding a peaceful existence.
As you may know, all of these false prophets would love for the common man to remain complacent awaiting for Christ's return, or lashing out in fear of those who do not share our "values" while they wage war and dismantle our children's future. Truly they have the gift of self-fulfilling prophecy, when they proclaim the end is near.
Thanks for posting on my blog Vintage. I enjoy your questions. I will miss your Xanga site.
I think we are drifting into a different conversation, here. I'm not against anyone who thinks they are a prophet (although I believe I have the right to be suspect of their true motives). I just don't want my country to become a Christian neoconcervative theocracy that wages wars and supports tourture in the name of a God that does not exist.
I hope you had the chance to read all of Miguel de la Torre's article He further stated:
But verily I say unto you, that on that day, many will come before the throne of God saying, "Lord, did we not run mega-broadcasting programs focusing on certain families, did we not purge the seminaries of all wrong thinking Christians, did we not get the Right people to sit on the Supreme Court's bench?" But the Lord of Hosts will say on to them, "Get away from me you evildoers--for I never knew you."
Not at all, I enjoy these conversations. However it is not my intention to offend you. I do not find these quotes irreverent or blasphemous. I find more than a little of Modern Christianity and all of the fringe fundamentalist Christians in America to be irreverent, irresponsible, and self destructive, not just to themselves but also to the rest of the world.
I am a believer in Christ but I doubt very much I believe in the same God as the radicals.
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