AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION

The political Pharisees have revealed something very important to us in showing us how deeply they lack decency, kindness or reason. Some of us have known this all along, including (if I may say so) myself, but till now, how many were listening? I knew this ever since I was one of the anti-Falwell demonstrators outside the City Line Marriott (since torn down) in November 1981. Back then, I would’ve liked to ask the preacher, “If our common Master hung with prostitutes, tax collectors and other sinners, why are you here with the scribes and Pharisees?” Anyhow, Junior Falwell, Phranklin the Phony and Trumpelthinskin have made it plain to us: it is the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees that now completely dominates the Republican party. It is the spirit of the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). It is actually a spirit that wants to tell God He isn’t fair in having the sun rise on the good and the evil or in having the rain fall on the just and the unjust. And they use an all-too-human way of determining who’s who which boils down to this: Look like us, good. Not look, speak or act like us, evil. Put money in MY pocket, good. Take money out, evil. Get us exclusive earthly power, good. Compel us to share it, evil. The way they act could hardly be further from the behavior of Jesus while he walked the earth or from the God Whose nature Jesus shows and of which he speaks. Maybe something in them knows this — which is probably why public ‘devotionals’ matter so much to them and why I wonder how long has it been since any of them read Matthew 6:5–8 or Matthew 7:21 or Isaiah…