ccun.org, May 26, 2008

The Burning Bush: The President's Religious Zeal

“And he began to speak to them in parables: A certain man planted a vineyard and made a wall about it, and dug a wine-press and built a tower in it, and then let it out to some vine-dressers while he went on his travels. And when the season came, he sent one of his servants on an errand to the vine-dressers to claim from them the revenue of his vineyard. Whereupon they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

Then he sent another servant on a second errand to them and he too they beat over the head and used him outrageously. He sent another, whom they killed; and many others, whom they beat or killed at their
pleasure. He had still one messenger left, his own well-beloved son; him he sent to them last of all;
They will have reverence, he said, for my son. But the vine-dressers said among themselves, this is the heir, come, let us kill him, and then his inheritance will be ours. So they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.”

The above words were spoken by Jesus of Nazareth to a gathering of chief priests, scribes, and elders in the temple in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago. We are told that upon hearing these words, the gathering of Jewish leaders sought to lay their hands on Jesus but were prevented because they feared the multitude.

Today the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, reacted differently when they were addressed by President
George W. Bush. This modern, but no less sinister, assembly of Jews did not try to apprehend or stone
him. No cries of “Crucify him!” were heard echoing through the chambers of Israeli government. Instead,
hands were raised in exultation and applause at the conclusion of a speech delivered by an ardent
Christian.

A speech containing statements like:

“We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s independence, founded on the ‘natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate.’ What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David — a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Y’Israel.”

His speech was well seasoned with religious and biblical terms. It was salted with no less than
half-a-dozen references to God . And, of course, no discourse to the Chosen People would be complete
without a peppering of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Perhaps a dash of Moses and a pinch of David for good measure. But where is God the Father? Where is HIs Son, Jesus? No mention of the Man/God Who the President believes to be his Savior? No
acknowledgment of the Man/God Who put the “Holy” in Holy Land? What is the president’s religion? Who is his God?

The religion of the President, like most forms of American Christianity, is firmly built upon a fixation with the “Chosen People” and a tendency to identify with them. In another quote from his speech, “The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any
treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul.

When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: ‘Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.’ The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.”

The Puritans and other nonconforming religious groups were fleeing, as they saw it, from the Babylon of
Popery or the unjust Pharaoh of the Church of England.

The deity of the most famous sermon in American Christianity, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by
Jonathan Edwards, resembles the wrathful God of Abraham more than the gentle, merciful God of the “Our Father”.

American geopolitical ideals such as “Manifest Destiny” , which displaced the Native American, again find their source in the activities of the “Chosen People”. If it was good enough for them, then it is good enough for us.

In a passage meant to tear at the hearts of Christians everywhere, he says, “No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves.”
 
This constant stream of religious rhetoric is a bedeviling charade. It dazzles the simple into thinking that this man and his audience is God-fearing and just. But his God and the God of his audience is our God.

No one who prays to God could drive an entire people out of their homeland and leave them to live in poverty, squalor, and filth, a veritable cloaca, for 60 years.

The hired help in the vineyard has received Bush with open arms and he is being feted where the
servants, stewards, and Heir of the Master were killed.

Jesus said, “The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also
persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. If they hate me, they hate my Father
also”.

Who is your master, Mr. Bush? What is his name?

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/the-burning-bushthe-presidents-religious-zeal/