Fresh off the press and just in time for the health care debate, we have the Age of Obama New Testament. Here are a couple of excerpts that should wet your whistle for some peace and justice!

Matthew 25: 31 – 41

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nation will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the goats from the sheep and the donkeys. He will put the sheep and the donkeys on his left and the goats on his right.

Then the King will say to those on his left, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the earthly utopia prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was in need and you lobbied well for government entitlements, I wanted to see a doctor and you pushed for a government option.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you in need or requiring health care and come to your aid?’

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whenever you voted progressive, you did it for me.’

Then he will say to those on the right, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

Matthew 22: 15 – 22

Then the Republicans went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Limbaughdians. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’

 

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.’ They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, ‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’

‘Caesar’s,’ they replied.

Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to Caesar what is God’s and let Caesar redistribute it in justice and charity.’

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Of course, the fake excerpts you’ve just read are a satirical treatment of what’s really going on in many Christian congregations in the United States. A “peace and justice”, social gospel is being foisted upon many of the faithful. They walk away from sermons and editorials by leftist ministers and priests with the impression that it is their Christian duty to support the expansion of government to deal with every social ill and inequality. Government should feed the hungry. Government should cloth the naked. Government should visit (i.e. care for) the sick. As long as I vote progressive and support the Democrats, I have done my Christian duty . . . and therefore may be counted among the sheep and donkeys spoken of in the fake Matthew Chapter 25 excerpt.

Wrong! Government is not a proxy for charity. In Christianity, you personally are accountable. Supporting mass redistribution simply does not qualify as fulfilling your call to charity (i.e. to rise to the level of selfless love).

The Christianization of the human soul is first and foremost an interior change. The outward fruits of that interior change are the natural effects of an entirely spiritual cause (i.e. the transformative grace of God). A man who fully recognizes the Lordship of God and his complete dependency on God conforms his will to God’s Will in uncompromised entirety. Then, the effects, those fruits of God, will burst forth in that man in myriad and diverse ways . . . some will evangelize, some will dedicate their lives to the poor, some will learn to really cherish their children, some will care selflessly for a sick and elderly parent, some will give of their need to charities (like Food for the Poor at this link), and some will simply serve in entirely unnoticed ways (except for God, Who sees all).

Qualifying the support of a socialistic expansion of entitlements as charity is the equivalent of saying that a fast food cheeseburger is no different than a gourmet piece of Kobe beef . . . or a beat up Ford Aspire is no different than a precision, high performance Lexus . . . or a Timex digital watch is no different than a Rolex. The real McCoy’s are qualitatively different than the knock offs and wannabes. The same is exactly true of Christianity’s call to love one another. Socialistic government entitlements are not a fulfillment of a Christian’s duty to charity. It’s just a cheap imitation of the genuine article.

So, to all the social justice crazed ministers and priests out there, I say stop misleading your congregants! Stop feeding them a syrupy mush of generalized ethics. Stop trying to portray our Lord as nothing more than an ethical man and a first century social worker/community organizer. You are using your position of power over the spiritual lives of your congregants to push a political system at the expense of the salvation of souls.