This may be getting a bit ahead of the curve, but Trevor's post on the dispirited politics of the spiritually enlivened members of the East Saint Louis community raises in my mind the role that the religious right has played in the past thirty years in American politics. Rather than spawning or energizing a mass movement of Christians appalled at the politicization of their religion to serve blatantly un-Christian ethics, we witnessed a self-proclaimed "Christian" effort that is far from the teachings of Jesus: from increasingly childhood poverty rates to killing doctors who've performed abortions to pushing imperialist foreign policies, to supporting capital punishment, to denigrating the worth of those who serve others as public employees, teachers, and community organizers on behalf of the poor--how is that Christian teachings have been hijacked to serve the self-serving political views of a partisan effort which has concentrated wealth in the hands of the few and demonized those who've sought to utilize government leverage to help the least of us?
What happened to the New Testament? To the Sermon on the Mount? To the beatitudes? Whatever happened to the ethic of service that is pilloried as inferior to a life's journey in the private sector where the acquisition of wealth and things is given a sanctified status that borders on idolatrous?
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