[Dialogue] 5/5/11, Spong: Rush Limbaugh vs. Lawrence O’Donnell – What Would Jesus Cut?

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Rush Limbaugh vs. Lawrence O’Donnell – What Would Jesus Cut?
The political debate, as it is viewed on the twenty-four hour a day cable news television channels, is frequently more amusing than informative. The necessity of keeping an audience glued to the set means that insignificant things are hyped into being major stories. There is indeed a crisis a day, sometimes elevating political nonsense into seeming like a major story. It is fascinating to note that on the weekends, when those shows are not airing, there is never a crisis or indeed any news that seems to originate from anywhere, a sure sign that the stories are largely manufactured for the daily viewing audience. So we are treated to huge debates on things like whether President Obama was born in the United States and to political jokes masquerading as presidential candidates like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump.
This “news coverage” may, however, have reached a high water mark of absurdity, when Rush Limbaugh sought to frame the national budget debate in terms of “What would Jesus Cut” and Lawrence O’Donnell responded to this idiocy by reading to Limbaugh on the air the entire parable of the judgment recorded in Matthew 25.
Before discussing this episode let me try to separate reality from politically-hyped hyperbole. There is no doubt that there is a debt crisis in this nation that cries out to be addressed in a realistic and responsible way. The excessive debt did not arise by accident, but rather resulted from very bad economic decisions made by very real politicians who normally cannot see beyond the horizon of the next election. First, a bit of history.
In 1993, as the first significant act of the new Clinton administration, a budget was adopted that involved cuts in various appropriations and which also called for certain targeted tax increases. It was then, as now, a very controversial debate. The biggest difference was that the government in 1993 was not divided. So it was a Democratic majority that passed this bill by a wide margin in the House of Representatives and by a single vote in the Senate. Indeed, that single vote was the tie-breaking vote cast, under the rules of the Senate, by Vice President Albert Gore. In the debate preceding this vote all sorts of apocalyptic language was used. Higher taxes for anyone, we were told, would trigger a 1930’s type of depression and create enormous budget deficits. Cuts in the military budget would make us vulnerable to a takeover by some foreign power. It was hard to say at that time just who that power would be, since the Soviet Union had collapsed a few years earlier and China had not yet achieved the status of a world power. Politicians can, however, create a fearful enemy whenever their political objectives require one. Rationality is not always a necessity in political debate, but generating sufficient fear to protect a politician’s base or vested interest is.
The bill was passed and signed into law, and now, from the vantage point of hindsight, we can surely say that it worked to the well-being of the masses of the people in this nation. The 1990’s were years of enormous economic expansion. More wealth was created in that decade alone than this nation had created in its entire history prior to 1992. When Bill Clinton completed his second term in the White House in 2000, he not only left with the entire debt of this nation erased, but also with a rare national surplus. The Congress also had enacted a law requiring that any new item added to the national budget had to be offset with money from an identified source. Deficit financing was out.
The new Bush administration sworn in in 2001 moved immediately to pass a sweeping across-the-board tax cut. This tax cut was applauded by most economists, who were suggesting that we were headed into a period of national budget surpluses for as far as the eye could see. Money obviously should in those circumstances be returned to the tax paying citizens, since it was no longer needed to fund the basic requirements of the government.
Then came the jolt to both the nation’s economy and to its sense of security caused by the attack by Islamic fundamentalists on the World Trade center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. A war against the Taliban in Afghanistan followed, since those 9/11 attacks had been initiated there. No budgetary provision, however, was made for this war. Before that military activity had been completed a new war, this one ideologically driven, on Iraq was launched. It was a far larger military operation and, like the conflict in Afghanistan, this war has also not yet ended. Once more, however, no budgetary provisions were made to finance it. No sacrifice was asked of anyone save the members of the Armed Services.

Then with these two wars draining the nation’s economic security, a second tax cut was proposed in Mr. Bush’s second term, this one weighted heavily on the side of the rich, whose wealth accumulation in the 90’s was unmatched in American history. It too became law. Passing this second tax cut was, however, difficult. It did not receive the approval of leading economists, including Alan Greenspan. So the only way to get the necessary votes to secure its passage in both the House and the Senate was to write a sunset phrase into the legislation. The second tax cut was to be “temporary” and was set to expire automatically on December 31, 2010. No proposed cuts in government spending were offered to offset the loss of federal revenues, indeed just the opposite occurred, when the largest entitlement program in our history was enacted to cover the cost of drugs for those on Medicare. So revenues went down and spending went up. The drug bill was also unfunded in the budget. It was the perfect formula for the explosion of the deficit and it worked in exactly that way. It also produced in America an era of unprecedented greed. Multimillion dollar bonuses were handed out like lollipops to leaders of American corporations by enormously generous boards.

The uncontrolled deficit is what ultimately caused the collapse in the economy that marked the final year of the Bush administration, producing the deepest recession in both American and world history since that great depression of the 1930’s. The government, first under Republican President Bush and later under newly elected Democratic President Obama, now poured massive amounts of federal money into rescue operations in order to save banks from defaulting, to rescue both the American automobile industry and the insurance industry, and to alleviate the distress of the unemployed that, because of this recession, reached 10% of the population. That in turn exacerbated the collapse of the housing market. Many people lost their jobs, their homes and their health care simultaneously even while industries, bailed out by American tax payers, continued to pay huge bonuses to those who had brought economic ruin on their businesses, opening the door for the most public anger noted in America in decades. So today we have an unsustainable deficit that must be addressed and no one seems willing to sacrifice anything to bring about economic stability.
The values by which some in America choose to live suddenly become very visible. This was the context in which right wing conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sought to answer the question as to what Jesus would do in regard to the budget in order to bring about an economic revival and to restore this nation to economic health. Rush’s Jesus favored no new taxes and seemed to think that self-sufficiency should be elevated to a religious commitment, so he proposed the dismantling of the social safety net, including Medicare and Social Security as no longer affordable. In order to create self-reliance he proposed shifting the pain of our current deficit to the elderly and the poor who, he asserted, needed to learn that the government is not there to support them.
That was more than liberal leaning television talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell could stomach. I do not know what O’Donnell’s religious convictions are or what his religious background is, but in a fairly aggressive style he said that Limbaugh could lie about the economy and he could lie about President Obama, but “I will not allow you to lie about Jesus Christ!” Then, as if to have Jesus himself enter the debate, O’Donnell proceeded to read in its entirety to both Limbaugh and his own television audience, the Parable of the Judgment as recorded only in Matthew’s gospel.
In that parable, the final judgment is being carried out by the Son of Man, who divides the nations of the world like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are pronounced blessed and invited to enter into the larger life. The goats are dismissed as unworthy of entering that life. The basis for the judgment is quite clear in the parable. When the sheep saw the hungry, the naked, the sick or the imprisoned, they came and addressed their needs. This behavior was not emulated by the goats that neither saw nor responded to those in need.
In the parable both the sheep and the goats are startled to hear themselves being judged either positively or negatively, since neither could recall a time in which they had addressed or denied the reality of human hunger, nakedness, sickness or imprisonment. Then, says the parable, the Son of Man informs them that if they did not see or respond to “one of the least” of those who are their brothers and sisters, they had failed to do it to the Son of Man, or to God, if you will. Matthew in this parable echoes the words of John’s first epistle: You cannot claim to love God whom you have not seen, if you are unable to love your neighbor whom you have seen.
The budgetary battle going on in this country today is over whether individuals are to be responsible for themselves alone or whether each of us have some responsibility to care for one another with equal sacrifice and equal commitment. It reflects the same question Cain asked God in the ancient creation myth, “Am I my brother’s (or sister’s) keeper?” I, for one, would not like to live in a nation that answered that question with a “No.”
~John Shelby Spong
Read the essay online here.





Question & Answer
Travis Graham, via the Internet, writes:
Question:
I in no way intend to belittle you or cause you to become angry over this e-mail. I am a born-again Christian putting my complete faith in Jesus Christ as my savior because I am a sinner and have no way to heaven except through the Son. I thank God every day for opening my eyes and showing me the path to salvation. I just want to take a second of your time after reading your thoughts on Judas and ask why you haven’t investigated in Acts 1:12-21 when Luke tells of how “The Eleven” became “The Twelve” again after adding Matthias to the disciples and how the disciples quote the Old Testament telling of the one that will betray the Messiah, and by you saying this never happened, then you are bringing into question not only the authenticity of the gospels, but of the whole Old Testament and New Testament. I ask that you sincerely delve into the issue and ask yourself why you are really making these claims. You talked about when Paul wrote about Jesus returning and showing himself to Cephas (Peter) and the twelve. Isn’t this the newly-formed twelve (with Matthias as the twelfth)? And couldn’t Jesus have appeared to the eleven (in Matthew) because they had not yet added Matthias? I know it is okay to ask questions, but you aren’t doing a good job answering your questions thoroughly. I am afraid you are trying to destroy the gospel piece by piece instead of truly seeking the truth. I pray the Lord will change your mind and that he will be able to open your eyes so that you might believe in him. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Answer:
Dear Travis, 

Thank you for your letter. I am pleased to know that an Evangelical is reading my column. I have no desire to belittle your stated commitment to Jesus. I accept that for what it is and urge you to continue walking into this commitment. 

Being committed to Jesus is, however, not an excuse for failure to study the scriptures and your comments on Acts 1:12-26 reveal that you have done little of that. For the benefit of my readers, Acts 1:12-26 is the story of how the early Christian Church replaced Judas with the election of one named Matthias. 

The book of Acts is Part Two of the Luke–Acts corpus of which the gospel of Luke is Part One. Most scholars today date this gospel in the late 80’s or early 90’s and they date the book of Acts in the early to mid-nineties. This means that the book of Acts was written some 30 years after the death of Paul. 

Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians, from which I took my reference to “the Twelve” (I Cor. 15: 5) as witnesses to the resurrection, in the years between 54 and 56 or some 40 years before the book of Acts. 

If you wish to read these passages literally as most Evangelicals do, you still have a serious problem. Paul says that the appearance of the raised Jesus to “the Twelve” took place on the third day after the Crucifixion. Luke, in both the gospel and the book of Acts, says that the Raised Christ appeared to the disciples over a period of 40 days before he ascended into heaven. Luke was the first to introduce the Ascension in the Christian story. Only after the Ascension (or after some forty days) does Luke suggest that, under Peter’s direction, lots were drawn to replace Judas and being a “witness” to the resurrection was the necessary qualification for the two nominees. 

So when Paul relates the story of the appearance to “the Twelve,” Matthias is not part of the Twelve and therefore Judas must have still been included. Paul reveals no knowledge of the fact that one of “the Twelve” was the traitor. 

Matthew, the second gospel to be written (it is generally dated in the early to mid 80’s), clearly did not know about the addition of Matthias, but he does know about the defection of Judas so that defection seems to enter the Christian tradition after Paul, but before Matthew. Matthew states that Jesus appeared only to “the Eleven.” 

The primary mistake that biblical fundamentalists make is that they assume the Bible is an inerrant book that somehow dropped from heaven fully written. It isn’t and it didn’t. 

Paul wrote from 51-64, Mark 70-72, Matthew 82-85, Luke 88-95, and John 95-100. The books that completed the New Testament were not finished until II Peter was written around the year 135 (and obviously not written by Peter). The Christian story grew over the years. Miracles were added in the 8th decade by Mark, who was also the first to suggest that Judas was the traitor. The Virgin Birth story was introduced by Matthew in the 9th decade, the Ascension story by Luke in the early 10th decade and the “I am” sayings by John in the late 10th decade. 

This knowledge is elementary in the academies of Christian learning, but it is so often resisted by fundamentalists and thus seldom trickles down to the person sitting in the pew, usually unable to get through the bottleneck of the poorly trained pastor. 

Devotion to Jesus does not mean that believers have to remain biblically ignorant, but so often that is the case. I hope you will come to see the difference. Jesus exhorted us to worship God “with our minds.” We need not be afraid to do so! 

Thanks for writing, 

~John Shelby Spong





Announcements
A NOTE FROM BISHOP SPONG: 

DEAR READERS, 

ONE OF THE MOST CREATIVE THEOLOGIANS IN OUR GENERATION IS MATTHEW FOX, THE AUTHOR OF MANY BOOKS, THE BEST KNOWN OF WHICH IS ORIGINAL BLESSINGS, a book in which he challenged for the first time the Christian Church's doctrine of "original sin." Matthew is also a good friend of mine, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the Roman Catholic Church in which he served as a priest for years. He has just published a chronicle of that relationship under the title "The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How it Can Be Saved." I include here a press release from his publisher: 

"Theologian Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest silenced by Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, recounts the "war for the soul of the Catholic Church" waged by Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II. His new book, The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved is a searing indictment that portrays a church hierarchy obsessed with rooting out theological dissent and crushing creativity, while covering up the pedophile crisis. The Pope's War begins by recounting Ratzinger's life story, including his "conversion" from an up-and-coming progressive theologian at Vatican II to "ecclesial climber and chief inquisitor" who proceeded, along with Pope John Paul II, to dismantle the work of Vatican II, including the promises of collegiality, lay leadership, and theological pluralism. Fox concludes that the last two papacies have created a schism in the church by ignoring Vatican II but ends with a hopeful vision for the future. He believes that the Holy Spirit is at work in "ending the Catholic Church as we know it" and making it possible to "push the restart button on Christianity." 

The book is hard hitting and revealing. It poses for us the crisis that is in our sister church and points to a way out of that crisis. I doubt if it will be welcomed in the Vatican, but it should be. It is the kind of criticism that only one who loves the Catholic Church as an insider could write. This book will cause enormous discussion. I want you to be aware of it. 

~John Shelby Spong 


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