by Colin Donoghue
Daily Lobo columnist
Last weekend, I visited Goshen College in Indiana for a National Peace and Justice Conference titled "In Solidarity: Engaging Empire." I gave a presentation on the urgent need for election system reforms, independent media and the creation of Centers for Peace and Justice - just like the one here in Albuquerque - throughout the country.
I discovered when I arrived that Goshen College is a Mennonite Christian school, and some of the other presentations scheduled addressed Christianity's role with empire through history to today.
The presentation that affected me the most was by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, discussing his book, Saving Christianity from Empire. He described the ways in which empire has historically distorted religion, and how the American empire is no different.
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He found mainstream Christianity to be complicit with the government's distortion of Christianity, to the extent that such churches had become more churches of nationalism than churches of Jesus. Many preachers have become spokespeople more for the Bush administration than for the founder of the religion, Jesus of Nazareth.
One question asked was whether the Bush administration is closer to followers of Jesus or closer to the Roman Empire that crucified him?
In the Gospels, the last temptation of Jesus by the devil is the promise of the power of all the empires in the world, to which Jesus responded, "Away with you, Satan."
Obviously, empire is not godly, especially if used as a tool of the devil, and more Christians are taking notice. Anti-Bush administration sentiment among the Christian community appears to be on the rise. Books like the best seller God's Politics, by the evangelical preacher Jim Wallis, breaks down how the administration's policies have no correlation whatsoever with the teachings of Jesus, and in fact are contradictory to those teachings.
Jesus' unvarying call to assist the poor does not align with tax cuts for the richest Americans along with the increase in poverty every year since Bush and Cheney took office. Nor does Jesus' call to love your neighbor and enemy coincide with a preventive war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children.
Even though I am not a Christian, I find myself angry about this perversion of Christianity. Once on campus, I was approached by a College Republican handing out fliers that ridiculed liberal economics and praised the economic policy of Ronald Reagan. I asked him how trickle-down economics has been effective in reducing poverty, but he refused to answer. He was wearing a necklace with a large cross and the body of Jesus crucified upon it.
I thought that if I were an alien from another planet and compared the policies he was supporting with the teachings of the man on that cross, I would think this young man was siding with those who crucified Jesus.
It was pointed out to me that Bush never mentions Jesus in his speeches, only God. Does he perhaps not want to associate too closely to someone so differing in personal and political philosophy? But the Christian God's Ten Commandments are also contradictory to the actions of the current administration, which has been wrought with false testimony, killing and coveting of property.
These words of Jesus come to mind: You shall know them by their fruits.
The rising call to take back our country from the Bush administration seems to be coinciding with the call to take back Christianity from them as well. This country was founded on great principles: freedom, equality and liberty, which have brought much good to this world - just as the Christian faith was founded by the great principles of unconditional love, forgiveness and personal sacrifice which have done the same.
There is no doubt that Christianity is a great religion, for it has been the foundation of the lives of some of the greatest people that have ever lived, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa.
There is doubt, however, in whether we should allow the leaders of our state to claim authority over religious doctrine, especially when their interpretation seems to contradict the original teachings of that religion.
Separation of church and state is as important an issue today as ever. We need this separation so that we may take a step back and observe closely the obvious incongruity of neoconservative policy and the teachings of Christ.
Jesus was indeed a radical liberal, a fact the supposedly Christian Bush administration will not be able to ignore for much longer.
