A fundamentalist Christian applies the Beatitudes to the US today - or, at least, he applies FOXist attitudes

(Update 10/29/2012: The Rev. Burleson discussed here has changed the name and graphics on his blog to Istoria Ministries Blog; he seems to have kept many of the posts from his previous blog but not the first one linked here. As of this update, the post is cached here.)

Speaking of Bro. Wade "Sword of Vengeance" Burleson, as I was in the previous post, he also offers his Christian ministerial viewpoint on poverty in America in , where he grumps about "our burgeoning federal welfare rolls, our grotesque increases in disability payments, and a veritable buffet of government handouts where the majority of Americans are now given what they did not themselves earn."

I swear that a lot of Christian fundamentalists are working with some kind of Ayn Rand/Fredrich von Hayek translation of the Christian Gospels that I've never been able to put my hands on.

On the other hand, I checked the link Bro. Sword-of-Vengeance provides for his batty "where the majority of Americans are now given what they did not themselves earn". It links to an article in The New American, the magazine and website for the mother ship of batty conspiracy theories and middle-brow reactionary bigotry, the John Birch Society.

Who needs that Jewish girly-man Jesus and his bleeding-heart concerns about the poor shiftless lazy parasites when you can go straight to the Gospel According To The John Birch Society?

I challenged him on it in a comment at his blog. He added that he uses FOX News and the Drudge Report as sources, too.

I realize that the words of that 1st century hippie Jew Jesus - I know the Birchers consider him an "Aryan" but he wasn't - was a foreigner and all. And he really wasn't a respectable sort. The Romans executed him under their policy of murdering prisoners to spread terror among the subject population. And they knew to NEVER APOLOGIZE! Just the way some good Christian white folks think the United States should handle its wars.

And the words of that loser Jesus came down to us in Greek, for some reason or other. I mean, if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for Americans!

But what Luke 6: 20-21 quotes Jesus as saying:

Καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπάρας τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ εἰς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ ἔλεγεν, Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί, ὅτι ὑμετέρα ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ.

μακάριοι οἱ πεινῶντες νῦν, ὅτι χορτασθήσεσθε.

... is decently translated in the American Standard Bible:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed [are] ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed [are] ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. ...

Seems like he was one of those peace-and-love, drum-circle kind of guys. Disgusting. No wonder the Bircher types have to make up an "Aryan" Jesus.

Tags: john birch society, wade burleson