All Comments (11)

Well perhaps, just to keep them honest mind you, we should tax the churches to pay for universal healthcare. There might even be enough left over to get social security squared away!

Mr. Mark--

I think the number is more like 80%, but your point is well taken. To put the answer bluntly, we shouldn't equate self-identification with faith. A very large number of people will self-identify without any adherence to a particular creed (e.g., start asking within that 80% how many actually believe Jesus rose from the dead, how many believe him to be God incarnate, etc.) whether out of habit or simple ignorance.

Certainly those 80% are not all weekly churchgoers--off the top of my head, I think the numbers are something closer to 50% who attend services at least once a month.

Even as high as those numbers might be, it must still be understood that the church as it exists is always a mixed bag, faith coexisting with unbelief. This is the case even for the individual. What's to be done about it? Only to preach the gospel and trust that it will create faith. You can bully a person all day long, and that might be enough to get him to open his wallet, but nobody should mistake such an act for generosity.

ADAM MORTON writes:
"Surely Dr. Marty knows (and I speak here from a common Lutheran background) that ours is not a generous society any more than it is a just, faithful or Christian society."

Dear Adam -

Considering that 90% of Americans self-identify as Christians, how do you explain the lack of generosity of these Xians? How do you explain how a nation that is 90% Xian isn't "a just, faithful or Christian society."?

Are you suggesting that the message of Xianity is too weak to inspire these 90% of Americans to act in a way that befits Xians? If having Xianity drummed into your head at least once a week isn't enough to make you act like a Xian, then what do you suggest should be done to inspire all of these Xians to live up to their namesake?

Yeah, but it started with Ronnie Raygun and his whole "All the poor really need is a good swift kick in the a$$" philosophy. Now there is nothing Conservative about Conservatives, nothing Christian about Christians, and very little that remains American about America. But maybe it was all propagada all along.

Walk up and smell the coffee.... We are NOT a generous society -- after George Bush.

George Bush has led America to create more death, destuction and suffering than Saddam and Bin Laden combined -- "IF" you look at the impact on the whole world -- instead of only caring about what has happened in our own back yard in America.

However, the evil Bush has done is already spilling over to America. See we can't afford to help the poor anymore to support our war effort. There is plenty of money though to pay big bucks to our contractors in Iraq.

I agree, it's fundamentally confusing, a society that takes great pride in a statue given to us by a country we now despise as peaceniks, and upon that statue is a reference to immigrants (whom we also despise now apparently), "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses."
Sad thing is that we not only no longer want their huddled masses, but we are doing everything we can to turn our backs on our OWN huddled masses.

"It's their own fault, it must be, and they should be made to suffer"....how can people think like this, and consider themselves Americans?

Searching for an answer.

The whisper of
a sibilant wind
imagines, feeling
the cold and when
a light fades
away, beautiful
moments of a fearless
and courageous
wonder, describing
a dream, and waiting
for a meaning; but
a weeping returns,
and that’s in your
mind, like a glimmer
of hope and a
delicate sadness
recalling the past
in the light of
a wisdom.

Francesco Sinibaldi

We must continue as a society to put in place the moral pillars necessary to make a moral society.

The religions have been a complete failure since the invention of "faith".

Witness that the "good christians" in Southern States stopped lynching blacks as laws were enacted to exact a price IN THIS LIFE for immoral behaviour.

Note that even the "good christian" mormons toed the line when the Great Society legislation was enacted. Now black males can "hold the priesthood". (well as long as they pay their money).

Nooses?

They have never been out of style among the hypocritical, southern and midwestern, "good christian", rednecks; but, Blacks are now protected from these "good christians".

The point.
Legistation is responsible for raising the bar of morality, i.e. conservatives are forced to be moral via threat of prosecution.

Health Care?
"good christians" have done nothing to provide for children's healthcare except as it has provided a tax deduction for the wealthy.

The "inconvienent truth"?

The churches use donations to further their existence, not for charity as Jesus encouraged.

Sadly, an immoral society tends to vote for immoral candidates, e.g. George Bush and the majority of republicans.

Nevertheless, little by little, we achieve a more moral society via legislation (FDR, JFK, LBJ) - not faith (we also lose morality via legislation Hitler, Lenin, Reagan, Bushes 1 & 2).

"A generous society, especially one that claims to be influenced by biblical thought, will find ways to provide where other institutions and agencies do not and cannot. All the scriptures that I know commend the weakest, the most vulnerable, the littlest, to the care of the strong, well-established and larger people and institutions."

Trouble is the bible has things going in all directions. Thus "A generous society, especially one that claims to be influenced by biblical thought" can be just that and be just as it is. Doesn't the bible lay the punishment for the crime on the children, for generations to come? Doesn't the bible insist that we love one another, our neighbors as ourselves, our enemies even? Square peg - round hole.

http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul explains it all. That was really the Devil Lucifer and not God at all in the burning bush. All ideas in all directions all at once is chaos, the condition found in hell, not heaven as heaven is defined to be.

According to a pagan hereabouts the word Lucifer means bearer of light in Latin. The bearer of light Hathor with the sun between his, (bull calf) or her, (Egyptian god of the underworld) horns that is the god the Israelites were worshiping when Moses brought the 10 commandments down the mountain. Looks like those who rebelled against the Lord God of Israel won after all.

But then the sun makes a fairly good source of light to be born by a god, try Horace and a god, try God the father of Jesus all at the same time. So hello young sun worshiper whoever you are and hello the biggest lie ever told leading to the chaos of hell.

Surely Dr. Marty knows (and I speak here from a common Lutheran background) that ours is not a generous society any more than it is a just, faithful or Christian society. Yes, of course the generous would take care of the most vulnerable--and there are generous people among us, who make efforts to do just this.

But then, if we were generous, we would have no need of any government program to handle these matters--so it's really senseless to pretend that a government program is a sign of generosity. Rather, it indicates sin (as does the law generally).

Now, of course it may be that we need the law to compel provision for the weak, but this can in no way be classified as generosity, either on the part of those compelled or those doing the compelling. So call it necessary if that's your judgment (and let each come to his own conclusions as to how the goals are best accomplished--the state is not always the optimal instrument), but don't dare dress that necessity up as compassion.

Our panelist writes: "If we can spend $2 billion, which is two-housand million dollars on one of our wars, we can peacefulliy find ways to do some reapportioing of assets and perhasp assauge te consciences of many (religious) citizens, and inspire others to find ways to meet needs."

I think you meant trillion.

In any case, we can't afford this war.

If you buy a car that you can't afford, do you then rationalize other things you can't afford because of the car that you couldn't afford either? "I can't afford this big screen TV but hey! what the heck! I couldn't afford the car I just bought either."

Please, apply some common sense in the exact same way that you would apply it to your own finances.