To the Christians in the House

I once had a manager who thought he was John Galt. Or at least a John Galt. Even though I adored him, I knew he wasn't. And when he went on to embezzle a substantial sum, it bore out my literary instinct.

I knew, though, who he was talking about because I had read Atlas Shrugged as a younger girl. So much younger, in fact, that my mother had taken the book away from me, saying, "You don't need to read that. You're selfish enough already." But I eventually read through to the end.

So when Ayn Rand's writings came back into public notice with the advent of and media attention to the Tea Party and the Libertarians and Paul Ryan's Randian Catholicism (an oxymoron), I did not have to run out to buy the book to understand that there would be trouble ahead for women, immigrants, and the poor from anyone who followed her precepts. Which are horribly, horribly selfish precepts, and idolatrous, and about as far as one can get from the teachings of Jesus.

A group of Christian faith leaders (Faithful Filibuster) gathers every day Congress is in session across the street from the Capitol  building to read scripture out loud, especially the 2000 verses that tell us how to care for the poor. This is both a protest, and a public education service. Obviously there are a few folks in the government who have clean forgotten that the Bible has any use other than as a weapon with which to bludgeon people.

Those same forgetful folks have also forgotten their Ayn Rand. For it is not, in Atlas Shrugged, the heroic capitalists alone who bring down the government, and with it, the entire culture. It is the giddy, greedy, cruel Wesley Mouches, out for themselves.

You have changed the rules in the House so as to prevent any change in direction. You bark about the Constitution. You would edit out the uncomfortable bits of Jesus' words. Show me how you are not a Mouch.

Listen up, House. You dance yourselves into a tunnel of an ever-shrinking width. It is not the narrow path to heaven. It is a death trap. You will soon lose the ability to turn around. You are worshipping power, and money, and individualism. You are throwing other people's children into the fires of Moloch, in the belief that wealth and particular interests will take care of you if you legislate the sacrifice of others. They will not take care of you. They will use you, and devour you, and fail you, and forget you. They are false idols.

Relent. Repent. Come back into the daylight. Help save our country by saving its people. The Lord, which you claim to proclaim, said to love God, and love our neighbor, to heal the sick, and raise the dead. 

It's time to take Him seriously. It is time to turn around. Come back to your senses. We need you. Come back to us.

 

Comments

[Kevin Ainsworth]

Ah, Laurel, even your anger and frustration is very eloquent. I suspect that you have an inkling as to how the Old Testament Prophets felt as they watched their rulers not only doing bad things but also incredibly stupid things while thinking they were being clever.

In England we have the famous story of King Canute who sat on his throne on a beach at low tide and ordered the sea not to come in. He ended up with very wet feet. Many people think it shows the arrogance and stupidity of rulers but Canute did it to demonstrate to his Court the limits of human power. Even as a King he was still bound by the same rules of nature as everything else. Many modern politicians seem to have forgotten this lesson as they think that their laws are above natural laws. They seem to have forgotten that economics and finance are bound by the laws of mathematics which God created.

What is a balance sheet but an equation where both sides have to balance? 3+1=4. So if 4 is expenditure and 3 is government income then the 1 is what is “borrowed” to balance it. All those +1s add up each month to increase the debt of what is borrowed and what needs to be paid back.

I think you hit a nail on the head with your previous blog entry when you talk of people forgetting cause and effect. In this case the effect is the debt but, rather than look at the cause and change that, the politicians think that by changing the conditions of the effect then they are solving the problem. They fail to see that they are only making it worse.

As an outsider looking at your Congress wrangling it illustrates just how divorced from the real world politicians have become. If you and I had debts on a credit card and reached the limit we would have to convince a bank that they should raise the limit and that we could actually pay it back. If they said “no” then we would have no choice but to adjust our spending to live within our means. Our equation would become 3=4–1.

Whereas politicians seem to have lost this touchstone, this check and balance, as they not only spend the money but control their own credit limit. So they seem to think that all they have to do is raise it each time and it solves the problem! If it is really that easy to “print” new money out of thin air then why has it never been done successfully before?

Your description of the narrow path of destruction they are on is eloquent. They are like Gollum who thinks he has found a great treasure in the ring but cannot see how it is corrupting him while destroying his body and soul and making him far less of a man (hobbit). How many politicians enter as a Smeagol but then become a Gollum? How many of them sit in their offices saying to themselves “my precioussssss”?

Having said that, Frodo was also touched by the ring and on his way to being corrupted and becoming another Gollum. The difference for him was that he had Sam at his side. A simple Hobbit with a childlike faith who refused to desert his friend and who knew what the right thing to do was. An individual of faith can make a difference.

The politicians would do well to listen to the Christians outside Congress and also to read the book of Proverbs to remind themselves of their responsibilities as rulers and lawmakers.

I was in a discount bookshop last week and saw a copy of Atlas Shrugged on the shelf. I have heard about it over the years but was surprised at just how thick a volume it is. I picked it up and looked at it before putting it back. It was not so much Atlas as Kevin Shrugged! I am thinking of going back, though, to buy the book so I can appreciate the comparisons you are making.

I mentioned that the politicians should read Proverbs 8 to remind themselves of their responsibilities but that chapter also reminds us that Wisdom was the first of God’s creations: “The Lord created me first of all, the first of his works, long ago. I was made in the very beginning, at the first, before the world began. I was born before the oceans, when there were no springs of water. I was born before the mountains, before the hills were set in place, before God made the earth and its fields or even the first handful of soil. I was there when he set the sky in place, when he stretched the horizon across the ocean, when he placed the clouds in the sky, when he opened the springs of the ocean and ordered the waters of the sea to rise no further than he said. I was there when he laid the earth's foundations. I was beside him like an architect, I was his daily source of joy, always happy in his presence—happy with the world and pleased with the human race.” (Proverbs 8 v.22-31 Good News Version)

Most important of all, though, is something that we, as Christians, never seem to speak of but should be shouting from the rooftops:

Wisdom is female.

If I had to pick one Proverb from the Bible to sum up your writing and encourage you then it would be Proverbs 18 v.4 “A person's words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream.”

Warmest regards,

Kevin.

[Noddi28]

Very well put, impassioned and direct.
What saddens me here in the UK is a version of the same greed, self-serving narcissism and loss of any kind of empathy.
Whether through religion or humanism, as a species, we have the responsibility to evolve out of this petty, childish behaviour.

[glitch]

Amen to that, and I'm not even a practicing Christian. I've always loved you, Laurel, because it's written in your face that you're a standup person.