Liberals Hate the Bible?

The email came from a completely unknown person.  The subject line had "Why Liberals hate the Bible."  The email claimed to have a video that would irritate the Liberals even more and make them hate the Bible with a greater passion.  I did not look at the video.

It is not true that liberals hate the Bible. I know a great number of liberals who love Jesus and who seek to understand the scriptures and to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What most of the liberals I know hate is what has been done to the Bible by power hungry, conservative, religious preachers.

What I find most disturbing are two things: one the desire to impose their Christianity upon the whole world. Not to offer that grace of Jesus as a gift, but to enforce it by law.  Jesus Christ is the gift of God's love to the world and Jesus suggested that the love ought to be set on a lamp stand and let the light shine and people could come to it. There did not seem to be any desire on his part to "make" other people believe or behave the way he said. Two, the way they deny the power of God's gift of salvation by their actions.  If we are saved by the Cross of Jesus, and that has been done, then those who accept the gift have no fear of it being tainted or destroyed by what others do. If the clerk is in fact a saved Christ by the grace of Jesus, then her salvation is not in danger by her doing her job and issuing marriage licenses to those who apply. If the doctor is a born again Christian then his salvation is not removed if he provides medical treatment to women who had done what he considers sinful acts.

All Liberals do not hate God. Liberals do not all hate Jesus, Liberals do not all hate the Bible. What we hate is the way that people like Franklin Graham, Joel Osteen, so many evangelical conservative people use it as a club to bash others and to leverage themselves into political power.

"Promote the General welfare"

In the preamble to the U.S. Constitution there is the phrase that says the constitutions is being established in part to promote the general welfare.  I think that is another another way of saying that the constitution is established in part to provide for the "common good."  I don't think it is too much of a stretch to suggest that our political system has lost contact with the "general welfare."  I do not think that I am the only one who thinks that there is no agreed upon definition of what is the "common good."   In fact, I might even go so far as to suggest that neither party has much interest in seeking the "common good" or the "general welfare" of the country and are both operating out of the position of what is good for their power and how to sustain their power base.

I do not suspect that we will get any help in wrestling with the question of the general welfare in the next four years. But perhaps these next four years could be helpful if there were among people a calm, civil, thoughtful discussion of what does the "common good" or "general welfare" look like for all of us in the 21st century.  With automation, technology, globalization, and religious fervor changing the patterns and the goals of society, the "general welfare" of our society will certainly look a great deal different than it did in previous generations. Thus the idea that the USA could be made to look like it did in the 1950's is a very destructive and counter productive goal.

When planes and trucks are operated with no drivers, when so much of the economy is service and technology and yet some one still is needed to repair and to build and farm, the common good will be hard to define, but it needs to be defined so that both parties can work together to make progress.