{"id":124,"date":"2004-09-06T16:45:29","date_gmt":"2004-09-06T22:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/?p=124"},"modified":"2005-03-11T10:10:02","modified_gmt":"2005-03-11T15:10:02","slug":"sojourners-election-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2004\/09\/sojourners-election-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Sojourners : Election 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/index.cfm?action=action.election&#038;item=petition_flash\">Sojourners : Election 2004<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a great video! A a satirical look at the actual quotes made by the Religious Right, with appearances by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, this flash presentation by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/\">Sojourners<\/a> is terrific. While you&#8217;re there, <a href=\"http:\/\/go.sojo.net\/campaign\/takebackourfaith\/\">sign the petition<\/a>. Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/alexandria16.alexsrv16.com\/%7Espacetim\/GentleBreezes\/\">Gentle Breezes<\/a> for blogging it!<\/p>\n<p>Those on the Religious Right claim God for their side. It&#8217;s a common tactic repeated ad nauseum throughout history, and in my view the less likely for being claimed. When a group goes to the trouble to say that God is with them &#8211; and with no-one else &#8211; we have extremism of all kinds and usually violence as well. Since the Christian message in my view doesn&#8217;t have much to do with demonizing others, oppressing the poor and the worker, entering into violence with greed as a motivation, using the legal system to enforce injustice and language to hide lies with euphemisms it&#8217;s hard for me to understand this alliance between the new republicans and what they call christianity. It just seems more likely to me that it&#8217;s all about how to leverage power and control the masses.<\/p>\n<p>At the very least, such an alliance misrepresents those who take their religion seriously, faithfully, with kindness and compassion &#8211; aspiring to greater truths and trying their very best to follow their spiritual path.Social justice can (and I think should) be part of spiritual renewal. Love grows when it is given. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/go.sojo.net\/campaign\/takebackourfaith\/\">petition<\/a> aims to send a message that God is not the property of a political party in the USA. <\/p>\n<p>The whole situation reminds me of a song by The The called &quot;Armageddon Days are Here (Again)&quot; &#8211; it saddens me so much to realize how very many kinds of terrorists there really are. Here are the lyrics:<\/p>\n<p>They&rsquo;re 5 miles high as the crow flies<br \/>Leavin&rsquo; vapour trails against a blood red sky<br \/>Movin&rsquo; in from the east toward the west<br \/>With balaclava helmets over their heads &#8230; yes<\/p>\n<p>But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming<br \/>Honey you&rsquo;ve got another thing coming<br \/>If he ever finds out who&rsquo;s hijacked his name<br \/>He&rsquo;ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave<\/p>\n<p>Islam is rising<br \/>The Christians mobilising<br \/>The world is on its elbows and knees<br \/>It&rsquo;s forgotten the message<br \/>And worships the creeds<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s war, she cried, <br \/>It&rsquo;s war, she cried, <br \/>this is war<br \/>Drop your possessions, all you simple folk<br \/>You&#8217;ll fight them on the beaches in your underclothes<br \/>You&#8217;ll thank the good lord for raising the union jack<br \/>You&rsquo;ll watch the ships sail out of harbour<br \/>And the bodies come floating back<br \/>Watch the ships sail out of harbour<br \/>And the bodies come floating back<\/p>\n<p>If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today<br \/>He&rsquo;d be gunned down by the CIA<br \/>Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass<br \/>Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart<\/p>\n<p>But God didn&rsquo;t build himself that throne<br \/>God doesn&rsquo;t live in Israel or Rome<br \/>God doesn&#8217;t belong to the yankee dollar<br \/>And God doesn&rsquo;t plant the bombs for Hezbollah<\/p>\n<p>God doesn&rsquo;t even go to church<br \/>And God won&rsquo;t send us down to Allah to burn<br \/>No, God will remind us what we already know<br \/>That the human race is about to reap what its sown<\/p>\n<p>Islam is rising<br \/>The Christians mobilising<br \/>The world is on its elbows and knees<br \/>It&rsquo;s forgotten the message<br \/>And worships the creeds<\/p>\n<p>The world is on its elbows and knees<br \/>It&rsquo;s forgotten the message<br \/>And worships the creeds<\/p>\n<p>Armageddon days are here again<\/p>\n<p>Armageddon days are here again<\/p>\n<p>Armageddon days are here again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the Christian message in my view doesn&#8217;t have much to do with demonizing others, oppressing the poor and the worker, entering into violence with greed as a motivation, using the legal system to enforce injustice and language to hide lies with euphemisms it&#8217;s hard for me to understand this alliance between the new republicans and what they call christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}