A Lesson from Jesus

Posted by BooMan | Jun 25, 2009 | 30 |

You know, John Dickinson, I don’t need to hear your moral condemnation about my glee in seeing another Republican moralizer exposed as a hypocrite. I didn’t want to go to church and Sunday school, but I learned a few things while I was there.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5 RSV)

“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:1-6 RSV)

“Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you transgress the Commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'” (Matthew 15:1-9 RSV)

The whole basis of Jesus’s teachings is that we shouldn’t listen to moral hypocrites, but should instead expose their hypocrisy and mock it.

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

30 Comments

TarheelDem on June 25, 2009 at 11:02 am

For someone who went unwillingly to Sunday School, you absorbed more than the Christianists who want to browbeat everyone with their overweaning and self-indulgent sense of moral rectitude.

Erudite enough for the moralists?
Steven D on June 25, 2009 at 11:14 am

Unconscious self parody the Onion would be proud of:

I thought about his wife having to suffer the anger and the loss. Perhaps even worse, she’s also going to have to endure the armies of pity and the people like me trying to guess what her feelings are.

People like John Dickinson exist to make the rest of us appreciate unintentional comedy.
- BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 11:26 am
  
  He doesn’t realize that we have a godly mandate to mock Sanford for his hypocrisy.
DaveW on June 25, 2009 at 11:34 am

I don’t think this is the whole basis — what’s reported as Jesus’s words is a mashup of contradictory claims written by different people at different times, so there really is no whole basis.

That aside, I disagree that we should expose and mock hypocrites — wouldn’t that be going into “log in the eye” territory? Thing is, though, that when the likes of Sanford, Ensign, O’Reilly and the long list of other wingnut hypocrites use religious cant to impose their political power on the behavior of others, their own transgressions become more than fair game. Exposing them and humiliating them becomes a political duty in order to expose the mindless narcissism that their pious poses mask. In other words, to point out that their moral poses are, far from being qualifications for office, absolute disqualifications.

Since they’re all so fond of applying Bible quotes to politics and social control, here’s one from the same part they love to quote about the abomination of gay sex: “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” Leviticus 20:10. I don’t see anything there about how apologies and whining about their “mistakes” changes the punishment. It’s absolute. It’s a must.

Maybe it’s time to do a trial run on biblical law starting with Sanford and Ensign, and then down the rest of the list. To do less would be to spit in the face of God, right?
- BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 11:45 am
  
  Ah, you are missing the point.
  First, Jesus morally condemned hypocrites for morally condemning other people. He didn’t see any contradiction, so why should we?
  
  Second, despite the troublesome nature of sourcing biblical quotes, the NT is consistent in portraying Jesus as an enemy of putting the letter of the Law in front of the intent of the Law.
  
  Thus, he healed people on the Sabbath and overturned the money-changers’ tables in the Temple and he hung out with loose women and tax-assessors and other riff-raff.
  
  “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead with no clothes. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, and he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he too passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and looked after him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
  - DaveW on June 25, 2009 at 1:37 pm
    
    I think you are missing the point about Bible thumpers: they have no interest in Jesus except to use the brand as part of their con game. It’s Leviticus and its horror-story siblings that gets their little hearts going pitter-patter. You’ve no doubt notices that one of them ever agitates to put the Sermon on the Mount on the courtroom walls.
maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 11:52 am

Although I get your point I think your parents should ask for their money back if you think the WHOLE BASIS of Jesus’s teachings is that we shouldn’t listen to moral hypocrites.
- BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 11:55 am
  
  well, they probably thought I’d internalize that whole bit about no one gets to the father except through me.
  
  But, really, the whole basis of his teaching was that you are not righteous just because you go to synagogue and give alms and keep the dietary and other laws if you are not righteous in your dealings with people.
  - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 12:05 pm
    
    This may be true: you are not righteous just because you go to synagogue and give alms and keep the dietary and other laws if you are not righteous in your dealings with people.
    
    But many people go to the synagogue, give alms and keep the dietary and other laws and ARE righteous. Why? Because they obey the actual basis of Jesus’s teaching – love the lord your god with your whole heart etc. and love your neighbor as yourself.
    
    Mocking doesn’t seem to fit in with the “love” part. There is a difference between exposing hypocrisy and mocking someone.
    
    That’s why someone like, for instance, MLK who could speak against hypocrisy and yet truly attempt not to belittle any other person by mockery or other means, not even the hypocrites, is a special person.
    - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 12:08 pm
      
      you can parse the word ‘mock’ if you want. Yelling ‘you hypocrites’ at religious leaders seems mocking to me. And that doesn’t even touch going into the temple and upsetting their kickback arrangements.
      - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 12:19 pm
        
        Nowhere does it say he yelled the word hypocrites. Maybe he said it in sadness, shaking his head.
        
        There is difference between losing your temper (righteous anger) and mocking someone (belittling someone). Any parent knows that you can love your child and have righteous anger against the actions of your child. But mocking your child? Not a good thing.
        
        Mocking is not a nice thing to do. No matter if you are on the right side or not.
        
        As I constantly remind myself when I am online …
      - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 12:32 pm
        
        actually, from the King James version on, there are exclamation points after ‘you hypocrites’ in Matthew.
      - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 12:52 pm
        
        Exclamation points don’t necessarily indicate increased volume. They can but the don’t necessarily indicate it.
        
        And even increased volume doesn’t indicate mocking. There is no punctuation mark that indicates sneering or other forms of mockery.
        
        You’ve used the whole Jesus mocked meme before – you like it. But I don’t think it’s grounded in fact. It’s something you want to read into the words.
        
        He does, however, expose hypocrisy.
      - Oscar In Dallas on June 25, 2009 at 5:38 pm
        
        He never mocked, this is true, but he did condemn. Then too, He alone is able to condemn. Or forgive…
      - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 5:53 pm
        
        I think he mocked.
      - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 6:13 pm
        
        What we need is someone with access to the original greek texts and the ability to read and interpret them to tell us if the concept of Jesus mocking anyone is made explicit (in the way that it is apparently made explicit that the Roman soldiers mocked him). And whether exclamation points existed in ancient greek and what they meant.
        
        But since probably neither of us gives much creedance to the Council of Nicea we probably should take a look at all the gnostic gospels too.
        
        Then we’ll KNOW. 🙂
      - Oscar In Dallas on June 25, 2009 at 7:55 pm
        
        I read Greek and Hebrew, and there’s no mocking coming from Jesus. No condescension. No big “I” little “you” – the crux of mocking. There’s no there there.
      - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 8:36 pm
        
        well, my ancient greek is rusty, having not read any in about 14 years. but this isn’t about interpreting the language. It’s about what I consider mockery versus what you consider mockery.
        
        For me, upbraiding a group of rabbis in public for their blatant hypocrisy and love of lording it over people is public ridicule and mockery which was probably the most significant reason why he was put to death. Maybe he really did go around claiming to be King of the Jews, but the more significant problem was that he kept telling the authorities that they were full of crap. And causing a scene in the temple did help his reputation.
      - Oscar In Dallas on June 25, 2009 at 5:34 pm
        
        Nowhere does it say he yelled the word hypocrites.
        
        As much as I want to validate your position, Matthew 23 won’t let me…
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
        
        “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
        
        “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!
        
        “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
        
        Jesus had some choice words for the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law…
    - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 12:20 pm
      
      But, Mary, since I agree with you that MLK is the holiest of Americans, I will provide you one of his most excellent sermons for your edification.
      
      Paul’s Letter to American Christians, November, 4, 1956:
      
      I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul. The postmark reveals that it comes from the city of Ephesus. After opening the letter I discovered that it was written in Greek rather than English. At the top of the first page was this request: “Please read to your congregation as soon as possible, and then pass on to the other churches.”
      
      For several weeks I have worked assiduously with the translation. At times it has been difficult, but now I think I have deciphered its true meaning. May I hasten to say that if in presenting this letter the contents sound strangely Kingian instead of Paulinian, attribute it to my lack of complete objectivity rather than Paul’s lack of clarity.
      
      It is miraculous, indeed, that the Apostle Paul should be writing a letter to you and to me nearly 1900 years after his last letter appeared in the New Testament. How this is possible is something of an enigma wrapped in mystery. The important thing, however, is that I can imagine the Apostle Paul writing a letter to American Christians in 1956 A.D. And here is the letter as it stands before me.
      
      I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
      
      For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.
      
      But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about “improved means to an unimproved end.” How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.
      
      I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: “everybody is doing it, so it must be alright.” For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.
      
      But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.
      
      I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.
      
      The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe “enough and to spare” for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.
      
      I would that I could be with you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.
      
      Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.
      
      But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways.
      
      There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name” and “Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind,” you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is.
      
      I understand that there are Christians among you who try to justify segregation on the basis of the Bible. They argue that the Negro is inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. Oh my friends, this is blasphemy. This is against everything that the Christian religion stands for. I must say to you as I have said to so many Christians before, that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Moreover, I must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: “God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”
      
      So Americans I must urge you to get rid of every aspect of segregation. The broad universalism standing at the center of the gospel makes both the theory and practice of segregation morally unjustifiable. Segregation is a blatant denial of the unity which we all have in Christ. It substitutes an “I-it” relationship for the “I-thou” relationship. The segregator relegates the segregated to the status of a thing rather than elevate him to the status of a person. The underlying philosophy of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together.
      
      I praise your Supreme Court for rendering a great decision just two or three years ago. I am happy to know that so many persons of goodwill have accepted the decision as a great moral victory. But I understand that there are some brothers among you who have risen up in open defiance. I hear that their legislative halls ring loud with such words as “nullification” and “interposition.” They have lost the true meaning of democracy and Christianity. So I would urge each of you to plead patiently with your brothers, and tell them that this isn’t the way. With understanding goodwill, you are obligated to seek to change their attitudes. Let them know that in standing against integration, they are not only standing against the noble precepts of your democracy, but also against the eternal edicts of God himself. Yes America, there is still the need for an Amos to cry out to the nation: “Let judgement roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”
      
      May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
      
      In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. With this attitude you will be able to keep your struggle on high Christian standards.
      
      Many persons will realize the urgency of seeking to eradicate the evil of segregation. There will be many Negroes who will devote their lives to the cause of freedom. There will be many white persons of goodwill and strong moral sensitivity who will dare to take a stand for justice. Honesty impels me to admit that such a stand will require willingness to suffer and sacrifice. So don’t despair if you are condemned and persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Whenever you take a stand for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Don’t worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority, because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded than ever before that “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.
      
      I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, “God is love.” He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.
      
      So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you “speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
      
      link
      - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 12:44 pm
        
        How does that refute my statement that he could expose hypocrisy while not mocking?
      - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 12:49 pm
        
        It was not offered as a refutation.
      - maryb2004 on June 25, 2009 at 12:52 pm
        
        Then what was it offered to me as? How am I supposed to be edified?
      - BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 12:53 pm
        
        I think just reading it is edifying. I’m not even a Christian, and I don’t think I disagree with anything he said.
Oscar In Dallas on June 25, 2009 at 5:27 pm

(emphasis mine)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

“Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’

“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Matthew 23:1-12

This text directly addresses the subject at hand…
- BooMan on June 25, 2009 at 5:58 pm
  
  Not exactly. Unless the seat of Moses is in the South Carolina governor’s mansion.
  - Oscar In Dallas on June 25, 2009 at 7:52 pm
    
    Not to the man himself as governor so much as to religious authorities in general when talking about the difference between actions and words. Jesus says that their words are valid even though their actions aren’t – and they will reap the reward that their actions deserve…
on June 25, 2009 at 9:30 pm

Maybe now Dickerson can get back to examining how well the Ten Commandments on the schoolhouse wall works for keeping students in line. Or how well abstinence-only works for kids. Neither seems to have worked well for a 49 year-old governor.
on June 25, 2009 at 9:38 pm

Does anyone know why Nancy Dickerson is buried in Arlington?
- dada on June 25, 2009 at 10:01 pm
  
  this is as good a reason as any:
  
  …buried in Arlington October 24, 1997 was the wife of New Yorker John C. Whitehead, the blue chips financier anointed “chairman” of the old-line WASP Establishment several years ago by Vanity Fair.
  
  Whitehead went ashore at Normandy and remained in the Naval Reserves for nearly 20 years, which qualifies him, and his spouse, for their places at Arlington
  
  arlington cemetery
  
  google is your friend bob.

A Lesson from Jesus

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