Congress Assaults Christianity

Apparently having nothing more important to do, Congress decided to pass a dubious resolution that was intended by its main proponent to “honor Christmas and the Christian faith”.

Borrowing on rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and his allegations of a left-wing “War on Christmas”, due to folks saying “Happy Holidays” in public places instead of “Merry Christmas–seriously–the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steve King from Iowa, had this to say:

I recognized that we’re a Christian nation founded on Christian principles, and we’re coming up to Christmastime. … It’s time we stood up and said so, and said to the rest of America, Be who you are and be confident. And let’s worship Christ and let’s celebrate Christmas for the right reasons. (source)

But if this shameless pandering to the religious right isn’t bad enough, Rep. King has the nerve to go on TV and wag his finger at those who had the courage to stand up to this nonsense.

Well, two can play that game. Now, I’m on TV too (and by “TV,” I mean Youtube). Check it out! (For those of you who can’t get the link to work, or are interested in a synopsis of what I had to say, see below.)

Congressman King is accusing those who voted against his “Christians are awesome” resolution of assaulting Christianity. All right, sir, you have my attention.

With over 75% of Americans self-identifying as Christian, and over 92% of Congress identifying as Christian, Congress thinks that it is a Biblically sound idea to pass a self-congratulatory resolution, saying how awesome Christianity is (really, how awesome they are, since 92% of Congress is Christian).

What I would like to know is, whether these Congressional Christians even read their Bibles? For if they did, they would be hard-pressed to find justification for using the name of Jesus for this level of political pandering.

Let’s remember how Jesus responded to the hypocrites who were praying loudly so that all could see them in their vanity: “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others…” (Matthew 6.5)

So back then, we’ve got hypocrites committing acts of religious pandering for the sake of attention. And today we have…hypocrites committing acts of religious pandering for the sake of attention. Remember, this is a Congress who:

• can’t stop the war

• can’t fix education

• can’t even provide health care to uninsured children (Hello?! what would Jesus do?)

But they CAN pass a masturbatory, non-binding resolution that tells the world how special Christianity is. What would Jesus do indeed.

So is there actually an “assault on Christianity?” I suppose I could agree with that. However, it comes in the form of politicians who pander to Christians with nonsense like this–instead of following the example of Jesus when it comes time to provide actual help to the people who need it–instead of these symbolic resolutions.

As a Christian, let me be the first to say, Happy Holidays.