Land of the Pharisees, Home of the Violent

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_15979.shtml

Fr John Dear, a Jesuit priest, wrote this excellent column examining some moral implication of our good old American hegemony.

To make a long sermon shorter, he defines contemporary American culture as a culture of Pharisees. He sees a collective culture that is self-righteous, arrogant, powerful and murderous wrapped in a mantle of so-called Christian spirituality. He uses the Sermon on the Mount to illustrate Christian values of compassion, nonviolence, justice and peace.

Our culture resembles that of the Pharisees in our siding with the wealthy, the rulers, and the bankers and corporations, in order to comfort ourselves in our exploitive ways.

He describes contemporary “Christian” spirituality as the spirituality of empire, emphasizing that this spirituality teaches;

Violence saves lives
War is justified
Might makes right
Bombing is blessed, and
The good news is found in the death of our enemies.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.