The base of the GOP is supposedly rooted in evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics, people who say they forgo bread to live on the Word of God.
When I see this part of the GOP base giddy about whatever issue du jour the GOP has dreamed up, I walk away thinking: I don't get it.
I listen how the GOP will defend guns up the wazoo. But I think about how St. Peter was the first guy to offer himself up for Christ as He was being taken away. A Roman guard loses an ear to Peter's weapon. Christ glues it back on and says, "If you are going to live by the sword, you are going to die by it." These Christians won't leave the GOP's side. I don't get it.
The GOP has fought tooth and nail to stop anyone from getting a break with health care. This shutdown was planned to coincide with a milestone portion of Obamacare implementation. Show me where in the Sermon on the Mount it says we are supposed to hold out for cash to make our fellow travelers feel better? Still the Christians in the GOP allow their logic to be pretzeled to allow cover for the GOP to do its thing. I don't get it.
This shutdown itself will damage regular people living close to the edge. Without the money from their government jobs, rents will be late. That means credit scores tank. That means foreclosure proceedings begin -- a great windfall for the banks as they will get more cash to process these proceedings. The ripple effect of keeping money out of the economy (since capitalism requires the flow of money) is other people who would have handled the cash will get that much hungrier. How does impoverishing our fellow citizens jibe with the Golden Rule? How is sending people to our new systems of debtor jails working out? But these Christian communities are eating this stuff up. I don't get it.
Someday the GOP may win -- turning the Liberty Bell into the Libertarian Bell. After these Christians have gotten their way, they can be praying at the front of their churches. They turn around and see the rest of us -- other Christians who pray at the back of church or other people of various faiths or no faith at all. The Holy Spirit can open their eyes -- if they want their eyes opened.
Hopefully the GOP co-conspirators will see their part in the damage they are doing. Nothing of what they are doing to help the GOP has any basis in the Gospels. It is a perversion of the Word and a rejection of the Holy Spirit. Maybe they can ask themselves what a Christian really is.
And maybe they will get it.