The Christian religion plays a very important role in the culture and politics of the United State. In my earlier essays I have stressed mainly the positive influences of Christianity in our society and especially on individual lives. In this note I want to reexamine these matters.

For most Christians their religious lives means walking daily in prayer to God and a personal relationship with Jesus. These communications make their lives have importance and meaning. Everybody meets tragedy and finally death, ending this human life. Many of us depend on the mercies of God and feel his hand controlling our fortunes each day. Church guidance in the Christian life has several different components which depend mainly on the doctrines of the denominations.

(1) Many ministers and priests would say there is only one thing that matters, the salvation of one's soul. To attain this they say the blood and sacrifice on the cross of Jesus give life eternal to believers who ask for salvation through Christ's atonement and grace. The ordained clergy are available to explain the saving actions and words to sinners. Sacraments are administered by pastors to aid in this sacred procedure, leading to the grand prize of all religion, heaven and eternal bliss after death. In this interpretation of Christianity nothing else is important, only salvation. Good works are unnecessary.

(2) Most Christian churches do follow the teachings of Christ as written in the synoptic Gospels. Jesus gives much instructions on how to live and where our attitudes and hearts should be toward other people and God. Jesus talks about living this life, and says little about the next life. (Salvation by his blood is treated mainly in the Gospel of John and in Paul's epistles.) Jesus cared for the sick, the sinners and Samaritans. He healed them and helped them. Most Christian churches combine concepts in paragrahs (1) and (2) even though they may be logically inconsistent.

(3) For most observers Christianity and the Christian churches means: large organizations with much real estate and beautiful buildings, big budgets and fund drives, salaried and elegantly attired priests and ministers, competition for membership, many schools and sports activities, and endless committee meeting. There is country-club living with preferred social standing for church members who have political and ethnic preferences and involvements. These things have nothing to do with the life that Jesus advocated and many of them are contrary to his teachings.

(4) There are some Christians who believe they should follow the teachings of Christ and that our earthly life should bear fruit. Although such "works" may not be needed for salvation doing them might make this earth a better place.

(5) However, many Christian churches neglect the teachings of Jesus substituting other dogma or doctrines. Christianity is for these Christians not following the teachings for living that Jesus taught but rather their Church's teachings--orthodoxy. Christ stressed love for our neighbors and forgiveness. But many Churches emphasize hate and punishment for ethnically and politically different peoples.

He was driven out of the synagogue in his home town because he offended the Jewish racists by suggesting God might help foreigner rather than Jews. Unlike Paul, he did not visit synagogues of each town but preached on boats, hillsides and plains. He got in serious trouble in the Temple in Jerusalem when he healed there and drove out the money changers.

During his ministry, as reported by the three Synoptic Gospels and in John's Gospel, Jesus was often assailed by the Pharisees and Sadducees and other leaders of the organized religious people. These are the "Bad Guys" of the Gospels and in the book of Acts. They were the "legal eagles" telling Jesus he must not: heal on the Sabbath, forgive sins, or associate with prostitutes or tax collectors. These jealous religious men tried to trap him with questions and find legal grounds for killing him. Jesus could sense their hypocrisy and used his strongest language to denounce them as a "brood of vipers" and white-washed tombs filled inside with hate and hypocrisy. In the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector we can see clearly that God sees the hearts of men and is not impressed by acts of ostentatious piety. In the 21st, 22nd, and 23nd chapters of Matthew we can read clearly Jesus' judgment of chief priests and Pharisees "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who produces the fruits of the kingdom." When the chief priest and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. Matt. 21: 45-46.

But we all know they succeeded in arresting him, bringing him to a court full of his enemies, condemning him, and finally crucifying him, although the Roman governor Pilate tried to spare him.

These religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, staffed the Sanhedrin a powerful political force in the occupied Jewish territories. They knew the Jewish Law, they spoke for God and punished the people who disobeyed them. Christ's trial and crucifixion is clearly a political conspiracy orchestrated by the religious elite, the Chief Priests and Pharisees.

Although the character and conduct of these religious men is clearly described and repeated in the Gospels, priests and preachers seldom explain this political conspiracy in their sermons. Because, many of these religious men are repeating the same errors as the Pharisees. Power, using God's name, and prestige and political advantages for church leaders are easy to detect in all of history and in the events of today.

On a personal note, I was in Managua, Nicaragua in 1990. I attended a Baptist church and we divided into groups for prayer and devotion. Our leader was an old man with a cane who limped. After a fine prayer and sermonette he said clearly: The Catholic church is not a Christian organization but a political one. The Catholics had tortured him because he was a supporter of the communist revolution and a protestant. He had been cruelly and permanently injured by these "Christians". In El Salvador too the Catholic Church supported the rightist regimes that bombed and killed the peasants using American bombs and aircraft. Later some Catholic nuns were murdered by the political right in El Salvador showing that there are many Roman Catholics who are willing to follow Jesus.

The religious clergy or layman seeking political power by claiming to be representatives of God always ally with the rich, powerful right-wing elements of society. We lived in Spain in 1963-64 near the end of the Franco dictatorship. The Catholic Church in Spain clearly supported Franco in his merciless destruction of all his political enemies. Our Protestant church building was not allowed to have any sign indication it was a church. Franco atrocities toward the Basques have not been forgotten. Religious politicians always support the most repressive, hateful regimes. They do not understand the meaning of words like mercy and forgiveness.

Unfortunately today we are seeing the religious right allied with the Republican Party in the United States to grab power for policies of hatred and repression.

The impeachment pogrom we are witnessing in Congress is a good example of the hate policies of the religious right. Paying for a spy campaign searching every aspect of President Clinton and his wife Hillary lives they caught him in the sin of adultery. He lied to protect his family and later confessed his sins. But for his political enemies they carried character assassination as far as possible with modern TV and the Internet. God is not capable of adequately punishing sin but needs the Bible-Belt to inflict unending punishment. After destroying the office of the Presidency (claiming that this sinful man has disgraced us in the eyes of other nations, still 98 per cent of the German people polled supported Clinton and 75 per cent of Americans do also) these Southern Republican leaders have virtually destroyed Congress with this Kangaroo Court proceeding. As at Christ's trial, religious leaders make a pretense that their cruel acts are legal. President Clinton did give his State of Union Address before this court of his political enemies. He outlined an agenda trying to save Social Security and promote other humanitarian (bad word for the religious right) objectives.

Teach creationism in school. Destroy all book on evolution.

Make abortion illegal and make it illegal to transport a woman to have an abortion. (They have already filed bills to do this.)

Cut off all support to the United Nations. (In effect they have achieved this.)

Support capital punishment and the American Rifle Association right to bear arms campaign.

Increase tax cuts to corporations and the rich. Great progress has been made here.

Cut off all welfare, especially to black people. (Nearly accomplished already.)

Make sure that at least a quarter of Americans are without health insurance. Socialism in any form such as in medicine is bad (except for military service). Rising infant mortality among the minorities is OK but we must oppose abortion. When Mrs. Clinton introduced programs to enable the poor to have health insurance she was viciously attacked by Big Medicine interests.

Democracy? No, public opinion means little because the sinful, ignorant people do not understand the Bible which is the Pharisee's guide. And only the Pharisees know how to interpret the Bible correctly.

Why these policies? State-rights movement and racism have not died in the South of the USA. It is reported in the newspapers that the Republicans of the South are happy that Americans are disinterested in the Federal Government now that they can not stand the stench and hate reported from Congress. Also the press reports that Clinton's budget does not have enough tax cuts. The "WHITE" Churches in the South have almost no blacks in them and many of the black churches have been burned. But by making capital punishment easier and furnishing the white elite with guns, a kind of legalized lynching is possible. The resentment of the Civil War fosters hatreds. The religious murders in Ireland are a result of earlier violent history of wars similar to the brutal American Civil War. Both Catholic and Protestant churches in Ireland have suppored the hatred of their members toward the other faiths. We are seeing this phenomena in Yugoslavia, Israel, and now in the United States.

These very religious "bad guys" so visible in the Gospels seek to punish the poor and the weak by legal means. The blacks are the obvious victims, but also the poor girls who become pregnant and can't get an abortion, the Gay people afflicted biologically by sexual anomalies. It is characteristic of this negative religion practiced by the Pharisees of today that their hatred can never be assuaged by the prolonged suffering of others. Their inquisitions demands blood, the witches must be burned. The Catholic Church decrees that women can not be priests and priests are denied wives and families. None of these religious leaders seek to make the world a better place--their task as they see it is to inflict misery on other people. "Judge not that ye be not judged" are words of Jesus but judgment is the main buisness of this negative religion of hate. The Republican congress men make believe there is a legal case and flaut the denigration of President Clinton for months pretending they seek new evidence. All the votes have been along party lines--law must be different for Democratic lawyers! One poor Republican representative defected, and it was a woman that had compassion and understood the meaning of justice.

My observations are not new. The churches have always had pompous, proud leaders. But God's Kingdom will win. The Gospel's are there and teach his mercy and tenderness. Christ's sacrifice and example will redeem the world. The poor and despised of the world will inherit the world and make it possible for the inhabitants to live in love and peace.

How can this mix of religion and politics function? Clearly the big business interests who fund the Republican party find the arrangement to their advantage. Tax cuts and tax exemptions more than pay for the political contributions they make. The money that might be "wasted" on the United Nations and on public health or welfare projects makes the tax cuts large. Funding for the military and NASA bases goes primarily to corporations.

The rank and file Republicans of moderate income despise the federal employees and feel that they work harder in the private economy. They believe the Republican party appreciates their private initiatives and diligence. But of course in reward (to these deserving entrepreneurs) nearly all the small farms and small business in the United States have disappeared under Republican Presidents and Congresses and their functions and profits grabbed by big corporations.

It is in the religious sphere that most of the Republican votes are gathered. There is much immorality in the United States...witness our movies, TV, family breakdown, sex on the Internet, etc. The Republicans have staged this smear campaign against President Clinton to try to demonstrate the moral superiority of their party. They attribute the seamy sexual programs on TV and in the movies to the liberal policies of their political opponents. (But the breakdown of morals in the United States is due primarily to modern psychology and to the schools and universities that no longer teach right-and-wrong ethics to the young of our nation.) Most politicians and presidents of both parties have respected the Jewish and Christian commandments as proper guides for human behavior. Democratic President Jimmy Carter is a committed Christian but with Southern prejudices. President Clinton and his wife attends church and prayer breakfasts regularly. The morals and family life of Americans will not be strengthen by establishing a theocracy in which the fundamentalist preachers purge and punish as was done in Massachusetts 200 years ago. Jesus taught the highest ethical and moral way of life. His Kingdom comes by gentle persuasion and love for others, not through hate and recrimination.

Jesus' love and teachings are not absent in the fundamentalist communities. In fact they are much in evidence with deeds of kindness and demonstrations of the Holy Spirit among them. But it is their Pharisee-like leaders convinced of their authority and holiness responding to the cultural and racial hatreds festering since the Civil War that embrace the political union with big business. (I attended a Baptist Church in Rio de Janeiro where the minister claimed "authority" in the lives of parishioners.) God's Kingdom would be advanced if these fundamentalist would love and accept as equals the blacks and other poor people in their communities.

Some readers will not see the parallelism of the religious trial of Jesus of Nazareth and that of President Clinton. To these hypocrites and unforgiving people, the cries of the religious Pharisees, "Crucify him, Crucify him" are different from the cries of the religious right-wing fundamentalists, "Impeach him, Impeach him." Christians don't want to acknowledge the "hate-punish" atrocities committed by powerful religious leaders--which are so frequently and so clearly revealed in history.

But open-minded should read again these words of Jesus about the men who "legally" tried and crucified him.

Jesus entered Jerusalem the week before his trial and crucifixion. The religious chief priests and the Pharisees assailed him with questions to denigrate and deride him. After the parables of the Vineyard and the Wedding Banquet they wanted to arrest him but they feared the crowds (public opinion). Here are some quotes from Matthew 23rd Chapter of what he thought of these religious rulers..

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them... for you devour widows houses and for the sake of appearances make long prayers... you have neglected the weightier matters of law: justice and mercy and faith.... for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside are full of the bones of the dad and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Read all of Matthew Chapters 21 through 23 to see what the Christ of true Christianity says about the men who headed the trial and conspiracy that crucified him.

My friends, continue to follow Jesus' teachings of love and mercy toward all people and especially the weak and poor.