In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.
Welcome back. I am still gathering my thoughts about sin and salvation to present to a theological panel at my church next Wednesday.
Last time, I wrote about sin in the system, and by that I meant the system of life in general.
Today, I would like to remember Oskar Schindler who died in 1974 on October 9. He was a great example of how the elements of good and bad can be commingled in a person of magnanimous moral stature.
I do not know very much about the man except from what I saw from the movie. I have the book on my bucket list of books I want to read. I do not know how religious he was. My memory is telling me that he was a Catholic.
Was he a believer? I do not know that either. An atheist could very well have been as courageous as he.
If he was a person of faith, then he acted in accordance with the way that our God of love manifested in Jesus of Nazareth. If not, how he saved and who he saved manifested what the story of Noah may be telling us through the centuries.
Sin runs its course. It destroys thousands. Some are spared, and sin seeks another way to spread in the world.
Oskar Schindler was a German citizen and a Nazi. He exploited Jewish persecution to acquire his own wealth, and then gave it all away to save 1200 Jews.
These Schindler Jews were spared from the atomic explosion called the Holocaust and World War II. That explosion resulted from sin radiating within the German government.
After Hitler was elected, he could not legally murder German citizens until the law of the land changed. Thus, he commanded the German judicial system to create laws that institutionalized his racial theories. These were the Nuremberg Laws and they gave sin a nice new home in Germany.
The Nuremberg Laws ensconced second class citizenship for Jewish people. Within days Jewish people were murdered.
Systemic sin crushes more people and destroys more lives than earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined--I wager.
Where do we see it in our nation? When we look at our nation's past, we see that second class citizenship once had been a part of our legal system before and after slavery.
Germany had to pass laws to create Jim Crow; we had to pass laws to end it.
Where do we see systemic sin today? We do not have to take a long view. We do not need to squint our eyes. It's all around.
Wars and more wars and wars in the past and wars in the present are built into our system. We have a military industrial complex which makes a lot of people rich as long as we fight.
Also, our economic system today makes a few Americans richer than Solomon, Midas, and the Medici combined while it makes everyone else poor or poorer.
About that economic system let me say this. We have been arguing about the best way to run the economy since mercantilism lined the pockets of King George.
Today, there are some within a certain self proclaimed Christian party who have a religious devotion to a particular laissez faire theory that has caused more busts than Donatello.
People need to wake up and stop being Bible thumpers with The Wealth of Nations as if it should be inserted after the book of Revelation.
Economics is a science, not a damn religion. It is often called the science of common sense. I have never heard of a religion of common sense.
We should be able to set zeal aside and implement what works. If economics is truly a science, and not a body of doctrines that preaches some weird kind of transubstantiation of labor into the presence of wealth for the so-called job creators, then we should be able to be more pragmatic and less ideological.
And please, being pragmatic is not being ideological. We have the system we have now because laissez faire does not work.
Do you think the Federal Reserve System was created to persecute rich Americans or was it created to fix a system that tends to fail all too often?
Redistributing wealth is absolutely necessary because there are a lot of rich people who have purchased copiously more stuff than small nations need to survive. If you want to have your eyes opened, see the sickening movie The Bling Ring for a peek into how much wealthy people have accrued.
Hollywood probably should not reveal the Greedy Secrets of the Rich and Famous in that way.
Today, we have a political party in our country that expertly associates tones, facial expressions, and scary music with sensible language in order to frighten people into believing that this sin infested system we have now must become even more sinful, that is, as sinful as it was when there was no minimum wage, no welfare, and no Social Security.
Phrases like, “Fair redistribution of wealth" or "health care for all Americans" are transformed to say the opposite of what the content of those words convey.
Our fight against poverty is our greatest war today. Indeed, it is the curse of every nation on earth wherever it exists. It is a fight not just for the sake of justice, but also to keep Americans safe from the thundering herd of poor people who might scale the secluded walls of the filthy rich and do what the French and Russians did to their job creators.
Poverty is the systemic sin we suffer in this country. It is radiating within our economic system and our citizenry. It drives all the stress and hardship in our educational system. It creates fear and imperious loathing.
The good old USA needs some Oskar Schindlers dedicated to saving people rather than exploiting and propagandizing them.
Blessings…
Last time, I wrote about sin in the system, and by that I meant the system of life in general.
Today, I would like to remember Oskar Schindler who died in 1974 on October 9. He was a great example of how the elements of good and bad can be commingled in a person of magnanimous moral stature.
I do not know very much about the man except from what I saw from the movie. I have the book on my bucket list of books I want to read. I do not know how religious he was. My memory is telling me that he was a Catholic.
Was he a believer? I do not know that either. An atheist could very well have been as courageous as he.
If he was a person of faith, then he acted in accordance with the way that our God of love manifested in Jesus of Nazareth. If not, how he saved and who he saved manifested what the story of Noah may be telling us through the centuries.
Sin runs its course. It destroys thousands. Some are spared, and sin seeks another way to spread in the world.
Oskar Schindler was a German citizen and a Nazi. He exploited Jewish persecution to acquire his own wealth, and then gave it all away to save 1200 Jews.
These Schindler Jews were spared from the atomic explosion called the Holocaust and World War II. That explosion resulted from sin radiating within the German government.
After Hitler was elected, he could not legally murder German citizens until the law of the land changed. Thus, he commanded the German judicial system to create laws that institutionalized his racial theories. These were the Nuremberg Laws and they gave sin a nice new home in Germany.
The Nuremberg Laws ensconced second class citizenship for Jewish people. Within days Jewish people were murdered.
Systemic sin crushes more people and destroys more lives than earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined--I wager.
Where do we see it in our nation? When we look at our nation's past, we see that second class citizenship once had been a part of our legal system before and after slavery.
Germany had to pass laws to create Jim Crow; we had to pass laws to end it.
Where do we see systemic sin today? We do not have to take a long view. We do not need to squint our eyes. It's all around.
Wars and more wars and wars in the past and wars in the present are built into our system. We have a military industrial complex which makes a lot of people rich as long as we fight.
Also, our economic system today makes a few Americans richer than Solomon, Midas, and the Medici combined while it makes everyone else poor or poorer.
About that economic system let me say this. We have been arguing about the best way to run the economy since mercantilism lined the pockets of King George.
Today, there are some within a certain self proclaimed Christian party who have a religious devotion to a particular laissez faire theory that has caused more busts than Donatello.
People need to wake up and stop being Bible thumpers with The Wealth of Nations as if it should be inserted after the book of Revelation.
Economics is a science, not a damn religion. It is often called the science of common sense. I have never heard of a religion of common sense.
We should be able to set zeal aside and implement what works. If economics is truly a science, and not a body of doctrines that preaches some weird kind of transubstantiation of labor into the presence of wealth for the so-called job creators, then we should be able to be more pragmatic and less ideological.
And please, being pragmatic is not being ideological. We have the system we have now because laissez faire does not work.
Do you think the Federal Reserve System was created to persecute rich Americans or was it created to fix a system that tends to fail all too often?
Redistributing wealth is absolutely necessary because there are a lot of rich people who have purchased copiously more stuff than small nations need to survive. If you want to have your eyes opened, see the sickening movie The Bling Ring for a peek into how much wealthy people have accrued.
Hollywood probably should not reveal the Greedy Secrets of the Rich and Famous in that way.
Today, we have a political party in our country that expertly associates tones, facial expressions, and scary music with sensible language in order to frighten people into believing that this sin infested system we have now must become even more sinful, that is, as sinful as it was when there was no minimum wage, no welfare, and no Social Security.
Phrases like, “Fair redistribution of wealth" or "health care for all Americans" are transformed to say the opposite of what the content of those words convey.
Our fight against poverty is our greatest war today. Indeed, it is the curse of every nation on earth wherever it exists. It is a fight not just for the sake of justice, but also to keep Americans safe from the thundering herd of poor people who might scale the secluded walls of the filthy rich and do what the French and Russians did to their job creators.
Poverty is the systemic sin we suffer in this country. It is radiating within our economic system and our citizenry. It drives all the stress and hardship in our educational system. It creates fear and imperious loathing.
The good old USA needs some Oskar Schindlers dedicated to saving people rather than exploiting and propagandizing them.
Blessings…
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