Christian label doesn't fit these politicos

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 12, 1996 by Colman McCarthy

With Arlen Specter, a Jew, out of the race, only Christians are running for the Republican presidential nomination. They brought their devout ways to the recent "Road to Victory" conference staged in Washington by the Rev. Pat Robertson. How would the teachings and actions of Jesus fare if measured by the standards of the Christian Coalition and its fellow defenders of the faith such as Bob Dole, Phil Gramm and Patrick Buchanan?

From the biblical evidence, Christ would not qualify for membership in the coalition, and only if he repented his habitual liberal sins would the Republican Right let him in.

First off, there was that troubling day in the desert when Jesus softheadedly multiplied loaves and fishes and fed 5,000 people. Why didn't he yell a sermon on the evils of entitlement? Why not a hell-fire demand that the able-bodied crowd be put to work before getting a free meal? By dispensing food with no work requirements, Jesus was spreading the heretical notion that, yes, for the hungry, there is a free lunch.

On the issue of family values, which the divorced Dole and Gramm champion, us let it be known early that he had a dim view of parental control. At 12, he was taken by Mary and Joseph to the temple in Jerusalem for Passover. On the return trip to Nazareth, they discovered their son was absent. They went back to Jerusalem and searched for three days before finding young Jesus among the elders at the temple. Mary asked, "Son, why have you done this to us?"

St. Luke's Gospel reports the somewhat sassy answer: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"

This isn't the sort of preteen back talk likely to be cheered on the Family Channel, which is part of the Robertson broadcasting empire. The message there is: Fathers rule; children obey. No exceptions.

In adulthood, Christ's dissidence was directed at money, the gathering and amassing of which is a major obsession of both the Christian Coalition and their chosen candidates. Ralph Reed, John the Baptist to Robertson the Messiah pledged to "spend more than $1 million" to make the Republican "Contract wit America" the heaven-sent law of the land.

Christ had different counsel for wealth-minded lads like Ralph Reed, "If you will be perfect, go sell what you have an give to the poor."

Those who followed such advice in Christ's day eventually turned to communism, a philosophy opposite from today's capital gains capitalism of the right. The early Christian commies are described in the Acts of the Apostles as Christ's followers who broke bread and prayed together: And all who believed were together and held all things in common, and would sell their possessions and goods and distribute them among all according as anyone had need. ... Those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the price of what they sold and lay it at the feet of the apostles, and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need."

Starting out with that kind of leftist thinking, it wasn't long before early Christians were thrown into prison. They were lawbreakers, as was Christ when he ignored rules of the Sabbath. The Dole-Gramm-Buchanan philosophy of punishment - more prisons, long sentences, executions - is that of the Pharisees, Sanhedrin and Sadducees and their treatment of first-century Christian rebels.

It appears that God was a coddler of criminals. He dispatched an angel to stage a jailbreak for some apostles imprisoned near Jerusalem. They were recidivists. Upon being angelically sprung, they took to the streets to preach the gospel again, and to be rearrested.

It has to be wondered: If the leaders of the Christian Coalition and the Republican candidates who genuflect before them were arrested in 1995 for being Christians, what would the charges be - that like leaders of the early church, they advocated loving their enemies sharing wealth, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, mercy toward prisoners?

You would have risked martyrdom issuing those calls at the "Road to Victory" conference at the Capitol Hilton. There, the applause went to orations on how to seize secular power, destroy rivals, end "dependency," "slash handouts" and harshly punish. All accompanied by cries of praise the Lord.

Which Lord? Not the one in scripture.

Colman McCarthy is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post.