meep ([info]meep) wrote,
@ 2008-09-15 04:24:00
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Annoyed
Okay, I'm officially sick of the "Jesus was a community organizer" line. No, he was not. Not like a modern community organizer.

The whole point of the modern position of "community organizer" is to organize people to demand services from the government....maybe from private actors as well (say, organizing to force a slumlord to fix apartments by removing asbestos), but mainly to get particular groups of people to say "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!"

I get the feeling that most of the people parroting the line are not Christian. This is not a slam on them, mind you, but a realization that any Christian should know some of the "greatest hits" sayings of Jesus, such as "Go and sin no more" and the Pater Noster and.... "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God what is God's." The entirety of Jesus's mission was non-political. In the Gospels, I remember plenty of rebuking of the religious authorities, but nothing said about the Romans (or their local lackeys, who may not officially have been Roman citizens). If he said something specifically about government other than the "Render unto Caesar" line, I'd love to hear it.

He certainly did not bring people together with "Verily, I say unto you, you deserve a job center, and let's go talk to Pilate about it."



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[info]tiwonge
2008-09-15 10:00 am UTC (link)
The closest I can think of is "...the poor you will always have with you." Not a rousing support of an effort to eliminate poverty.

I'm not sure about your argument, though, because I don't know if the kind of social services we have now (and that some expect or claim as a right) were around then.

Jesus did say to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and so on. In our culture, one of the ways we (collectively) do this is through government programs. Not the only way, certainly, and I'm not sure what portion of social programs are public vs. private/religious, so I don't know what portion of our giving to the hungry or sheltering the homeless or visiting the imprisoned is done collectively.

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[info]meep
2008-09-15 10:10 am UTC (link)
I'm pretty sure the social services we have now weren't around then (such as Medicare and Medicaid... no, I'm not talking about the named programs, but I'm talking about government-supported healthcare. Of course, there wasn't much in the way of healthcare, period.) If you read on into Acts, I remember a bit about appointing a person or two in the early Christian group to provide for widows and children - it was something expected for one's direct religious group to provide for the destitute, but I don't think there was a formal system. The modern form of a welfare state really didn't start existing until Bismarck, I'd say.

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[info]eagle243
2008-09-15 11:47 am UTC (link)
I'm pretty sure that type of social services was handled by the church back then.

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[info]tiwonge
2008-09-15 05:03 pm UTC (link)
What about in non-Christian societies? By religions organizations, or others, or were they just neglected?

In ancient Israel, I think that religious codes required that people leave 10% of their field unpicked or something, so that the poor could glean the fields. On the other hand, there also wasn't a separation of church and state, so if such programs fell in the religious domain, it doesn't mean that it wasn't also a government program.

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[info]eagle243
2008-09-15 05:07 pm UTC (link)
Technically we don't have "separation of church and state" today - the only restriction is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

But that is a good point about leaving the field unpicked - I had forgotten about that.

To answer your questions, I have no idea.

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[info]alcourt
2008-09-16 12:42 pm UTC (link)
Not to get too legalistic on you, but you're missing a few clauses of law there. The Constitution also says that there be no religious test for any office or public trust in the US, and the fourteenth amendment extends the first amendment to all branches of local and state government.

So even if we ignore the arguments over what constitutes a law that establishes religion or prohibits free exercise, your statement is incomplete.

Of course to say we don't have at least a theoretical separation of church and state requires rejection of the entire role of the Judicial in interpreting law. Courts have widely accepted the doctrine that laws or government acts which place one religion in a privileged status over any other are considered to violate the establishment clause. What is unclear is whether the current Supreme Court justices would uphold or overturn the current standing decision regarding what test to apply to define what constitutes a violation of the establishment clause (the Lemon test, which also has a term that deal with the free exercise clause).

The phrase "Separation of Church and State" itself, while found in the now famous letter from Jefferson has been found to be, while not a legal phrase, a surprisingly simple and accurate lay phrase to explain the relationship between religion and government in current US law. Objecting to its use in casual conversation is like challenging a statement of Linux being a Unix before Linux was POSIX certified.

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[info]theevilhalf
2008-09-15 06:32 pm UTC (link)
In the Roman Empire, the following were appointed by the Emperor:

Praefectus alimentorum - in charge of financial support of orphans

Praefectus frumenti dandi - in charge of distributing food to the Roman people

There was also one in charge of the pensions of the Roman legionaries.

Though throughout most of history, most assistance was via family, friends and neighbors.

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[info]nolly
2008-09-15 05:04 pm UTC (link)
7 men to supervise an existing program because one group felt they were being neglected.

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[info]rgoing
2008-09-15 11:51 am UTC (link)
Let us not forget the corollary that Pilate was a Governor (snicker) and the great retort (the author of which escapes me, so I'll take credit), "Actually, Pontius Pilate is best remembered for voting 'Present'."

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[info]meep
2008-09-15 12:16 pm UTC (link)
Well, he had that good "What is truth?" zinger, and a few others. Ecce Homo, indeed.

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[info]rgoing
2008-09-15 05:00 pm UTC (link)
Quid est veritas?

Est vir qui adest.

At least that's the way Sister Anna Roberta saw it.

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[info]gwendally
2008-09-15 01:37 pm UTC (link)
I know, I was reading some article where Obama got the citizens agitating for replacing some street lights and it sounded like some sort of lightbulb joke:

Q: How many members of an organized community does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: All of them plus one Republican with a ladder.

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[info]marys_second
2008-09-15 02:12 pm UTC (link)
Hah! That's comedy gold that is.

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[info]hippierage
2008-09-15 01:43 pm UTC (link)
Jesus was a rather disruptive force throughout the Roman Mediterranean world actually.

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Pontius Pilate was no Governor
[info]theevilhalf
2008-09-15 06:02 pm UTC (link)
The word prefect is of miltary origin, praefectus - (literally one who stands in front) commander appointed by the Emperor or Magistrate (Governor), titled proconsul, praetor or propraetor, for a specific task & for a specific time, a mandatum. Judea was part of the Syrian Province which was governed by a Governor, i.e. a proconsul, etc. Judea was granted autonomous status after a violent revolt and overseen by a praefectus civitatum - commander in charge of an city or province. The duties of a prefect and governor were nearly identical - collect taxes, account for government expenses, sit as judge and protect Roman interests with troops. The important difference is that a province administered by a magistrate was ruled by Roman civil law and a province administered by a prefect was not therefore only Romam military law applied. The civil law came from an approved local ruler in this instance the King of Judea. Therefore. Pontius Pilate was no Governor nor was he a Miltary Governor. He was merely a Representative of Rome.

This is from recollection of a college course over 20 years ago and while there may be inaccuracies, the gist of it is correct.

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Re: Pontius Pilate was no Governor
[info]meep
2008-09-15 06:27 pm UTC (link)
There is this thing called wikipedia, you know.

Also, I don't give a damn about what Pilate was. I'm talking about Jesus here. Don't diss my homeboy, is all I'm saying.

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Re: Pontius Pilate was no Governor
[info]theevilhalf
2008-09-15 06:58 pm UTC (link)
FTWikiepedia! (Mis)information governed by emotion, political correctness, and consensus. Come on, it's the UN of encyclopedia's! While an okay starting point, it is certainly not an authority on facts.

I'm not dissing our homeboy. I want to point out the not so obvious other wrongness of the statement.

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Re: Pontius Pilate was no Governor
[info]meep
2008-09-15 10:41 pm UTC (link)
I was not saying you were dissing Jesus. I'm saying that the people saying Jesus was a community organizer are dissing Jesus. The Pilate thing is just piling on the stupid.

And there's some good stuff on Wikipedia, such as the math and the compilation of Tv episodes and all the details therein.

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