July 9, AD 2011

News item:

"Religion, Rangel and the Debt Ceiling"
by Bree Tracey, Fox News, July 8

In what seemed more like a Sunday church service than a Capitol Hill press conference, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., called out for his fellow lawmakers and all Americans to do “the Lord’s work” as a solution to fixing the debt ceiling.

“These are not political questions,” Rangel asserted. “These are moral questions.”

The raspy-voiced congressman urged spiritual leaders to highlight the role federal programs including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security play in protecting the vulnerable, sick and poor despite Washington’s concern about the $14.3 trillion deficit.

“Why don’t you call your pastor, your rabbi, your imam? There has to be a moral answer,” Rangel preached to reporters....

While lawmakers from both parties are asking what President Obama is going to do about the debt ceiling, Rangel continues to ask, “what would Jesus do?

“Call your pastor, your rabbi, your imam”?

What? And convince them to side with Rep. Rangel on this issue because that is “what Jesus would do”?

No doubt that Rep. Rangel can muster support from like-minded pastors—those of the social justice, liberation theology, faith-based varieties.

But not all pastors. Not truly Bible-believing ones.

And convince rabbis and imams to do “what Jesus would do”? Can’t you just imagine all those Jews and Muslims who hurredly keyed in numbers on their cell phones to do just that?

“These are not political questions. These are moral questions”

Really?

Does Rep. Rangel apply that to questions about...gay rights?

To questions about... the right to choose to have an abortion?

Abraham Lincoln said: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Apparently, Charlie Rangel has his own interpretation of what the Great Emancipator said. Pride tells him that he can fool enough people some of the time and enough people all the time.

But back to the question raised by Rep. Rangel:

“What would Jesus do?”

This isn't the first time—and it surely won't be the last time—someone tacitly insinuates "Thus saith the Lord, when He never said any such thing."

The position of Jesus on matters of indebtedness and individual Christian and church responsibility to help the needy are well documented in Scripture. Look it up.

As for Charlie Rangel and those who hear his plea, perhaps what Jesus would do is to remind them:

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7).

Bree Tracy also mentioned in the article: “It was just a year ago that the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was censured by his colleagues for various ethical violations.

But I sadly doubt that Charlie Rangel’s deceiving the public and mocking God will rise to such a level as to be censured by his colleagues.

However, those in Congress who see through Charlie Rangel’s deception and mockery should speak out against his actions.

Those who do not, by default, place themselves in complicity with him.

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