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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Christmas Day Theology Open Thread: To Mike Pence & His Fellow ‘Christians’

Christmas Day Theology Open Thread: To Mike Pence & His Fellow ‘Christians’

by Anne Laurie|  December 25, 20205:01 pm| 50 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Religion, Republican Venality

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I initially read this as a Joe Biden applause line https://t.co/nd2xNX0FoT

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 22, 2020

You can believe that ‘making rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable’ is a bad thing, or you can believe in the Jesus of the Christian Bible. It’s spelled out in your sacred text, not once but many times! Don’t just wave that Book around — read it!

the fact that so many of the comments and qts of this article are to mock it really illustrate the extent to which “Bible-believing” Christianity requires a kind of callous cruelty that the Bible itself not only does not support but also suggests is subject to divine judgment. https://t.co/H7Wn8QGO8U

— Bailey (@bpickbpick) December 23, 2020

Further, via Dana Houle’s twitter feed…

There was a guy named Joseph and his wife Mary who had a baby named Jesus. They had to do that far from home because politicians are sh*theads, and not even indoors, because the place was crowded.

— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) December 24, 2020

It's only when you've wrapped your head around this being a birth like any other, Jesus being a baby like any other, just a little poorer than most, that you can start to understand what's really going on here.

— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) December 24, 2020

It's more than that. Jesus isn't with the weak. He *is* them. In Jesus' birth, God didn't choose glory in disguise. God chose weakness, frailty, vulnerability.

— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) December 24, 2020

It's not that THE KING BORN AMONG US is stronger than sin and death, it's precisely that he is weaker than them. They win!

— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) December 24, 2020

That gift, that whole sequence, only begins with weakness, though. Think of this the next time you see a newborn: this is how the Jesus story started.

— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) December 24, 2020

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Previous Post: « Merry Christmas From Outer Space
Next Post: Xmas Leftovers Open Thread: Random Snippets »

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    West of the Rockies

    December 25, 2020 at 5:09 pm

    I’m guessing Pence is a vile “prosperity gospel” evangelical.  Ugh.

  2. 2.

    evodevo

    December 25, 2020 at 5:17 pm

    @West of the Rockies: Most of them are, nowadays…if it’s a megachurch, you can be sure it’s prosperity gospel…

  3. 3.

    Jay

    December 25, 2020 at 5:17 pm

    After the North Island Thrift Store experienced several cases of shoplifting, binning and break ins,

    they did the logical thing, holding two days a week of “free shopping for the marginal and unhoused”. Hot soup, drinks, baking and guides to the best clothes, blankets, sleeping bags and others.

  4. 4.

    Tim C.

    December 25, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    Actual Christianity is hard. Doing right by your neighbor and loving them is hard. Republicans don’t do hard things the party isn’t built for that.

  5. 5.

    Kattails

    December 25, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    Nice post, thanks.

    Been dancing around a theological argument with my mother, who’s 91 & has been a Lutheran forever, and could still say to me that the immigrants should wait their turn, like everybody else did.  I asked her whether our German immigrant great-grandparents got some sort of lottery win? A number for their place in line, like at the deli? Wasn’t Jesus a poor threatened refugee?  Still waiting for an answer. What have they been hearing? I’m truly baffled.

    Outta here, must work on things or the entire 12 days will come and go.

  6. 6.

    Martin

    December 25, 2020 at 5:22 pm

    ‘OK. Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent. We just thank you for all the races I’ve won and the $21.2 million dollars… LOVE THAT MONEY that I have accrued over this past season. Also due to a binding endorsement contract that stipulates I mention PowerAde at each grace, I just wanna say that PowerAde is delicious and it cools you off on a hot summer day and we look forward to PowerAde’s release of mystic mountain blueberry. Thank you, for all your power and your grace, Dear Baby God, Amen.’

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    December 25, 2020 at 5:24 pm

    I hope to hear a lot less from Pence and his fellow Dominionists in the new year. On second thought I want to hear nothing from them.

  8. 8.

    J R in WV

    December 25, 2020 at 5:24 pm

    Nothing Christian about Mike Pence nor any of the right wing would be theocratic patriarchy. It’s like they focus so closely on the odd-ball trivia in the Bible they forget to read any of the comments of their Christ.

    They literally don’t believe in any of the things Jesus tells his followers about what they need to do to satisfy his beliefs! They love the parts that appear to give them power over the rest of the flock, and ignore everything else. Sad.

    Merry Christmas, all ~!!~

  9. 9.

    Butter Emails

    December 25, 2020 at 5:26 pm

    I have to add this to my collection of statements Republicans make about Democrats that are actually true. This goes in next to Rush Limbaugh quote about Democrats being OK with all types of sex as long as it’s consensual.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    December 25, 2020 at 5:27 pm

    Fuck that utterly un-Christian motherfucker with a (holy) rusty chainsaw

  11. 11.

    zhena gogolia

    December 25, 2020 at 5:31 pm

    Daniel Schultz sounds like my church.

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    December 25, 2020 at 5:31 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    He’s a goddamned Dominionist.  I may be a non-theist, but I’m also a Preacher’s kid and I know my Bible.  Mike Pense is an abomination.

  13. 13.

    Feathers

    December 25, 2020 at 5:32 pm

    @Mike in NC: Dominionists really pulled a fast one by taking over established churches from within, rather than becoming the oddball sect that they should have become. Their beliefs wouldn’t (and don’t) hold up upon close inspection, but they hide in plain sight, counting on the general respect for Christianity to hide their odiousness. And danger.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    December 25, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    Because of the ads, local news has been impossible to watch.   I watched local news yesterday for the first time in weeks and noticed a new ad.  Silent Night was playing and I looked up and there was a scroll.   While Silent Night played in the background, I discovered that Ossoff and Warnock wanted health care and illegals.   Other stuff also, but my first thought was wow..   Whoever wrote the ad had no idea what Christmas Eve was about.  Next thing will be that Ossoff and Warnock want a free room at the inn.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    December 25, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    This past summer, the late Jonathan, Lord Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of England, spoke against some recent trump endorsements by some American rabbis, saying: “When you mix politics and religion, you get terrible politics, and even worse religion.”

  16. 16.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 25, 2020 at 5:43 pm

    I posted this in last night’s late open thread. I didn’t get my normal awesome Xmas with my friends this year and sure as hell didn’t travel to family.

    HumboldtBlue
    December 25, 2020 at 12:23 am

    You wanna talk multi-tasking?

    Try mixing up your sausages, onion, and sauce while busting out the Xmas traditions.

    Since 2014 I have spent Xmas Eve calling my grand nieces and nephews as Elvis Elfington. It started with just two little ones, 3 and 2 at the time, and it’s grown to seven.

    So this nasal-voiced-Bowery-affecting-union-shop-boss calling from the Workshop at Elf Union No. 1 in the North Pole takes time out each Xmas Eve to remind the kids that Santa’s on his way and then delivers some humorous inside baseball family stuff.

    Each kid gets a call-out and a special nickname — Judy “The top book reader of 2020 and awesome bike rider!!!” Jones — or — Bobby “I can’t find my pants” Smith (Bobby is special, leave him be) — and they get an update on Santa’s current location (Jersey City Jersey is a standard for the East Coasters and Denver for the Westies) as the night gets long.

    They are also reminded that Santa can’t show up unless they’re asleep. I don’t think it helps the sleeping part when I get a text from Mama No. 1 “they are beside themselves, and they just can’t believe it” but hey, ya gotta make the call.

    I lost a call this year. It was bound to happen. Eleven years old comes really fucking quick and one of my originals opted out having figured out the whole charade. Shit, she figured it out two years ago, the li’l smart cookie, and I wonder if she isn’t a bit miffed at me.

    The last call is coming up.

    On a night in a year where being apart is not voluntary we still get to share one silly Xmas thing that brings a smile and a wink.

    I miss my friends and family.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    December 25, 2020 at 5:45 pm

    @JPL: I fervently hope that they have finally gone too far, and that the good people of Georgia can see it, and realize that these are their father’s republicans.

  18. 18.

    Rusty

    December 25, 2020 at 5:47 pm

    Mary in the Magnificat:

    He has shown the strength of his arm,
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

    He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
    and has lifted up the lowly.
    He has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

    Even Jesus’ mom got it.

  19. 19.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 25, 2020 at 5:47 pm

    @Tim C.:

    Actual Christianity is hard. Doing right by your neighbor and loving them is hard.

    Truth.

    I don’t know about the prosperity gospel, but white Evangelicals generally seem to have bought into a notion that having been ‘saved’ (yeah right), their duty as ‘Christians’ (ditto) doesn’t go beyond living a squeaky-clean life, harassing others who aren’t doing the same by their standards, and converting other people (a duty that they mostly offload onto missionaries, because frankly this sort of religion doesn’t exactly sell itself).

  20. 20.

    Feathers

    December 25, 2020 at 5:52 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:  At the pearly gates, Saint Peter will not be asking about your neighbor’s sins. Some people just can’t figure that out.

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 25, 2020 at 5:54 pm

    @Rusty:

    He has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

    One of my favourite, almost imperceptible, moments in J. S. Bach’s Magnificat is that in the “Esurientes” section, he omits any accompaniment under the final iteration of the word inanes (“empty”). He literally empties the melody of any instrumental support at that moment.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    December 25, 2020 at 5:54 pm

    You can believe that ‘making rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable’ is a bad thing, or you can believe in the Jesus of the Christian Bible. It’s spelled out in your sacred text, not once but many times!

    Next you’ll tell me the South seceded over slavery.

  23. 23.

    eclare

    December 25, 2020 at 5:54 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:  I posted that that is a wonderful tradition that your nieces and nephews will always treasure.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    December 25, 2020 at 5:58 pm

    @Martin:

    I can never watch that scene too often. Does he also thank baby Jesus for his smokin’ hot wife?

    Need to go watch. Spirit of the day and all.

  25. 25.

    Sister Golden Bear

    December 25, 2020 at 5:59 pm

    @evodevo:

    Another thing “Repo Man” nailed:

    “Occasionally we get a letter from a viewer that says now the only reason Reverend Larry comes on your television set is because he wants your money. And do you know what? They’re right! I do want your money. Because god wants your money. So I want you to go out and mortgage that home and sell that car and send me your money. You don’t need that car..”

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    December 25, 2020 at 6:01 pm

    To be fair, said with an accent it does sound vaguely like “Minecraft.”

    https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1342503416556355584

  27. 27.

    Sister Golden Bear

    December 25, 2020 at 6:04 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    their duty as ‘Christians’ (ditto) doesn’t go beyond living a squeaky-clean life in public,

    Fixed it for ya.

    Not that I’m suggesting God’s gentle people act a wee bit differently when they think no one’s looking. No not at all. //

  28. 28.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 25, 2020 at 6:05 pm

    @eclare:

    I saw your comment and the feedback, particularly as the kids get older and Xmas becomes more exciting, has been overwhelmingly positive.

    So at least there is one bright spot in 2020.

  29. 29.

    Bill Arnold

    December 25, 2020 at 6:06 pm

    Re followers of the Prosperity Gospels (the religious wing of the Mammonites),
    there is a relevant Sumerian proverb, approximately:
    “To be wealthy and demand more is an abomination to a god.”
    (bigger list, translations only )

  30. 30.

    Sure Lurkalot

    December 25, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: My BIL, an Orthodox Jew, has been calling various children for something like 3 decades now. I was around when he called nieces and nephews when they were little and he was very convincing.  They ate it up!

    Now the nieces and nephews are middle aged and some of their kids are too old…he needs more kids!

  31. 31.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 25, 2020 at 6:14 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    I lost my first kid this year. Probably gonna lose another next year.

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 25, 2020 at 6:18 pm

    @JPL:

    Because of the ads, local news has been impossible to watch.   I watched local news yesterday for the first time in weeks and noticed a new ad. 

    The ads must be really really bad.

    Before the election, I’d see some ridiculous – and of course completely misleading – ads (Booga booga, IL fair tax amendment will come after you eventually!) ads.

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    December 25, 2020 at 6:18 pm

    You can believe that ‘making rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable’ is a bad thing, or you can believe in the Jesus of the Christian Bible.

    How about neither? The argument that some people offer about taxing the rich clearly doesn’t resonate with voters, because it is incomplete and lacks proper context. And Jesus was not an economist. And his admonition that “the poor will always be with you” is not very hopeful, if you get down to it.

    But Pence’s twaddle is so downright stupid that only Republicans could applaud it. Pence makes it sound as though King George was a Marxist and George Washington a bold  proponent of the Prosperity Gospel.

    And I guess the GOP will be pounding home the bullshit notion that the Democrats are all the disciples of Hugo Chavez. These fools always need to create an enemy, a scary boogie man trying to take away ‘murricans’ sacred freedoms.

  34. 34.

    eclare

    December 25, 2020 at 6:20 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:  I have warm memories of making snicker doodles with my favorite aunt for Christmas.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    December 25, 2020 at 6:21 pm

    @Geminid: I now remember that Lord Sacks said it a little better: “When you start to mix politics and religion, you end up with terrible politics, and even worse religion.”

  36. 36.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 25, 2020 at 6:25 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Pence makes it sound as though King George was a Marxist and George Washington a bold  proponent of the Prosperity Gospel.

    George Washington would be in favor of Capital Gains Tax Cuts which make all things right with the world and even cure the clap. //

  37. 37.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 25, 2020 at 6:32 pm

    @Rusty:

    Mary in the Magnificat:

    He has shown the strength of his arm,
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

    He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
    and has lifted up the lowly.
    He has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

    Even Jesus’ mom got it.

    This.

    And as an old Jesus freak, I believe that it’s up to us Christians to carry out God’s will here on Earth.  So if we help the rich exploit the poor rather than enable everyone to have a decent life, we’re doing it all wrong.

  38. 38.

    MoCA Ace

    December 25, 2020 at 6:49 pm

    @Martin:   HE WAS A MAN!!!

  39. 39.

    NeenerNeener

    December 25, 2020 at 6:56 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: Then you have to change the tradition once they all get too old to believe.

    I sent “hate mail from Santa” to my sister’s kids once they became tweens. I’d find the snarkiest Christmas card available (The Mary Meyer Studio used to do great ones), have one of my male relatives sign it as Santa and address it to my sister’s kids, then cancel the stamp with a North Pole rubber stamp I found in a gift shop and pass it on to my sister, who would sneak it into their mail box before the kids got home from school. Since the handwriting on the card didn’t match either of their parents they were stumped for the 5 or 6 years we did this.

  40. 40.

    evodevo

    December 25, 2020 at 7:01 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: Better not to examine their “squeaky-clean” lives too closely….when you are privy to what their private lives are REALLY like behind the Stepford smiles and the bless you, brother’s, it’s a snake pit and the hypocrisy covering it is a mile deep…most of the ones I know personally are good people, just under the winger spell.  But the churches they belong to are riddled with psychos, sociopaths and rank hypocrites, and these are the ones who rise to power there, and keep it until some scandal or another brings them down.  They are then replaced with similar personalities, and the torch is passed.

  41. 41.

    prostratedragon

    December 25, 2020 at 7:22 pm

    Thanks to Anne Laurie for passing on the best basic theology sermon I’ve heard for a while.

  42. 42.

    debbie

    December 25, 2020 at 7:51 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:

    She’ll come back around. Bet she’ll ask for a call “for old time’s sake.”

  43. 43.

    david

    December 25, 2020 at 8:31 pm

    The kid may have been born in a manger, but on Day One of his life he was visited by magi, all gifting him with some pretty damn expensive stuff (gold was the LEAST valuable of the three).  So let’s not pretend he was impoverished or even poor.  In fact, the books indicate his family was, at a minimum, of middle to upper-middle class in wealth and assets.  After all, Joe was a skilled craftsman.  And the kid was already set for life with that early huge deposit in his 529.  It’s no wonder he could spend his adult life just gallivanting across the land.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 25, 2020 at 8:32 pm

    @NeenerNeener:

    That’s excellent.

    @debbie:

    Funnily enough one of the kids who was already close to too old when I started making calls played a call she received and recorded four years ago on our family Zoom a few minutes ago and last night she wanted a call “for old time’s sake” as well.

  45. 45.

    Citizen Alan

    December 25, 2020 at 9:32 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And his admonition that “the poor will always be with you” is not very hopeful, if you get down to it.

    IIRC, Fred Clark at Slactivist used to argue that Jesus was actually riffing on a passage in Leviticus with that comment. It was from the section describing how jubilee was supposed to work and it listed all the things that both wealthy people and society could do to eliminate poverty. And after each one, The Bible just says “the poor will always be with you.”  The implication was that poverty could be eliminated, but never would be because it would require rich greedy people to put the needs of others above themselves. Or words to that effect. I need to go look that up again. I haven’t read slacktivist in years.

  46. 46.

    colleeniem

    December 25, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    @Brachiator: “The poor will always be with you” is not only a declaration, it is a call to action.

  47. 47.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    December 26, 2020 at 1:22 am

    @colleeniem:

    From the christianist perspective, it’s a commandment to keep people poor.

  48. 48.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 26, 2020 at 8:10 am

    @Sister Golden Bear: Well, I’d also say that there’s one set of rules for the people in the pews, and another set of rules for the people in the pulpits.  And the bigger deal the pulpit is (typical church < megachurch < televangelist) the fewer rules.

  49. 49.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    December 26, 2020 at 12:24 pm

    @david: I’m sorry, which books would those be?  The only source for the magi narrative does NOT have them showing up on “day one” of anything, and in that version the gifts would have been used to finance the flight to Egypt.  Jesus was up to 2 years old at the time, and the magi visited him in a house.  As for the relative economic status of Jesus’ family, historians and biblical scholars may differ, but since it’s pretty obvious that your grasp of the story is what you saw on the front of a Christmas card, maybe sit this one out, mmmkay?

  50. 50.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    December 26, 2020 at 12:25 pm

    @Citizen Alan: it’s Deuteronomy. “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” —Deuteronomy 15:11

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