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The Los Angeles Times carried a rather scary front page piece this morning which describes training seminars held in Washington for Congressional aides and aspiring politicians. These sessions are conducted by conservative religious leaders to "help them understand God's purpose for society." "The students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin."

As an ordained minister of the Gospel, I am all for teaching people about what Jesus had to say about God's purpose for society. But I cannot find those biblical passages that link God's purpose with war, tax cuts for the rich, nor can I find anything about every vote being a religious duty. These folks seem to be a tad bit selective. For another take on the issue, one might consult an essay by Bill McKibben in the August issue of HARPERS MAGAZINE. The title suggests his theme: "The Christian Paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong."

McKibben points out the obvious: a great majority of Americans are Christians. American political and economic assumptions and policies must therefore reflect the faith of large numbers of Christians. The troubling part of all this is that so much of what Americans believe is simply contrary to what the New Testament actually says. And large mnumbers of people take as Gospel truth, things that are not only not in scripture, but are opposed to it. A few examples.

"God helps those who help themselves" Three out of four Americans believe this statement is found in the Bible. Actually it comes from that most canny and wily of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. One does find in the New Testament such passages as: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." (Acts 2: 44-45). Most Americans wouldn't recognize that one though it is indeed in the Bible, so let's get on with tax cuts for the rich.

How about the contrast between Scripture and our levels of children living in poverty, per capita spent in foreign aid. How about giving aid to the poorest of people, or that rather scary passage in Matthew's Gospel about judgement depending upon whether we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, etc. The Old Testament prophets denounced injustice, oppression, corruption in high places, withholding hospitality, oppressing widows and orphans.

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." "The poor have the Gospel preached to them," etc. etc. Then there's always the Beatitudes found in Luke 6: 17-20 and in Matthew 5: 1-12)

It seems that core passages like these escapte the notice of most American Christians. Nor do we see any practical consequence of Jesus telling Peter to "put away the sword, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword." We certainly have no intnetion of putting into practice anything like "turn the other cheek." What the heck, let's pour another 85 billion into our pre-emptive war of choice.

The training seminars described in the Los Angeles Times are possible because most American Christians actually adopt Benjamin Franklin as their inspired guide rather than what Jesus actually said.

The gulf between Christian biblical theology on the one hand and the understanding and practice of the faith by vast numbers of American Christians on the other seems impassable. There are now two different faiths using the same name in this country. Perhaps we should ask the religious right to rename themselves to reflect their real philsophy, enunciated so well by their intellectual founder. They are the Franklinians! Old Ben would be pleased.

American policy under Bush is amazingly consistent. There is a single theme which unites foreign and domestic policies with the war in Iraq. To discover what that is, just "follow the money." Tax cuts for the wealthy, environmental depredation, commitment to very large corporate interests over small business and workers, lack of concern for active duty military and veterans: all these can be connected with the war in Iraq by looking at who is making money. The Los Angeles Times published an article this morning which explains Bush's economic invasion of Iraq. This article points out that the Transitional Authority Law, which can only be changed by the Iraqis with great difficulty, ensures the privatization of most Iraqi industries and allows for foreign corporations to reap the profit. This is the real reason for the war and it differs not at all from his other policies. Consistency there is, honesty there is not. Read it and understand.

Nuclear Deterrence, which was American policy during the cold war, was always considered morally ambiguous. Having been a participant in several University of California symposia on the nuclear arms race, I had to articulate a religious point of view. At that time the most comprehensive document was "The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response" written by the American Catholic Bishops in 1983. At this time the bishops, along with many other moral thinkers evaluating the nuclear arms race considered the actual use of nuclear weapons for any reason as morally repugnant and indefensible. They considered deterrence as morally legitimate only if it was an interim policy, a "step on the way" to total nuclear disarmament.

Now, a decade and a half since the end of the cold war, and on the threshhold of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is time to evaluate where we stand on the nuclear arms issue. Again citing Roman Catholic sources, it seems the United States is now in an untenable moral position. We have gone from possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a policy of using them even against a non-nuclear threat.

Bush's repudiation of the test ban treaty and his policy of blurring the lines between conventional and nuclear attack is absolutely immoral. The policy of using "bunker buster," nukes us reprehensible. American policy is no longer deterrence, but now includes the intention to use them. The use of nuclear weapons will clearly result in consequences that border on the unthinkable. There is nothing more abhorrent in American policy than this. It is past time to challenge the Bush administration on these plans