White House Faith-Based Initiative Leader Dead
David Kuo, the Bush Administration’s leader for faith-based initiatives, died from brain cancer on Friday 4/5/2013. In the linked article, it quotes Kuo as saying that the faith-based initiative was basically a farce and designed to exploit Christians and other religious people to get their votes, and nothing more.
I remember everyone (including myself for a bit) being enthralled with the idea of the government finally doing something to help support Christianity, which had come under attack in other areas in America. It felt good to know that GWBush was doing something to address this and offer support for people of faith.
Then I noticed how the GOP kept ignoring the desires of conservative Christians. Abortion was still legal and not overturned, even though there were enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to do so. I noticed how the Marriage Amendment to the Constitution was dropped once Bush was reelected. If it was that important, why wasn’t it pushed through the GOP-led Congress regardless? I started doing some digging and didn’t have to dig very deep to find out that the Bush White House paid lip service to conservative Christians, but felt that particular voting bloc was already too powerful and influential. The way to control them was to pay them lip service enough for votes, but not do anything they promised to do when they got in office.
And now, we see that David Kuo, the leader of the initiative, called the effort a sham. And now I’m smiling.
No, I’m not happy that Kuo is dead. I’m smiling because for all the talking that conservative Christians do about what is politically important to them, and how the GOP “owes” them for voting in their favor, it seems they’re having a hard lesson to learn here – your politics should not replace your faith. I think American conservative Christians got spoiled with some Christians being in office and a lot of conservatives playing to them in order to get their votes, but doing like any politician does on the Hill after being there for a while – start serving their own interests and get greedy…or greedier.
When will American conservative Christians learn that their faith in Jesus Christ means more than being a “good, conservative Republican”? See, Jerry Falwell had y’all fooled with the Religious Right. How does being in the Religious Right and framing policies that protect you and shield you from persecution help you grow in your faith? Seriously, the early church never had that kind of protection and they suffered immensely, but the faith grew exponentially. We can’t say the same for Christianity today in America. We’ve been “protected” in a way and aren’t connected to our Source as much as we should be. We hitched our trailers to the politics wagon and that ride is proving to be unstable and directionless, but Jesus/God is constant. Now, we’re out here in the world without a proper connection to our Shield and getting eaten alive, all because we connected to the wrong thing.
I think this is a good thing, however. At least now we can start honing our focus on where it needs to be, and get out of the cesspool of politics.
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Category: Christianity, Conservatives, Politics
