Ya see, I believe that God in infinite wisdom, created us with a two help-mates. One is a devil, and the other an angel. Stay with me here.
They are constantly pushing us to respond to their line of reasoning.
They are meant to be kept relatively equal.
So most of us are pretty much even throughout our lives.
We are good about half of the time, and bad about half of the time. We try to keep the “bad” mostly thoughts and words, and not so much actions. That helps to keep us out of jail. (The angel is a good advocate for practicalities.)
But in some humans, the devil is listened to far far too much.
And things get way out of whack. Mostly the poor little angel atrophies from lack of use.
And it’s voice gets tinier and tinier, and harder and harder to hear.
And the devil grows by leaps and bounds.
His voice gets louder.
It gets more insistent.
It sounds more reasonable.
It offers more things that make you feel good.
In fact it’s speciality is making your feel good.
Temporarily.
And it urges you not to think of the future.
Or pay back.
Or inevitabilities, such as death, and whether you will be well received at the Pearly Gates.
But it can drown out the tiny voice of the angel.
The poor little angel sounds almost like a squeak.
It cannot be heard any more.
Look familiar?
It should.
If you could cast a spray of pixie dust over Newt Gingrich, you would see these two quite clearly.
If you were in Newt’s boudoir (perish the thought) you would notice it easily. For Newt’s one shoulder hangs perilously lower than the other. The devil is one heavy dude for this man. One of the reasons you don’t see Newt without a jacket on, is because he is forced to wear a very heavy weight under his arm to counterbalance the bloated devil on his shoulder.
It makes him waddle like a duck when he walks. I’m sure you’ve noticed that.
Newt is convinced that the free world was created by himself. He’s already taken credit for the collapse of communism, and the fall of the Berlin wall. He claims to be the creator of “supply-side” economics, though a few others might dispute that.
Now he claims that Mittens ought to be thanking him, because it was his economic policies which he convinced Reagan to pursue that led to Mittens great wealth. And that may be true. At least it’s true in Newt’s mind.
But if it is true, . . .well. I guess it means that Newt is responsible for much that is wrong with our economic system today. I guess he is proud of the fact that there has never been so much inequality in America. I guess he approves of the destruction of the middle class.
Newt listens to his devil too much.
But, it may be the only friend he has.
Oh, I forgot. Another way you can tell that a person’s devil is too big? Their heads get really really big. I spoke to Newt’s haberdasher only yesterday. His head size is up 2″–in just the last two weeks. Just sayin’.
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Somebody else who has been listening to the wrong shoulder, is Tony Perkins. Tony, you remember is a right-wing family values kinda guy who heads up the Family Research Council. That means he favors Republicans, since only Republicans are pro-family. You knew that.
So, Tony, like others of his evangelical kind, try to prop up the mean-spirited economic goals of the GOP.
So Tony has decided to “interpret” Luke 19: 11-27, commonly known as the Parable of the pounds.
In a nutshell, a man goes on a journey, and gives money to several of his servants. The first two, engaged in some business trading and multiplied the money, while the third, simply hid the money for safekeeping. The man punishes the third servant for doing nothing to increase the money.
Tony, doesn’t get what a parable is. He thinks the story is literal.
He thinks that Jesus is applauding free market economics, and rejected collectivism. Kinda like, Jesus would reject Occupy Wall Street today and applaud the banks.
Tony’s interpretation is not unique. It’s been heard before by the likes of David Barton, that brilliant pretend historian who also dabbles in biblical explanations.
But it has nothing to do with what Luke (or Matthew 25) was trying to get across. Which was simply that we are responsibility to live out our beliefs–namely spread the Gospel and bring into the Kingdom as many as we can. We can’t just sit in our salvation, complacent and smug.
But reality means almost nothing to those who believe that God is calling them to cheapen the bible with partisan interpretations, in order to SAVE OUR COUNTRY FROM THE DEMON OBAMA.
Mr. Perkins is also known to always wear a jacket.
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Existential Ennui 