Doesn't it strike you as odd that the U.S. has simultaneously
1. Highest per capita incarceration rate
2. Most violent developed nation in terms of violent crimes, murders, etc.
3. Most "religious" developed nation
So if so many Americans are "good Xtians" and have all those family values, why are we the most violent and have the most inmates? It seems the fact we are allegedly so religious would have a direct impact on the level of violence and incarceration. But it isn't.
Why? Because the predominant religious organizations in this country aren't very moral or care about the plight of God's children. The Baptist church, the Mormon church and the Catholic church are most focused on abortion and keeping the gays down than the things Jesus actually talked about.
I'm not saying this is universally the case but in large measure this is how I see it. Frankie in Rome has recently come out with a different message that includes focusing on poverty, inequality and subduing the entire focus on abortion and the gays. There are some individual churches that have given refuge to immigrants. There are Catholic nuns who stand vigil outside state prisons where executions are taking place.
But these voices are overwhelmed by the anti-abortion and anti-gay rhetoric. There is little talk about poverty, the need to provide access to health care, the need to care for our planet, opposition to the death penalty, opposition to police brutality, opposition to endless war. Where are those voices?
Just this morning on NPR I heard a pastor in Cornelia Georgia where an infant was violently injured by a flash grenade that was thrown into his crib as part of a no knock warrant action by county authorities say he resented the influx of people from outside of Cornelia coming to town last weekend to protest against no knock warrant actions. He said he was defending the local sheriff's actions and that outsiders should just let Cornelia do what Cornelia wants to do.
Really? A pastor is saying it is consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ to burn a baby and cause life-threatening injuries that may well either kill the infant or leave him with burn scars and potential blindness and other infirmities because they thought there might be drugs inside? Really? This pastor is no more a man of God than Satan himself. He is a right-wing tool who should be banished from ministry for the rest of his life.
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