honorentheos wrote:Call it good fortune or ill, I have associated with someone daily through work for over 10 years who is a stereotypical rightwing conservative evangelical anti-liberal, was in college in the era of Jimmy Carter and entered the work force in the Reagan era.
What I have gathered in conversations with him over the years is that Carter's failing was his inability to inspire people to chase prosperity. This associate talks derisively of Carter telling the nation to put on a sweater rather than turning up the thermostat, is practically gleeful describing Reagan having the solar panels removed from the White House that were installed under Carter, and worshipfully looking to Reagan as the true Christian president. Not because of his charity, but because he spoke of being special, of prosperity as an inevitable reward, for being born into a promise as Americans under God's singular gaze.
We did what our President told us to do, lowered the heat (68 degrees was the recommendation) and put on extra clothing. To this day, we still keep our heat low in the house even in winter. When 55mph became the national speed limit, we drove it.
I never once felt angry at Carter for those things. I felt like we were all in this together and that's what American's did--they pulled together.
Make no mistake, Christianity among many isn't about service or following the example of their God having taken the form of a homeless teacher and healer. They are in it for the prosperity promised for being a believer. I'd say John 6 describes the vast majority, and Carter isn't one of those who is just following because he'd eaten the bread and fish, and expected more. So many claiming to be a follower of Christ do so expecting that they will get even more fish and bread while others starve like the pack of hungry dogs chasing the butcher's cart, and this seems to be the spiritual motivation of the majority of EVs when their beliefs are looked at through their behavior. Sure, they'll volunteer at a food bank or help out a neighbor, send a check to support someone down on their luck, or send thoughts and prayers. But behind it all is the idea one is practically blasphemous if one views the pursuit of wealth and the expectation of prosperity as anything other than evidence of God's favor. Many people don't like the idea that their good works might not result in earthly rewards, and turn to preachers promising more than pie in the sky by-and-by. Liberals are doing the devil's work, taking from the rich prospered by God - as evidenced by their being prosperous - and given those godly given rewards to the slothful and undeserving as a way of undoing God's blessing the faithful. It's these same forces keeping the lower and middle classes down, too, and resisting God's ability to prosper their hard work and justly earned wealth through taxes and regulations that further work against God's word forcing the US away from it's protected status as a promised land and shining light on a hill. Carter claimed to be a Christian, but he was doing the devil's work according to this view of how politics and religion overlap in the US.
There's no doubt that Christian's can lean towards the material. We're human like everyone else is. I wasn't raised that way. I don't live that way. My idea is that whatever I have was supplied to me by God and whatever I have I should be content with it and take care of it. Be a good steward of whatever money we have as well. Whether I lived in a broken down home (and I have) or a fairly nice home (and I do) I would still take care of it. I did, I still do, and I would no matter where I lived or what possessions I owned because I see the material things and even my children as on loan to me from God, and it's my job to take care of my things and my people--and also the natural world that I inhabit.
So far as I am concerned, the so-called Prosperity Gospel movement (I know that's not what you're referring to but it's emergence comes from at least part of what you referred to) is an aberration of scripture. It's foretold in scripture and Christian's would do well to pay attention to the heads up.
Carter is a self professed Christian. He lives it out in front of us. And when I hear people talk about the prosperity of Christians I think it has nothing to do with money or materialism. Not even close.
In my eyes I see that Jimmy Carter is a prosperous Christian. Prosperity in Christianity is about building up the body of Christ. I am certain that he's done that by his example and his teaching. And that's what Christlike really means.
