David Brat is the new love of the Tea Party, and he's quickly launched into the kind of rhetoric that you can always expect from them, claiming:
Capitalism is here to stay, and we need a church model that corresponds to that reality. Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong? We appear to be a bit passive. Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.
Let's break this down into segments to truly appreciate the insanity.
"Capitalism is here to stay"
And this needs to be stated because liberals all hate capitalism.
"And we need a church model that corresponds to that reality."
Technically speaking, the only church model in the Bible was closer to socialism.
Acts 2:44-45: All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
I'm not suggesting that the Bible taught socialism, but I am saying if you're going to shoehorn the Bible into your politics, do it honestly.
Furthermore, the guiding principle in capitalism is profit. Jesus said,
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:24
Literally, according to Jesus capitalism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. So how you're going to get a "church model" of capitalism is beyond me.
"Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong?"
Do you really want to know what went wrong? People stopped listening to Jesus and started perverting what he said to get the masses to follow them instead of Him.
"We appear to be a bit passive."
Not really. Unless by "passive" you mean cramming your view of what Christianity means down everyone's throat. What do you think "passive" means?
And not to be throwing the Bible at you again, but didn't Jesus actually argue for passivity. Turn the other cheek and all that?
"Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance"
Yes, because Hitler is relevant to this discussion. It's not a real Tea Party discussion until the right-wing extremist ironically brings up how the left is going to give rise to the next Hitler. How very Christian of you, Mr. Brat.
"I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily."
So do I, but only if crackpots like you run the asylum.
"The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. "
This is the particularly troublesome thing--and like everything else he says, is the polar opposite of Jesus, Himself:
Mark 28-30: One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.] There is no commandment greater than these.”
It might seem like a subtle distinction but it's a significant one, theologically speaking. The end of the law is that we love our neighbor; the end of loving our neighbor is not bringing them under the law.
The reason it's a significant distinction is it matters to whom we're applying the law, ourselves or our neighbors. The Tea Party would have you believe our job is to apply our law to them. Jesus would have you apply it to yourself. By doing that, you recognize your own failings and then your "action" is to love your neighbor.
If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.
Then spread the word, but learn it first, and stop trying to make my government your backstop.