I grew up in the Church. Before they passed, my father was a Preacher and my mom was an Evangelist. I am sure that makes me somewhat of an anomaly with Republicans, because I have a Christian background but I am a Democrat. This mixture confuses these Republicans because as far as they are concerned, you cannot be a Democrat and a believer in Christ at the same time. But I’m not here to pacify their confusion, so I’ll go on to the point of this blog.
It really irks me when I come across wolves in sheep’s clothing, that is, people who call themselves preachers but take to the pulpit and “preach” nothing but hate and ignorance. I’ve used past blog-posts to highlight some of the idiotic statements these “pastors” have made in the past and sadly, here is another.
His name is Pastor David Barton and part of his message to his congregation was that people are on welfare because they don’t read the Bible. “I really believe this,” Barton said. Here’s his full statement;
Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a study between those that are on welfare and see how much and how often they read the Bible. You know, if Booker T. Washington is right that Christianity and reading the Bible increases your desires and therefore your ability for hard work; if we take that as an axiom, does that mean that the people who are getting government assistance spend nearly no time in the Bible, therefore have no desire, and therefore no ability for hard work? I could go a lot of places with this. I would love to see this proven out in some kind of sociological study, but it makes perfect sense.
While real preachers use the Bible to get their sermons, Barton – a Conservative Republican – allows his politics to dictate what and how he preach. Too bad he hasn’t paid attention to a particular political document by one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson – the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States – who in 1802 wrote, “… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
