Jesus was a randroid

by digby

From RightwingWatch, here’s the Christian Right’s favorite historian, David Barton on Occupy Wall Street:

Barton: Look at Jesus. I mean, Jesus in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 and the Minas in Luke 19, you know he lines the guys all up and says “I gave you an investment, what did you do with it? ‘I did nothing with it.’ ‘I gave you, what you’d do?’ “I turned five-fold.’ ‘I gave you, what you’d do?’ ‘I turned ten-fold.'” He says “Okay, take away from the guy who didn’t do anything with the investment and give it to the guy who had ten.”

Whoa, that’s not fair! Jesus said “to him who has will more be given, to him who has not will be taken away even that which he has.”

Green: I think the message version of that says to the one that’s picketing down on Wall Street and not working, we’re taking from you now and we’re going to give it to the Wall Street guy.

Barton: You’re not productive. We’re ain’t giving [to] you if you’re not productive and that’s the message. The way it’s supposed to work is if you’re productive, it’s going to trickle down to you. But if you think the guy who had ten is going to trickle down to the guy who didn’t do anything with his one, Jesus says it’s not going to happen that way.

It does not trickle down. As as matter of fact, it will trickle up. If you are not productive, I’m going to give it to someone who is and he’s going to get more.

Geez, I thought JC was at least a supply-sider …

RWW clears up the Biblical confusion:

Of course, if you actually read Luke 19:13-26 and Matthew 25:14-29, you find that Jesus is telling a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven, explaining that those who use the skills and talents given to them by God to spread and promote the Gospel will receive an eternal reward while those who fail to use such skills and talents properly will suffer eternal punishment.

But to Barton, it means that we should be taking from the Occupy Wall Street activists and handing it over to Wall Street millionaires.

Right. And he would be totally down with pepper spray and rubber bullets too because he believed that parasites would inherit the earth otherwise. Or something.

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