JUDGE NOT LEST THOU BE JUDGED

"What Bill Clinton did was vile and repulsive" were the words uttered by then Representative Mark Foley after revelations of President Clinton's interaction with Monica Lewinsky. In fact Foley helped to lead the charge to impeach Clinton in the United States House of Representatives.

"What Bill Clinton did was vile and repulsive" were the words uttered by then Representative Mark Foley after revelations of President Clinton's interaction with Monica Lewinsky. In fact Foley helped to lead the charge to impeach Clinton in the United States House of Representatives. I have always watched the Christian Coalition, Moral Majority and the Evangelicals mount their high horse of religious superiority and supremacy and ride roughshod over everyone who did not subscribe to their veiled views of God, morality and family. Their Gospel is one of condemnation to any and everyone who does not follow their moral compass. In fact they took that preacher of yesteryear, Jonathan Edwards' sermon, "Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God" way too far. With all of their Scripture quoting and fire and brimstone presentations, they ignore the words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth when he says in Matthew 7:1-5 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged…" (NIV)

Since the Republican take over of Congress in the 1994 revolution, they have prided themselves as the party that spoke for God, morality and family! They judged everyone who did not share their views. They led the march to divide America into red states and blue states. According to the Republicans, if you live in a blue state, you are viewed as not knowing God as well as those who live in red states and your values and morals are warped and you need to be rebaptized as a conservative! A funny thing happened on the way to Republican heaven. Scandal after scandal has embraced and entrapped one Republican after the other all the way from the White House to that congressional district in Florida.

Ex- Representative Foley like so many Republicans ignored Matthew 7:1-5 when they were judging President Clinton and other Democrats. The Christian Coalition, Moral Majority and the Evangelicals forgot that NONE of us are perfect. A large number of us have skeletons in our closets. Some of us have just  enough bones to make a miniature pinscher and some of us have enough bones to make a T-Rex dinosaur. It does not matter the size of our bones because they are a reality. As a result, none of us are in a position to sit in judgment of our brothers and sisters. Jesus tried to remind us of that but somehow that passage appears to be absent in the Bible that Republicans read!

Are any of us are as good as we appear and are any of as bad as we appear? The Apostle Paul even said "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." We are something of conflicted humans and we have as much potential to do evil as we do to do good. Something of a civil war rages within all of us. Therefore, who are we to judge our fellow brothers and sisters?

Remember in "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy and her friends thought that there as a wizard in Oz who could grant their individual wishes? Everyone believed in the Wizard until Toto pulled up the curtain to reveal that there was just a man back there pulling switches. When we sit in judgment of our fellow brothers and sisters, we must keep in mind that it is a matter of time before some Toto pulls up our curtain and reveals who or what we really are!