{"id":54750,"date":"2014-09-06T09:37:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T16:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=54750"},"modified":"2014-12-28T21:06:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T04:06:50","slug":"erick-erickson-and-st-peter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2014\/09\/erick-erickson-and-st-peter.html","title":{"rendered":"Erick Erickson and St. Peter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Erick Erickson Declares Minimum Wage Workers are \u201cMostly People Who Failed At Life\u201d<\/p>\n

No. \u00a0Really<\/a>.
\nAnd then he doubles down here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig remarks:<\/p>\n

Remember when it used to be good enough for conservatives that people were doing honest work? Not anymore. You have now \u201cfailed at life\u201d if you work for minimum wage and try to secure better working conditions for yourself. The devil owns Erickson\u2019s tongue, but I\u2019ve said that for a long time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a sense of what Abraham, in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man called the \u201cgreat chasm\u201d between this gospel of mammon and the actual gospel of Jesus Christ, consider this:<\/p>\n

A thirty year old manual laborer, unmarried, living at home with his mom till he started wandering around talking about religion, with no place to lay his head, and so poor he has to borrow a coin when somebody asks him a question about paying taxes. Hangs around with whores and parasitic government bureaucrats who bleed hardworking people dry. Demands productive commandment-obeying citizens give away their hard-earned money to \u201cthe poor\u201d. Yet when one of his own female groupies wastes a bunch of ointment on him and flatters his vanity, this limousine liberal has no use for their plight. Preaches dangerous kumbayah turn-the-other cheek garbage that would leave the people of his country prostrate before illegal alien invaders, instead of calling for second amendment rights and strong military budget. Yet he hypocritically goes on some kind of violent rampage against distinguished business leaders in the community while respectable people are trying to pray. Says class war stuff like \u201cBlessed are you poor\u201d and \u201cwoe to you who are rich\u201d and tells nasty stories about shiftless street people going to heaven and Job Creators going to hell. This peace-and-lovenik gins up a mob of Takers against the Makers by calling them \u201cblind guides\u201d and \u201cwhited sepulchres\u201d. Is it any surprise this dodgy loser then runs afoul of the law, poses as some kind of revolutionary leader and suffers capital punishment for treason as good conservatives demand he should? Total failure in life.<\/p>\n

Tying somebody\u2019s value and worthiness to live to their economic productivity (which is what \u201cminimum wage workers are failures in life\u201d means) is *precisely* what undergirds the whole \u201clife unworthy of being lived\u201d ethos that authorizes everything from exterminations of \u201cuseless eaters\u201d to the abortion of \u201cunwanted\u201d children to the euthanasia of people who \u201cno longer have a place in this life\u201d. I don\u2019t use language like \u201csatanic\u201d\u00a0lightly, but I do here without hesitation. Erickson, of course, is not a Catholic and therefore cannot be held to the standards of the fullness of the gospel. But Catholics are Catholic and *must* be held to the standards of the full gospel. And I have already been instructed by \u201cfaithful conservative Catholics\u201d that Erickson\u2019s language is all perfectly compatible with \u201cconservative Catholicism\u201d.<\/p>\n

That may be so. But it is not in the slightest compatible with Catholic faith. I used to be a convert from Evangelicalism to conservative Catholicism. Now I consider myself a convert from conservative Catholicism to the Catholic faith. I\u2019m sick of cafeteria Catholicism, both left and right. I prefer All You Can Eat Catholicism\u2013including \u201cblessed are you poor\u201d and \u201cwoe to you who are rich\u201d.<\/p>\n

And I regard it as my duty to say so:<\/p>\n

The word of the LORD came to me: \u201cSon of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman; and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people; then if any one who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes, and takes any one of them; that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.\u00a0(Eze 33:1\u20139).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the bright side, Erickson\u2019s conscience does appear to be pricking him<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the past several months there have been three incidents that have solidified for me that my faith and my politics are starting to collide. While I am a firm believer in the idea of a conservative populism, I see a dangerous trend within the mix of unfortunate shrillness and hostility. That trend is playing out in the comments here at RedState and on social media.<\/p>\n

To start, Christian conservatives were roundly assailed by other conservatives for daring to provide aid and comfort to children whose parents had shipped them across the border. Some could not distinguish between giving a child a teddy bear and supporting Mexican drug cartels. It was all one or all the other. In fact, many Christians, myself included, want expedited deportations and a secure border. But we also want to make sure the children, some victims of human trafficking, were taken care of, fed, and comforted.<\/p>\n

But to some on the right, that is aiding law breakers. The anger and hysteria directed at conservativesengaged in private charity<\/em>\u00a0had all the makings of a leftist police state making us care about how wechoose to spend our own money.<\/em><\/p>\n

The second was bringing Dr. Brantly and his co-worker back to the United States. The number of angry calls into my radio program from well meaning conservatives, comments across social media, opinion columns, agreement thereto, etc. really boggled my mind. Here are two Americans risking their lives to help others and we are supposed to turn our back on them, leave them there, or criticize their decision to go in the first place? That\u2019s not the America I know or love. The level of outright anger, fear, and bitterness over the decision to take care of American citizens\u00a0and the lack of knowledge and understanding<\/em>\u00a0that formed the foundation for the anger, fear, and bitterness really left me wondering what is going on.<\/p>\n

The last is the present situation in Ferguson, MO. The rush to win a fight and lay blame instead of mourning a loss and praying for a situation just leaves me perplexed. The rush to \u201cchange the narrative\u201d with bad facts to replace bad facts by some folks who keep the\u00a0ichthys<\/a>\u00a0on their car unsettles me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a conservative before I\u2019m a Republican. I was once even an elected Republican. But before I\u2019m a father or husband, I am a Christian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That<\/em> Erickson must increase and Social Darwinist Erickson must decrease. \u00a0Not many in the conservative commentariat have had the moxie to stick their head this far outside the bubble. If Peter can go from speaking divine revelation to uttering the words of Satan, this guy can certainly ride the same whipsaw. So I think we owe him our prayers that he continue to listen to his conscience and stop mouthing the inhuman platitudes of the prince of this world. If he\u2019s in the EIB bubble, he\u2019s under enormous<\/em> pressure to conform and will require a lot of grace to break with the inhuman cult of the Thing That Used to be Conservatism in its Limbavian manifestations to find the freedom of the gospel. Let us pray he find the grace to not go away sad, having many possessions, but rather to embace the fullness of the revelation of Christ and defy this inhuman philosophy of men that seeks to supplant the gospel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erick Erickson Declares Minimum Wage Workers are \u201cMostly People Who Failed At Life\u201d No. \u00a0Really. And then he doubles down here. Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig remarks: Remember when it used to be good enough for conservatives that people were doing honest work? Not anymore. You have now \u201cfailed at life\u201d if you work for minimum wage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-54750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessed-are-the-poor"],"yoast_head":"\nErick Erickson and St. Peter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Erick Erickson Declares Minimum Wage Workers are "Mostly People Who Failed At Life" No. \u00a0Really. And then he doubles down here. 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