How Ruling Powers Distort Morality So That It Does Not Restrain Them

by Andrew Bard Schmookler

http://www.opednews.com

I’ve been taking a look, lately, at what power can do to morality, and it’s not a pretty sight.

In a wise and fortunate society, ruthless and amoral forces are kept out of power—blocked by effective constitutional checks backed up by the society’s “moral capital” endowing its elites with a genuine love of the greater good.

America, regrettably, is not now in that fortunate position. And nowhere is that clearer than in the way our present rulers have been working to bend and distort those “Christian” moral values they love to trumpet.

If one knew nothing of the Gospels, but instead only learned of Christian values from our current ruling forces, one would think that Jesus’ moral concerns focused on sex. But the red letters in my Bible show that he had almost nothing to say about sex. The moral issue that seems to have concerned him most involved not such private matters but rather how the rich and powerful treat the poor and vulnerable. “The least of these, my brethren.”