a quick thought on social structures and the Bible

There was a raging debate on a bulletin board I post to a lot about the difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. A lot of very tired bashing of the Jewish religion. Which is sad to me, if for no other reason than Jesus himself lived, died, and was resurrected a Jew. But there was also the usual garbage about the Old Testament being about vengeance and the New about mercy. Egads.

I happened across Isaiah tonight during my Bible reading time, and I love in particular Chapter 10. In my Catholic Study Bible, the translation reads,

Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees,
Depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my people's poor of their rights,
Making widows their plunder and orphans their prey!
What will you do on the day of punishment when ruin comes from afar?
To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth
Lest it sink beneath the captive or fall beneath the slain?

One of the things I have begun to realize in the last several months in particular is that my Christianity and my spirituality demands a more political involvement. Not to make the world more pious, not to disrespect others' belief systems, but to make the world more just. It is simply unchristian that my state is financed by sales taxes and not a state income tax. It is unchristian that the state wants to take roads already financed by the public coffers and make them toll roads, disproportionately affecting lower and middle class commuters, especially in the northern part of San Antonio where there is negligible public transportation.

I wish there was a convincing, religious leader in the Democratic party who could talk about these issues. The best I have ever heard was Bill Bradley, and I thought Joe Lieberman would be better at it than he turned out to be. Maybe the disparate groups that form the party can't handle a religious voice, and if so, it is to the shame of the Bible itself.

Okay, this has seriously rambled now, and I need sleep. But this is obviously something I feel passionately about, and so there will be more, hopefully more organized and coherent, in the days and weeks and months ahead. Good night all.