Jesus and wealth

It's weird how much Jesus gets invoked to justify economic policies that protect the wealth of people who have more than they or their descendants could ever need. Time after time Jesus made it very clear that he was not on their side. There's the whole "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle" passage. And there's the Beatitudes - a whole chapter of "Woe unto the rich". And the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar. And the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the time Mr. Blessed-Are-The-Peacemakers PHYSICALLY ATTACKED bankers and drove them out of the Temple while screaming at them that they had made a house of prayer into a den of thieves... Any time Jesus said anything about wealth or wealthy people, it was to demand they use their wealth to help the poor, on pain of everlasting torment. Hell, even the leaders of the French Revolution only executed the aristocracy, they didn't care what happened to the bastards afterwards... but Jesus wanted their punishment to START there, and never stop. He hated capitalists more than Marx ever dreamed of hating them. And yet, somehow, his name always gets invoked by the guardians of wealth and empire and status quo as if he was on THEIR team all along. It really is too bad they can't be bothered to read their own holy book.

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