Hannity spars with Marianne Williamson: 'What the hell does that mean?' Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson joins 'Hannity' to react; spar on policy differences. #foxnews #hannity ...
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Readings for Ascension Sunday: Acts 1: 1-11; Psalm 47: 2-3, 6-9; Ephesians 1: 17-23; Matthew 28:16-20
The readings for this Seventh Sunday of Easter (Ascension Sunday) should be thought provoking for people with ethical concerns around our upcoming presidential election. In that context, they illustrate the mainstream tendency to domesticate the radical social justice teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth - a tendency vigorously resisted by candidate Marianne Williamson.
The tendency in question stemmed from an early church interested in softening Jesus' identity as firebrand advocate of social justice who was executed by Rome as an anti-imperial insurgent.
Intent on making peace with Roman imperialism, Christianity's early message sometimes bordered on "You have nothing to fear from us. We're not troublemakers. The two of us can get along. We're not interested in politics."
The process is especially noteworthy these days when social justice advocate, Marianne Williamson, raises questions of equity on specifically spiritual grounds.
As a longtime teacher of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) that centralizes the voice of Jesus, Ms. Williamson constantly does so in the context of her own insurgent campaign to unseat Joe Biden as president of the United States.
In that context too, Christians have domesticated Jesus. As a result, Ms. Williamson's policy positions are portrayed as kooky and incomprehensible even by professed Christians who don't understand Jesus' program (Luke 4:14-22) as well as Williamson does.
That was illustrated two weeks ago when the candidate appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox news program. (See video at the top of this posting.)
In their exchange Hannity ended up specifically advocating the domesticated Jesus. Meanwhile, Ms. Williamson (without directly referencing Jesus) proposed a political spirituality concerned with Spirit, love, equity, and social justice.
To show you what I mean, let me compare the Jewish Ms. Williamson's understanding of faith with that of the professed Catholic Sean Hannity. Then I'll show how the roots of the two versions are found in today's readings. Finally, allow me to draw an important conclusion relative to the current presidential campaign.
Hannity's Interview
To begin with, Hannity was completely rude. He hardly let his invited guest get a word in edgewise.
His questions were all gotcha queries. For instance, he tried to associate Ms. Williamson's call for a wealth tax on Americans earning more than $50 million per year ($50 million!!) with Communism's motto "From each according to his ability to each according to his need." He said the concept came from Karl Marx. [Too bad Ms. Williamson hadn't read my homily of a month ago. She would have been able to counter that the concept originates not from Marx, but from the Acts of the Apostles. (See ACTS 2: 45, 4: 35, 11: 29.)]
Of course, Hannity's bullying style of constant interruption and talking over his guests was absolutely to be expected. That's what he does.
However, in terms of today's homily, what was most interesting was the exchange between the Fox News host and Ms. Williamson about faith.
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