Prather | "I'm Not A Liberal"

Back from a visit to the country and the old home place. Went to the cemetery(my Mom and Dad), visited the nursing home twice(older brother), and went to their old house(cold and deserted) which used to be crowded at times with family and friends. It's a sad trip down there these days. I sat down a moment in a chair in the living room, looked out the windows and tried to pretend for just a moment I was back there in time. It just made it sadder still.

Oh well..I did read this article by Paul Prather from the Lexington Herald-Leader Saturday. In the Faith and Values section of all places. Here's a conservative who gets it.

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Being a liberal isn't so bad — but I'm not one

Still, if I were a liberal, I wouldn't be ashamed of it.

We seem to forget that virtually every political and religious breakthrough we now take for granted was, in its time, considered liberal, blasphemous, pinko, wacko.

Here's a short list of liberals and their batty ideas:

• Jesus was a liberal. He challenged the status quo, the ruling elite, at every turn. He fed the masses for free. He worked on the Sabbath. He dined with tax cheats and hookers while poking fun at the hyper-religious Sadducees and Pharisees. He preferred the sick and outcast to the rich. The establishment killed him for such supposed sins.

• John Wycliffe was a liberal reformer. He thought the church should be stripped of all its wealth and political influence. He wanted religious leadership placed in the hands of "poor priests" who would be bound by no formal creeds. To these ends, he helped produce the first English translation of the New Testament, so common people such as you and I could read the Bible for ourselves. He was persecuted as a heretic.

• The Founding Fathers were liberals. In fact, they were revolutionaries, which is why their war is called the Revolutionary War. Their beliefs in, among other things, free speech, a free press and freedom of religion were truly radical.

• In the mid-1800s, those who wanted to abolish slavery were specifically labeled radicals by their opponents. Conservatives thought the owning of slaves was a God-given right. We fought a civil war over that one.

• Until less than a century ago, evangelical Christianity ranked among the more politically liberal of church movements. Evangelicals championed everything from abolition to free universal education to the fair treatment of Indians -- and for their efforts were dismissed as subversive bleeding hearts.

• Those who promoted women's suffrage were liberals.

• Virtually all the civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 1960s were decried as liberals -- and even as traitors to the American way.

• The people who protested the Vietnam War were liberals.

• In the 1970s, those who thought women should be able to work outside the home and earn wages equal to those paid to men were liberals.

Ad infinitum.

If you love Jesus; if you're blessed to read his words in English; if you enjoy living in a free country where you can preach any fool thing you want to; if you're happy that slavery is illegal; if you've benefited from public schools; if you're relieved that women can vote; if you're glad black people share full rights as citizens; if you're sorry we lost 58,000 men in Vietnam but grateful we didn't lose more; if you think it's fair that one half of the population is eligible to earn as much as the other half -- then thank a liberal.