Townhall columnist Doug Giles yesterday reprinted an obscene column he originally wrote in 2004.  It’s entitled "A Christian Can Be A Christian Or A Liberal, But He Can’t Be Both".  It begins this way:

Can a Christian be a liberal? Short answer: no. There is no way a Christian can buy into neo-liberal ideology and be faithful to the bigger-than-Dallas teachings of the scripture and expect to continue enjoying his hard-won religious liberties.

For the "Christian" to lean politically to the left means that he must blow off huge chunks of the Bible and replace the scripture with the make-believe notions of postmodernism’s malleable "Christ." Only after torturing the scripture can the Christian then fit liberalism into his supposed relationship with God.

For the Christian who believes that unfeigned faith in Christ should correspond with Jesus’ high view of scripture, it is impossible to believe in God and be an adherent to postmodern liberalism.

There’s so much to say about this.

But let’s start small:  What the hell does "bigger than Dallas teachings of the scripture" mean?

Also, it is interesting to note that Doug fails to cite ANY of the "huge chunks of the Bible" that liberal Christians "blow off".  He doesn’t even quote scripture at all.  That alone should be telling.

I’m not the most well-versed in the Bible, but off the top of my head, I can think of many passages and biblical tenets that conservatives routinely ignore.

Compare, for example, Bush’s tax policy (tax cuts going primarily to the wealthy) and Matthew 19:24 ("And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” )

In fact, in order to buy into conservative politics, you pretty much have to throw out the entire Sermon on the Mount ("Blessed are the peacemakers", etc.)

Giles’ entire column creates a strawman of nonsense, suggesting (for example) that "liberals" are engaging in "public attacks on churches".  Really?  Where? 

The notion that someone cannot be a Christian and a liberal is simply contrary to history and current events.  What was the name of that guy who spoke out against the Iraqi War?  Oh, yeah.  Pope John Paul II.  I believe he was a Christian.  Who spoke eloquently about racial harmony and diversity in this country?  Um, whats-his-name.  The Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King.  A Christian, too, yes?

Compare these men with Doug Giles himself.  Witness, for example Giles’ Jesus-like approach to the issue of immigration:

Now, having said that, let me address mi amigos that want to move into our amazing Land-O-Plenty:  Would you mind immigrating legally and learning English?  Because, you see, our legal citizens are getting increasingly fed up with your criminal relocation dreams.  That’s right.  Our American buddies on the Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas borders are especially sick of . . .

• Having their land trashed like a hotel room after Motley Crew spent the weekend there.  [One Indian Reservation picks up trash to the tune of six tons a day.  Would you please stop that?  It’s rude, and it’s threatening the existence of a certain lizard and the Sonoran Pronghorn antelope.  Thanks.]• Having their ranches’ fencing routinely cut and vandalized.
• Having to pick up your pill bottles, used needles and syringes.
• Having to find the half eaten remains of their pets left from one of your impromptu BBQ’s.
• Having their homes burglarized.
• Having their daughters raped.
• Having their vehicles stolen.
• Having their property value plummet.
• Having their sedate streets become unsafe requiring their children to be placed under lock and key after sunset.
• Having to pick up and discard Muslim prayer rugs and literature strafed about the place.  [BTW . . . when did so many Catholic Mexicans convert to Islam?  I didn’t get that brief.  Would you explain that to me?] 
• Having the arduous and unpleasant chore of scraping human feces off their front lawns in the morning.

Call us Americans fastidious, but we no likey the aforementioned; and the above is not causing us to take a shining to your desires to resettle here.

I guess in Doug’s world, Jesus was a pea-brained bigot who bathed in stereotypes and lies.

But we know Doug’s type, don’t we?  The Bible sure does:

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;

Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

(Tit 1:10-16 KJVA)

Ladies and gentlemen, Doug Giles.