Letter: Hillary makes poor theologian

Published 4:42 pm Saturday, May 3, 2014

By Pastor Randy Fossum

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Austin

Perhaps Hillary Clinton should focus her attention on answering the questions that remain about the Benghazi incident of which she probably knows more about rather than trying to expound on Scripture of which she seems to know little.

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Recently she spoke at the quadrennial United Methodist Women’s Assembly, where 7,000 women gathered for three days of teaching, singing and service. The AP reported that Clinton said she struggled as a young woman between her father’s insistence on self-reliance and her mother’s concern for compassion. She reconciled those in the Biblical story of Jesus instructing his disciples to feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. “The disciples come to Jesus and suggest they send away the people to find food to fend for themselves. But Jesus said, `No. You feed them,'” Clinton said. “He was teaching a lesson about the responsibility we all share.”

Ah…. no He wasn’t. The Savior by suggesting that the disciples were to feed the thousands with the five loaves of bread and the two fish was intended for them to see the futility of looking to themselves for the answer to the problem that was before them and to look to Jesus who is the source of their daily bread.

As poor a theologian that Hillary is, it’s far worse when a Lutheran pastor in a weekly radio program suggested that in the feeding of the 5,000 that a miracle did not take place but rather it was likely that everyone brought some food, a church potluck if you will, minus the tuna fish casserole and lime Jell-O salad, I’m sure.

All this goes to show that politicians and the religious folk continue, as we were reminded during Holy Week, to crucify Christ by attacking His Word.