The left’s unforgivable sin

In the July 16 thread about Obama’s shocking anti-free enterprise speech, I said that he was calling the good, evil. It then occurred to me that this was the very sin that Jesus in the Gospel of Mark said was the worst of all sins. I had been wanting to write about that Gospel passage for a couple of months, but had not gotten around to it, and the discussion of Obama’s speech provided a contemporary context for what I wanted to say.

Since the comment appeared somewhat down in the thread some readers may have missed it, so I am copying it on the main page:

Here, perhaps, is the ultimate sin of leftism in general and of Obama in particular: Obama treats the people who, through their efforts, have created wealth and all sorts of benefits to society, as though they were parasites. In short, he treats good as evil.

And this, according to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, 3:22-30, is the ultimate sin, the sin for which there is no forgiveness.

Throughout the first three chapters of Mark, Jesus has been healing people of sicknesses and of demonic possession. But the scribes think that his power over devils means that he himself is of the devil:

22 And the scribes which came
down from Jerusalem said, He hath
Beelzebub, and by the prince of the
devils casteth he out devils.
23 And he called them unto him,
and said unto them in parables, How
can Satan cast out Satan?
24 And if a kingdom be divided
against itself, that kingdom cannot
stand.
25 And if a house be divided
against itself, that house cannot
stand.
26 And if Satan rise up against
himself, and be divided, he cannot
stand, but hath an end.
27 No man can enter into a strong
man’s house, and spoil his goods,
except he will first bind the
strong man; and then he will spoil
his house.

[LA comments: Meaning, only a good man can bind the devil and rob his house. Only the opposite of evil can defeat evil. And therefore Jesus, by having the power to expel the devil, must be the opposite of the devil.]

28 Verily I say unto you, All sins
shall be forgiven unto the sons of
men, and blasphemies wherewith
soever they shall blaspheme:
29 But he that shall blaspheme
against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but is in danger of
eternal damnation:
30 Because they said, He hath an
unclean spirit.

In the context of this scene, what does it mean, to blaspheme against the Holy Ghost? It means to portray the good as evil. That is what the scribes are doing, portraying Jesus’ great act of good in healing people of demonic possession, as something coming from the devil. And to portray good as evil, Jesus tells them, is such a grave sin that there is no forgiveness for it.

Moreover, this warning that Jesus gives the scribes is so important, that he does something that he does nowhere else in the Gospels: “he called them unto him.” He summons the scribes in order to warn them away from this terrible sin. All of Jesus’ other confrontations with his opponents take place when they approach him and challenge him. In this scene alone does Jesus call his opponents unto him. Why? Because he is concerned for their souls which they are putting in danger by claiming that Jesus, who in reality is doing only good, “hath an unclean spirit.”

And when leftists claim that the producers of the goods from which we all benefit are parasites on society, they are committing, on the secular plane, a similar sin.

And, in the same way, when the left spreads the propaganda that the white West, the most beneficial civilization the world has ever known, is a monstrous brew of anti-human oppression, they are committing the sin that hath no forgiveness.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 18, 2012 01:10 PM | Send