Blind Religious Guides

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

"Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."--Matthew 15:14

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a popular man with media elites and big time celebrities. Like his large constituency, Boteach tells them what they want to hear.

Last week, after the tragic massacre that occurred on Dec. 14, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct. some conservative Christians strongly suggested that America's increasingly depraved culture was to blame for the carnage. According to the conservative leaders, Adam Lanza, the crazed gunman who mowed down 20 children and six adults that day at the school before he took his own life, was the product of a secular, nihilistic culture that glorifies violence, rejects God and lives by its own relativistic rules.

That analysis didn't sit well with the rabbi who used his large bully pulpit to blast the conservatives as out of touch with reality. One particular conservative Christian named Bryan Fischer especially drew Boteach's wrath:  “Let’s be clear,” Boteach said. “Not only is he [Bryan Fischer] wrong that we kicked God out of our lives, the United States and the American people are the most righteous people in the world.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/19/rabbi-slams-christian-rights-reaction-to-newtown-as-the-ultimate-statement-of-heresy/

Then, amazingly, Boteach went on to offer examples of war bravery and the "presence" of God on our money as proof that America is a righteous and virtuous nation: “We have spent endless blood and treasure to defend complete strangers, women from being beaten up by the Taliban. Our soldiers died for those people. God is on our money. We give more charity than any nation on earth. We deserve better. I am tired of people maligning the American people and saying we deserve to suffer, we've kicked God out. This is the most religious country in the western world."

Boteach did get one thing right; America is the most religious nation in the western world. But religion and faith are two completely different things. Religions are nothing but manufactured man-made belief systems that separate men and women from God. True faith is different. It trusts completely in the historic, prophetic evidence of God's revelatory word in the Bible rather than in the vain traditions of men that Boteach and his cohorts trust in.

Boteach claims that we are to "hold God accountable" for tragedies such as Sandy Hook. I'd like to call Boteach an idiot, but my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ warned us not to apply such monikers to our brothers and sisters. (Matthew 5:22) So instead, I'll just say that he's badly misguided and misinformed.

It wasn't God's fault that Adam Lanza committed mass murder. And it isn't God's fault for all the other mass murders that have occurred throughout history going all the way back to the first murder in history when Cain murdered his brother Abel. (Genesis 4) The fault belongs to man who has turned his back on God and spurned His laws and commandments. And yet despite man's rebellion that deserves eternal death and damnation, "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Boteach doesn't recognize that. Nor does he recognize that we've indeed kicked God out of our culture. And in doing so, we're reaping what we've sown; the rotten fruit of the rotten seeds of amoral secular humanism that hides behind a mask of dead and powerless religion.

And so rabbi, what really prevents tragedies such as Sandy Hook is the fear of God and the knowledge that we're all morally accountable to Him for our thoughts, actions and words here on earth. Had Adam Lanza understood that, the Sandy Hook massacre would never have occurred. You might want to think about that rabbi, before you go pointing fingers at those who still fear God and believe in His word.