State Rep. Bill Faison, D-Orange, gave an interview to Occupy NC two days ago. During the interview he sought to use the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes to justify an increase in taxes. Here’s what he said (begins at 10:00 of the interview):
“I’m no fan of taxes. I’m really not. But, you know, sometimes you have to use just plain of common sense and do the practical thing. It sort of puts me in mind of the ‘fishes and loaves’ story. I mean, the idea was, a whole bunch of people got together that was [sic] concerned about whether everybody had enough to eat, so they shared their food. And when they shared it, everybody had enough.”
Now, I’m no Billy Graham, but this is not the story of the “fishes and loaves” that I remember from vacation Bible school. As I remember it, Jesus two times in the Bible was speaking to a large group of people some distance from a village where they could get food. Since it was getting late, and people were getting hungry, Jesus, so that people would stay and hear his sermon, both times took a meager amount of loaves and a couple of fish that were available and performed a miracle that allowed that small amount to feed everyone present.
I don’t recall anyone from Occupy Nazareth seeing a whole lot of people and saying, “Some of us are hungry and some of us have lots of food. Let’s share this food so we can all eat.” Faison’s collectivist interpretation of the “fishes and loaves” story is so off base that one wonders if he has ever read the Bible or even heard the story accurately. I guess it’s possible that some left-wing churches in Chapel Hill might have reported it this way, so maybe we should cut Faison some slack.
Or he may just have cynically tried to use his intentionally distorted version of the story for political reasons. That’s always a possibility.
