Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN), representing Tennessee’s 8th congressional district.

Amidst the heartwarming congressional debate over just how deeply Jesus wants food stamps to be cut, one man stands out in a way that if he were a Demoncrat, Republicans would be ghazi-ing him nightly: Tennessee Bible-humper Stephen Fincher, an obscure Tennessee backbencher who seeks to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka “food stamps”.

While the Senate passed a farm bill that did as little damage as possible to SNAP, while still aiding farmers, “the House” took a wrecking ball to it. As House members discussed slashing the budget for the Farm Bill, which funds SNAP, Stephen Fincher  took umbrage with some Democrats, who cited Jesus Christ’s call to care for “the least of these” when describing the government’s need to assist the hungry.

Instead, Fincher argued against feeding the hungry by quoting by quoting Jesus’s message of love and indifference in Bible verse – 2 Thessalonians 3:10:

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

(“the poor will always be with us, and they will always be lazy takers and we hates them, we do.”)

2 Thessalonians is a convenient tool for those who want to justify fucking over the poor. As many religious bloggers have pointed out,  2 Thessalonians was actually referring to ancient Christians who had stopped working in anticipation of Jesus’ Second Coming. The verse is concerned with correcting a theological misunderstanding (i.e., don’t just wait around for Jesus, live an active faith), NOT CASTING ASPERSIONS ON THE POOR. The words that Fincher bastardizes are about how certain Christians stopped working because of the imminence of the Second Coming….which was not imminent at all.  [click to continue…]