President Obama and Jane Austen Both Occupy The Bible

Not long ago, I wrote the latest two in a long, sporadic series of posts about Jane Austen's covert allusions to the Bible....

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/01/mr-bennets-judgments-and-king-solomon.html

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/01/second-allusion-to-very-famous-biblical.html

...in which I claimed that Jane Austen expressed her own idiosyncratic Christianity (which would today be pigeonholed as leftwing and populist), in defiance of the mainstream Anglican Church doctrines of her era, which were all about protecting and justifying the rich and powerful against the poor and powerless. In her day there was even more of a 99%:1% split in society than there is today.

And I also posted shortly after the above....

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/01/occupy-wall-street-tahrir-square-and.html

....about Jane Austen having an "Occupy Wall Street" mentality vis a vis the way that one part of her family abused its power vis a vis the other (she and her sister and mother being the latter, abused part).

Now today, thinking about President Obama's recent speech at the National Prayer Breakfast....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-prayer-breakfast-obama-says-christian-faith-guides-his-policies/2012/02/02/gIQAzNyakQ_story.html

.....I realized what a strong synchronicity there was between the President's reclaiming of the moral authority from the jealous and primitive grasp of the Far Right, who pervert the teachings of Jesus on a daily basis in THEIR defense of the rich and powerful in 2012, and Jane Austen's covert reclamation of the Bible in her day against the same sort of reactionary, abusive powers.

And I personally take it one step further. I am not a believer in God, but that does not bar me from reclaiming my fair share of the ethical heritage of my Jewish origins, and doing my small part to echo President Obama in letting people know that there are more ways of interpreting the Bible than the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich would like you to believe.

And I do believe Jane Austen would be nodding approvingly.

Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter