If you want an example of the problems of applying a 2,000-3,000-year-old text to modern life, look no further than Alabama State Senator Shadrack McGill.
Alana Horowitz with the Huffington Post reports:
“Teachers need to make the money that they need to make,” McGill said, according to the Times-Journal. “If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach … and these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ’em.”
McGill’s comments came at a prayer breakfast this week in Fort Payne, Ala.
The best part? The Times-Journal’s David Clemons writes that the quote in question came up while being questioned about the 62% pay raise lawmakers received in 2007.
Of course, this all sort of makes sense when you realize what the guy thinks teaching entails:
“To go in and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?”
Let me just clear something up for you, Senator Shadrack –- you are confusing your teachers with your babysitters, and they are two very different things. Teachers are highly qualified, educated individuals who are trained to deliver educational concepts in engaging and meaningful ways as well as the behavioral modification needed to deliver such concepts to upwards of 30 children and teenagers in a single classroom. Even babysitters and professionals in ECE are not really responsible for “raising” someone’s child; if you have children, Senator, I think you may have passed off a pretty important part of your job to entirely the wrong people.
Additionally, I know of a couple of “Biblical principles” which might conflict with your ideology. There was allegedly this guy named Jesus, and he didn’t have much patience for the kind of people who get 62% raises.
In Matthew 19:24, the oft-cited verse says:
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Perhaps this would be easier to understand if I take some liberties with your original statement?
“Politicians need to make the money that they need to make. If you double a politician’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to pander… and these politicians that are called to pander, regardless of the pay scale, they would pander. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ’em.”
God must be real; it’s the only explanation for such supernatural levels of cognitive dissonance.