who are the modern day money changers?

[Gato Moteado]

the money changers...the people that jesus booted from the temple...who are their equivalents in todays world?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. That's easy: The Federal Reserve Bank and the World Bank.

They control how poor all of us have been, are, and will be.

[blogslut]

2. The list is long

But off the top of my head:

Falwell
Dobson
Roberts
Hagee
Osteen

...

[elehhhhna]

3. The Carlyle Group, and to a lesser extent, Halliburton. DING DING I WIN.

The Moneychangers story --

Several hundred years after prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos,
and Hosea had denounced the sacrificial slaughter of animals,
Jesus carried out what is euphemistically called the Cleansing of
the Temple. It was just before Passover and he disrupted the
buying and selling of animals that were being purchased for
slaughter. (See article, "The Slaughter of The Innocent, this
website.) And because Christian scholars and religious leaders
continue to ignore biblical denunciations of that bloody worship,
they also try to obscure the reason for Christ's assault on the
system.

They have done this by focusing on the moneychangers, although
they were only minor players in the drama that took place. It was
the cult of sacrifice that Jesus tried to dismantle, not the
system of monetary exchange. In all three gospel accounts of the
event, those who provided the animals for sacrifice are mentioned
first: they were the primary focus of Christ's outrage.

The Gospel of John gives the most detailed account of the event.
"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up
to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle,
sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So
he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the Temple, both
sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said:
'Get out of here.'(John 2:13-16)

Matthew's gospel does not detail the kind of animals that were
being sold for slaughter, but it gives the same order of events.
"Jesus entered the Temple area and drove out all who were buying
and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers
and the benches of those selling doves. 'It is written,' he said
to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer but you are
making it a den of robbers.'" (Matthew 21:12-13)

http://www.all-creatures.org/hr/hra-money.htm

[I_Make_Mistakes]

5. Please don't forget the Corporate CEO's and Board Members!

[porphyrian]

4. Pretty much anyone selling Jesus on television.

The production costs for a single show could feed more hungry than people that watch that bullshit.

[elehhhhna]

6. I think that depends more on who the tv preacher is, really ---

99% of them are showboating predators & failed actors.

At least Jim & Tammy sold timeshares. For this, Jim Bakker went to jail. Falwell orchestrated the whole thing.

On the other hand, TV preachers DO serve a vast audience, and expose millions of us to ideas we may not hear elsewhere.

My brother&sister-in-law used to have Jim & Tammy PARTIES on Friday nights--the show came on around 10--back in the early 80's (shout out to Schaumburg, Illinois!) It was so inadvertently funny & high-camp that we became cultish slaves to it.

Here's the thing--all that preaching actually got to us. Tammy Faye, all riled up, delivering her special seminar to female prison inmates, was shockingly "real". She MEANT it. They GOT it. Hell, I got it.

Since then I've become a connoisseur of TV Preaching--Benny Hinn, Robert Tilton, the tongue-speakin' Dallas preacher,( I SWEAR the "tongue he spoke in was Polish--every other word sounded like "Kielbasa") Jan with the pink hair (!), etc.

IMO, the only goodies out there today are Joyce Meyer and MAYBE Joel Osteen. Maybe.

[porphyrian]

7. I don't agree. Jesus would ALWAYS spend that money helping people instead.

Anyone who claims to be a Christian leader should find spending thousands of dollars (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and up, depending) on a television production while people are starving and homeless in the world utterly reprehensible. It's not like you have to reach very far to find the poor.