Billionaire and hardcore Christoid Greg Gianforte
After months of strongly implying it, entrepreneur and conservative political activist Greg Gianforte has announced that he will run for governor of Montana. The last time one of Gianforte’s announcements made the news, he told an audience at Montana Bible College that “the concept of retirement is not biblical.” Quote:
How old was Noah when he built the ark? Six hundred. He wasn’t cashing Social Security checks. He wasn’t hanging out. He was working. So I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical.
That’s the kind of well-intentioned, Protestant work ethic stuff the rest of us regard as completely insane. It’s a shame, because Gianforte’s big idea—to encourage telecommuting to repatriate skilled workers who left Montana for high-paying jobs—is a good one. It’s just that the man who suggested it also donates money to the Family Research Council,1 Focus On the Family, and the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, which argues the Earth is 6000 years old and dinosaurs lived contemporaneously with humans.
Gianforte has done such a good job making his faith a driving force in his public life that he has forced me to buy his good idea as a package deal with his crazy ones. Those of us who eat brunch on Sunday mornings consider that a bug in his campaign, not a feature, but Gianforte seems to believe it’s the thing about him we all love. You can read all about it in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. While you’re at it, think about how much the Gianforte Family Foundation has spent fighting gay rights, and how little it has spent “lifting people out of poverty,” as its mission statement puts it. There’s Christianity and there’s what Christ did, and never the twain shall meet.
