We will use the unfortunate foray into his den by candidate for Texas House District 129, Mary Huls. I happened to notice a Facebook entry by her shortly after her “experience” with Mr. Lowry and she seemed befuddled that he would treat her so poorly. Here is the result of her “interview”:
{mp3}mary-huls_terry-lowry_100205MH{/mp3}
Note, that link might not work, he is redoing his website and has experienced some problems. If it doesn’t, I have it saved and will stream it from here.
Not easy to listen to, is it? I asked her what she expected, given his reputation and the fact that the incumbent, Rep. John Davis, has given her over $15,000 through the years. She didn’t know about his reputation and she didn’t know about Rep. Davis’ purchases. I need to work harder.
At any rate, I’ll point out a few things. First off, in a segment lasting 10 minutes and 38 seconds, Mrs. Huls gets about a minute and a half to speak, if you don’t count the times he’s speaking over her. Fun stuff listening to his theories.
Another thing is the way he berates her for not hiring a consultant, you know, someone like him or someone that would point her to him. He tells her that she just doesn’t have a clue. Listen for yourself, it’s only a few seconds:
{mp3}lowry_huls_no-clue{/mp3}
What a guy, no?
The third thing is his mis-use of the Bible. I’ve noticed that one of his favorite things to say when he is berating people is “My Bible says to count the costs.”, by which he means if you don’t have enough money to pay him, or someone like him, you shouldn’t bother trying. What a complete corruption of a beautiful passage of Scripture.
Warning: Non-Christians, you can tune out here. Anyone else that feels like it, you can too.
Listen to this:
{mp3}lowry_huls_cost2{/mp3}
It is important when quoting the Bible that you use proper context. Extremely important; we’ve all seen or heard what happens when you don’t. In this case, Mr. Lowry is taking a small snippet from a passage in Luke that, in the proper context, discusses the cost of following Christ. It has nothing to do with building a house, or a watchtower, and certainly not entering a political race. Here is the passage, Luke 14:24-33:
Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t sit down first and compute the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish the tower, all who see it will begin to make fun of him. They will say, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish!’ Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot succeed, he will send a representative while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace. In the same way therefore not one of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all his own possessions.
To a Christian, that is a completely understandable passage because we understand the cost of following Christ. And we’ve all seen people that say they will follow Him until they see how hard it is and return to the old way of condemning people that are “different” and outside of the cultural norm.
It is seriously wrong for Mr. Lowry to use Christ’s words in such a bullying way. He makes the same errors when condemning homosexuals, alcoholics, smokers, bad drivers, illegal immigrants, etc., basically anyone he doesn’t like. Take a little snippet and bang people upside the head with it, pretending to be some sort of Biblical guru. That is why it is critical for a Christian to read your Bible – without that knowledge, you are easily led astray.
That is why I treat him differently than the other “slate” sellers in town.
Here we have a candidate that isn’t rich and must rely on her own hard work. In addition, she has to work to support her family, meaning she is up every morning at 4 am and hopes to be in bed by midnight, never stopping during the day. Attack her policies all you want but attacking her simply because she didn’t pay you…is wrong.