Reagan biographer Lou Cannon noted that this was a suspect quotation, and that he could find no evidence of it. Thomas did say that both major political parties had borrowed items from the Socialist Party platform.
Cannon, Lou. Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. New York: PublicAffairs Books, 2003. ISBN 1-586-48030-8 (p. 125).
Possibly Misattributed
“Kevin Kruse in his book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America details how industrialists in the 1930s and 1940s poured money and resources into an effort to silence the social witness of the mainstream church, which was home to many radicals, socialists and proponents of the New Deal. These corporatists promoted and funded a brand of Christianity—which is today dominant—that conflates faith with free enterprise and American exceptionalism. The rich are rich, this creed goes, not because they are greedy or privileged, not because they use their power to their own advantage, not because they oppress the poor and the vulnerable, but because they are blessed. And if we have enough faith, this heretical form of Christianity claims, God will bless the rest of us too. It is an inversion of the central message of the Gospel. You don’t need to spend three years at Harvard Divinity School as I did to figure that out.”
"The Suicide of the Liberal Church", January 24, 2016 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_suicide_of_the_liberal_church_20160124
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Chris Hedges 81
American journalist 1956Related quotes
The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)
Michael J. Chapman and Senator Michele Bachmann, "How New U.S. Policy Embraces a State-Planned Economy" (2001)
2000s
Variant: [W]hat I like best is staying home and reading. Being rich is not about how many homes you own. It’s the freedom to pick up any book you want without looking at the price and wondering whether you can afford it.
Source: Role Models
What is Art? (1897)
Context: In the upper, rich, more educated classes of European society doubt arose as to the truth of that understanding of life which was expressed by Church Christianity. When, after the Crusades and the maximum development of papal power and its abuses, people of the rich classes became acquainted with the wisdom of the classics and saw, on the one hand, the reasonable lucidity of the teachings of the ancient sages, and on the other hand, the incompatibility of the Church doctrine with the teaching of Christ, they found it impossible to continue to believe the Church teaching.
Speech to a Hindu gathering, 26 March 2005 http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2005/March/03-28-02.htm.
2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)
The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)
Source: God of the Oppressed (1975, 1997), p. 128 (1975 edition)