Posted on 10/17/2003 8:27:17 AM PDT by UnklGene
The Nonreligious Left
Why do they fear the religious right?
BY DANIEL HENNINGER Friday, October 17, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
PLANO, Texas--Soon after its decision in Lawrence on private sexual acts between consenting adults of the same gender, the Supreme Court this week decided that next year its bucketful of gasoline for the eternal flames of America's "culture wars" will be to decide the constitutionality of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Generally, the culture wars are thought to pit extreme believers on the "religious right," living primarily in the Southern states, against sophisticates in the urban North and far West. In the North, where people get their information about life in the South mainly through a TV screen, the "religious right" came to life mainly as images of televangelists, such as Jimmy Swaggart, pourin' sweat and beggin' forgiveness, or Tammy Faye Bakker, mascara rivering down her face for similar reasons.
My first up-close contact with the tensions of the culture wars came in 1992 at the Republican convention in Houston, waiting in a large auditorium with several thousand "pro-life, pro-family" religious activists to hear Dan Quayle. What struck me is how far removed these people seemed from the Bible-whacking, shotgun-rack stereotype. Standing around in conversation, they seemed to be mostly educated, 30-something, Texas suburbanites who worked in the technology sector and worried about running their kids' sports leagues. They really loved Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's running mate, and were mocked mercilessly, in public and private, by the out-of-town press corps.
The Robertson-Falwell tent show has faded, but it remains a given in our politics that something called the Christian right now aligns with the Republicans, and that President Bush is a co-dependent. With the presidential election upon us, it seemed a good time to revisit the "religious right," and so I ventured from Manhattan to the belly of the beast, or one of the bellies--Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. The congregation numbers 22,000, and Prestonwood's pastor is the Rev. Jack Graham, who is also president of the almost 20-million member Southern Baptist Convention, a font of anxiety for orthodox liberals.
I showed up on a Tuesday for Prestonwood's weekly noontime Power Lunch, driving into a parking lot big as a Wal-Mart's and with almost as many cars. The speaker was the general manager of the Orlando Magic basketball team, Pat Williams. About 600 people were there. I loved Pat Williams' message: To better yourself, turn off the TV and read more books. After spending some time at Prestonwood Baptist, one wondered just what it is that so vexes the critics of these evangelical Christians. Whatever their attachment to Jesus and his New Testament message, they seem more than anything to be deeply in the world. Prestonwood's many outreach ministries include prisoners and their families, troubled teens, woman-to-woman counseling, literacy, immigrant outreach, the newly unemployed, pregnant single women, Dallas's urban poor.
Surely many political liberals would recognize that within these ministries reside earthly goals common to their own, no matter that the lay ministers offer succor from the Bible. But recent research suggests that the evangelical Christians' religiosity alone almost entirely explains why the "religious right" remains a phrase of political division.
In last fall's Public Interest quarterly, political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio of Baruch College at the City University of New York argued in "Our Secularist Democratic Party" that the clearest indicator of party affiliation and voting patterns now is whether one is churched or unchurched, believer or agnostic.
There isn't space to do justice to the detail in their article, drawn from sources such as national election surveys at the University of Michigan or the Convention Delegate Surveys done from 1972 to 1992. The text is available at thepublicinterest.com. It owes much to a 2001 book by Vanderbilt political scientist Geoffrey Layman called "The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics" (Columbia University Press).
Democratic secularists are defined as agnostics, atheists or people who rarely attend church, if ever. According to the national convention delegate surveys, write Messrs. Bolce and De Maio, "60% of first-time white delegates at the [1992] Democratic convention in New York City either claimed no attachment to religion or displayed the minimal attachment by attending worship services 'a few times a year' or less. About 5% of first-time delegates at the Republican convention in Houston identified themselves as secularists."
In the 1992 election, Bill Clinton got 75% of the secularist vote, while the current President's father received support from traditionalists (churchgoers) by 2 to 1. That pattern held in the 2000 election. "In terms of their size and party loyalty," Messrs. Bolce and De Maio argue, "secularists today are as important to the Democratic party as another key constituency, organized labor."
In turn this single self-definition tracks political belief across the entire battlefield of the culture wars--abortion, sexuality, prayer in the schools, judicial nominations. Interesting as that is, what intrigues me more as simple politics is how a Howard Dean, John Kerry or Joe Lieberman can feed these creedal beliefs of the "un-religious left" without in time coming themselves to be known as leaders of the party of non-belief? Or hypocrites. It's a hard river to cross.
In an interview, Prestonwood pastor and SBC president Jack Graham said he expects evangelicals to go to the polls for Mr. Bush "in record numbers." "Our people didn't quite know George Bush in the last election, but they do now." Led through a list of voting issues for evangelicals, the Rev. Graham cites one above all: "that we have people of character in the White House." All this calls to mind the severe criticism George Bush received early in his presidency when he proposed "faith-based initiatives." The hyper-heated reaction seemed startling at the time, but in retrospect one has to wonder if it didn't indeed reflect that for increasing numbers of the Democratic faithful, the one faith-based initiative they believe in above all today is that they don't believe.
Ten commandments?
Threat to perverse lifestyles?
Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, Jim Baker and Tammy Faye. Unbridled religous faith mixed with unlimited political power have never been a good mix. A lot of religous zealots have given up independant thought, because it's simply easier to have someone else tell you what to think (Rev. Jimmy Jones, Heaven's Gate, Sun-yung Moon - Jesse Jackson). A lot of religous and non-religous people want ANY church kept out of the gov't. As recent (and plentiful) events have revealed, power corrupts; even churches are not imune.
Furthermore: the phrase "under God" is not at all in contravention of the First Amendment since the phrase -nor the Pledge itself- is not a piece of legislation. The Pledge is simply an oath of affirmation which is not manditory to recite. Also: the notion of God is not just a religious concept.
Why do even the non-religious right fear the religious right? There are two main powers in society: religious and political. That the two are separated in our society is a reason for our continued freedom and/or our continued religiousness. I cannot think of one instance where the combination of the two hasn't resulted in one of these two things:
The RR shouldn't mess with government, and especially not take anything from them. A nice example is your tax exempt status. Cool, isn't it? But by taking that apple, you gave up any right to do various things, like political campaigning. What strings will show up later after your church starts taking that money for social services?
"If you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change, he changes you."
The problem with this thinking is that one could replace all your above examples with their secular/socialist counterparts and make the exact same point on the other side. That's why they call it a "culture war." Each side expresses "faith" and a pervasive belief in doctrine, not to mention many willing to "tell you what to think." We must keep the "church" of the "religious right" out of government, yet the stealthy and alligned leaders (and church's) of secular humanism, socialism, and headonism are to be praised as worthy of creating the values and moral vision for our nation. I will take my chances that the moral "effect" that the religious right has on our nation will leave us in a much better place in the end than if the church "faithful" withdrew from the public debate. I believe our Constitution was more concerned with our government staying out of the church than the chruch staying out of the government. Establishment of religion is against the law for our goverment. Participation of the religious in government, on the other hand, is a duty and a right of every believer.
Absolutely, I think everyone has a vested interest to participate in our gov't. However, the 'church' as such needs to be kept seperate. Can you imagine the conflict within any group, or among others (Lutherns, Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Scientologists, Mormons, Jewish, Wiccans, Buddists, Muslums, Shiites or others) if a religous group gained control, and could dictate govermental policy over the rest? Heck, the individual churches have, upon occassion, come to blows amongst themselves.
When you can eliminate the Bible then everything is fine and dandy. No harm/no foul churches. No sin/no consequences afterlife. Eternity and the afterlife is what they say it is because everything else, Bible, Christians, Religious Right, etc. have been made irrelevant.
Yikes! Shirley, you jest.
Where the heck are you going? LOL
Jim Baker ???? Tammy Fay Baker????
Pray do tell, what would make anyone fear them?
The 80's religious right ...... ?
Slow down a bit. Re-read the question.
Next thing we hear will be the government will be making us go to church.
All of which put together didn't result in the death toll exacted by atheistic communist states in any given month during the 20's, 30's, 40's, or 50's of the last century.
Secularists trot out historical events of three and four centuries ago, and quotations from people like Voltaire ("more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other cause").
Christians need only to turn to the Ukrainian terror famine of the early Thirties (20 million starved to death by government order) and the Chinese Great Leap Forward of the late Fifties (58 million starved to death as a result of government policy) to show they, the Christians, are mere pikers at causing human misery compared to a modern government in the hands of the aggressive haters of religion.
The Gay Crusade !! ..an army of perverts.
How does a "church" gain control in representative government? And how do you propose to "keep" them separate? Do you keep them from influence? Do you keep unions from influence? Groups only have power through whatever influence they can muster, which is their 1st amendment right. I guess I don't understand what point you are making here. We have a secular goverment yet we are overwhelmingly a Christian nation. Whatever problems the church body might have at a given point in time, it still provides the moral compass that steers our nation, and has from the onset. The non-religious left discussed in this article wants to change that. Not sure what side of the fence you are on here.
And no one is suggesting that you be kept out. However, when church policy becomes governmental; don't expect to be unopposed.
Ah ha ....... That's what he meant.
This fear does not exist. It is a fabrication of the religious who would have the perfect religious state with everyone following their dogma. It is merely a matter of freedom. I'm sure you wouldn't want to get arrested for violating the Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday evening) if the orthodox Jews managed to get that law passed.
This is also one of my problems with enshrining the the Ten Commandments as law -- which version? Do we still have to keep the Sabbath holy? If you're an American Hindu, does the first commandment apply? How about we just use Christ's Six Commandments? Those are good for anyone, regardless of belief.
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