The Difference Between Spiritual and Religious, Or, The Democrats’ Dilemma [RABBI LAPIN ALERT]

Toward Tradition (email) ^ | Nov. 30, 2005 | Daniel Lapin

[Alouette]

What do you do if you are devoted to the Democratic Party which has spent years defining itself as the party of secularism, and you suddenly discover that Americans are becoming more religious? Answer: you learn how to sound spiritual.

America’s third great religious awakening, about which I started writing ten years ago, is well under way. Magazines like Business Week, Fortune, and Forbes have all carried articles speculating on the growing buying power of America’s Evangelicals. Yes, Henry, they really do spend over seven billion dollars a year just on religious articles. Time recently ran a cover story about the country’s twenty-five most powerful Evangelicals. Some of them were Catholics, but who cares. The important thing is that they are very powerful. And very religious. And very conservative too.

December 9th will see the opening of Disney’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s Christian classic, The Chronicles of Narnia. Before filming began, Disney checked the religious symbolism with Lewis’s stepson to make sure the movie didn’t portray anything un-Christian. Gosh, even the ABC television hit, Desperate Housewives, features a character who seems to be returning to his religious Catholic roots. And then there was the unanticipated impact of Mel Gibson’s The Passion.

The market place is a pretty good place in which to spot trends, and business clearly has spotted this one. Christianity, after decades of disrespect, is back. Christians can now come out of the catacombs. They are finally on the front edge of the wave. It is now chic to be a Bible-believing Christian or Jew.

But what do you do if you’re not in business? What if you are a Democratic politician trying to figure out how to run for president in 2008? You have a problem.

Americans are rejecting the secularism of the left. That secularism gave us abortions by the millions and this has started making many Americans, including the daughters of the women who marched for Roe v. Wade, a little squeamish to say the least. That secularism gave us deteriorating downtowns where so-called compassion for drunks defecating in doorways trumps concern for tax-paying citizens.

The Democrats can no longer hide. Too many Americans know, or have come to suspect that policies rooted in secular doctrine have brought us to a place we no longer recognize and certainly don’t like. In spite of hysterical outbursts from the high priests of secularism, too frequently self-anointed Jewish leaders, Americans are rejecting the lie that fervent Christianity is the problem. This rabbi, along with most Americans, knows it to be the solution to America’s growing problems.

So what is an ambitious Democratic politician to do these days? The answer is easy. Talk spiritual and with any luck, enough Americans to elect you will be bamboozled into believing you are sounding religious.

Let me offer some specific tips for any such ambitious Democratic candidate. For a start, talk about how “family values” really means:

• Providing health care to every child and that God cares about the 12 million children without health insurance.
• Valuing a child with diabetes over a frozen embryo in a fertility clinic.
• Viewing the teaching of science as a primary social good.
• Reserving the right for each person to prayerfully make decisions for herself about when she dies.
• Believing in legal protection for gay couples. Say that you understand those who believe that the Bible opposes gay marriage, but explain that you read that text differently. (Just how many interpretations for ‘abomination’ are there? But I digress.)

Add, in solemn tones, that Jesus healed the sick, so he might have some concern for those 45 million Americans without insurance; he was not a hater, so would surely not join in demonizing gays; and he spoke constantly of the poor and the marginalized. Sound really confident when you lie that the Bible has more to say about caring for the poor than about eradicating sexual sin. Don’t worry; nobody will challenge you on this whopper.

Now here is something important. You can help destroy traditional religious morality as long as you sound spiritual. Point out piously that we should not tell our kids that sex before marriage is forbidden. Explain that since many of them will not marry for years after the onset of puberty, it is unreasonable to suggest that this traditional standard should be maintained. Still, stress that the ethical principles that apply inside marriage apply outside of marriage as well.

Finally, use the natural disasters to attack faith-based initiatives. Denounce the Bush administration for exploiting the success of religion to further fund churches and synagogues. Put it this way: The lesson of Katrina is that social service is the job of government.

See what I mean? It is quite easy to sound religious while actually being merely spiritual. That way, you can continue furthering the goals of your Democratic Party and avoid alienating the growing number of us who take Biblical religion very seriously.

And talking of taking religion seriously, I have a confession to make: I plagiarized all the examples of spiritual-talk above. With only minor editing for space purposes, I lifted them entirely from the sermon given on November 19th, 2005 in Houston, by the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the organization often referred to only half in humor as the circumcised wing of the Democratic Party.

[Alouette]

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[Tax-chick]

See what I mean? It is quite easy to sound religious while actually being merely spiritual idolatrous.

The Rabbi's phrasing might be misunderstood :-).

[JohnLongIsland]

i believe that our good friend rabbi lapin has snuck into the RATS locker room and has stolen their playbook in regards to their attitude towards religion.
hildabeast, the cape cod orca, and the rapist have been using these ideas for years.
it is really hard these days to reconcile democrat party and religion, they are beliefs that are two poles apart.

[The Worthless Miracle]

Just how many interpretations for ‘abomination'

Do we REALLY want to go down that road? There's a strong Biblical argument that Christmas trees are against the Bible...

Jeremiah 10:2 KJV Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3* For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4* They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

I suppose there are other interpretations?

[qam1]

America’s third great religious awakening, about which I started writing ten years ago, is well under way.

In what America does this guy live in? In the last 10 years the number of non-religious people doubled (14 mil to 29 mil) while those calling themselves Christian declined by nearly 10% and by their own numbers 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return.

That secularism gave us abortions by the millions and this has started making many Americans, including the daughters of the women who marched for Roe v. Wade, a little squeamish to say the least.

Ummm no. All the Supreme Court Justices as well as the Presidents and Senators who put them in where in fact Christians, and so are the women who've had the majority of abortions

[Tax-chick]

I'm not sure what your point is. Canaanite religion used trees as a symbol of their deities and a site for fertility rites. So did pagan Germanic religion, from which we draw the tradition of the Christmas tree. I'm sympathetic with those who don't have Christmas trees because of this connection; we didn't have one, the year I read "The Iron Hand of Mars," and the fact the we get one as a rule is my German husband's decision.

However, unless we're performing Nordic fertility rites around the Christmas tree, it's just a nuisance, not an idol.

[Salem]

Rabbi Lapin 'Bump!'

I really, really, like this man.

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[Yaakov The Orator]

Did you even read the article? It's about the pride and power, not numbers. Do you think Jews gained religious pride by numbers?

[Salem]

There are many polls with many conclusions. I happen to agree with Lapin's assertions. So does the Barna Group. Just depends on where you are lookin', I suppose.

[Always A Marine]

In what America does this guy live in? In the last 10 years the number of non-religious people doubled (14 mil to 29 mil) while those calling themselves Christian declined by nearly 10% and by their own numbers 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return.

By definition, religious awakenings arise out of religious slumber, which you aptly identify. Rabbi Lappin may be right or wrong about the timing, but awakenings usually follow when it looks like things just can't get any worse. God will turn up the heat until we pay attention to him...

[hocndoc]

You've proven the Rabbi's point: The definition of "secularization" is that the actions come to resemble non-religious, rather than religious. Regardless of the nominal religious status.

The heart of secularization is this example from Pennsylvania vs. Casey, 1993:
""At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.""

[AnAmericanMother]

Yes, if you go to Biblegateway.com and compare with Young's Literal Translation (and read the entire chapter), you'll see they're talking about carving a wooden idol out of a tree taken from the forest, gilding it, and fixing it up to worship.

Jeremiah had no idea that there were people living up in the forests of Germania who worshipped living trees (assuming they were there at that time, having migrated from points further east). St. Boniface started the idea of the evergreen trees (the Germans didn't worship evergreens but large oaks.) And the custom of cutting one down and bringing it into the house and putting ornaments on it is really a Victorian one . . . originally the trees only had candles on them anyhow.

So I'd put this one down to coincidence and a murky translation by King James's committee (worthy a group of scholars as they were!)

[AnAmericanMother]

Relax, the Germans worshipped the Oak tree (like the Celts). According to legend, St. Boniface instituted the idea of using a fir tree as "the Christ Child's tree" because when he cut down a sacred oak tree (just to show the Germans that he wouldn't be struck dead when he did it) the oak tree crushed all the trees it fell on except a little fir tree. St. Boniface seized the moment and declared that "the Christ Child's tree."

[qam1]

You've proven the Rabbi's point: The definition of "secularization" is that the actions come to resemble non-religious, rather than religious. Regardless of the nominal religious status.

I'm hearing bagpipes on that one

But by that definition of "secularization" Christians are more secular than Atheist

[qam1]

There are many polls with many conclusions. I happen to agree with Lapin's assertions. So does the Barna Group. Just depends on where you are lookin', I suppose.

The studies done by Barna match the other studies

One in Three Adults Is Unchurched

Number of Unchurched Adults Has Nearly Doubled Since 1991

Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in Christian Churches

[hocndoc]

How could an atheist's life be secularized? The criticism of secularization is the movement from a recognizable religious lifestyle or set of cultural markers to a religious/atheist "neutral" style, until the religious is less and less visible.

[NoCmpromiz]

ping

[ClaireSolt]

It is pretty hard to listen to this tortured pretzel that equates government social programs with christianty. The buzz word is "values". Remember "values clarification"? The lifeboat game?

[NoCmpromiz]

lifeboat

Ummm... A Steve Taylor song in the mid 80's, right?