Posted on 05/10/2006 6:28:01 AM PDT by bondjamesbond
A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda
Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.
The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?
Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?
So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.
That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
Don't confuse "tolerance" with CELEBRATION or even genuine "acceptance". They are NOT the same.
P.S.: IOW, that discussion is about having FAITH in GOD.
"You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?"
"No!" cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. "With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly." His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. "Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it save, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me."
When thou comest into thy neighbour's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure; but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel.
When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn. -Deuteronomy 25: 24-25
Since the bible is the infallible Word of God (right?), then God is saying it is OK to go into your neighbor's field and eat until you are full. This protected the poor from starving.
Meanwhile, a Muslim behind you is about to whack you to ensure you don't go to Hell, and the line forms, with each "absolute truth" religion ready to whack they guy in front.
I have a feeling that that very phrase, translated into Arabic, came up in one of those "of course 9/11 was deplorable but..." apologias on al-Jazzera.
Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
No we wouldn't, but then my view of Jesus comes from the Westboro Baptist Church. ;^)
Not to sideline, but I heard that lady on Hannity a while ago -- what a freak!
Frankly, I have no problem with that. In fact, I give away the bulk of the produce of my own garden to my neighbors (though they are hardly starving). But then again, I give bunnies the run of the place as well.
I think what people have a problem with is the government coming in, taking the majority of your income (through various taxes), and distributing pennies on the dollar to the poor.
The nice thing about your neighbor in your field is that 100% of the food gets into your nieghbor. Government taxes would seem to be the ultimate in bringing in a vessel or sything the corn.
You nailed it. I feel so bad for Andrew and really used to like him. Every time he puts his ink to paper he reveals his agony with the judgement on him now and what is to come. I hope, like you, that the Holy Spirit continues to wrestles with his conscience
"For as you do unto the least of these, so you have done unto Me."
Do all the women in your church cover their heads when praying?
And I bet you slam the door in the face of every Mormon, Jehovah Witness, and every other person of faith that visits your home.
Religion is a personal choice, and it is offensive when anyone tries to tell me my spiritual journey is in error.
Why are you so filled with hate?
And what does that have to do with equality or tolerance? Not that those are not find ideals. I just don't see the connection.
That passage seems to have much more to do with love, charity and compassion.
Why do you attack me?
No one is telling you anything. You are getting all offended on your own.
"Do all the women in your church cover their heads when praying?"
HUH??
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