My Problem with Christianism

Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented byÂ 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.

No one is telling you anything. You are getting all offended on your own. You are the one who said: "I am compelled by my faith to try and make them see the error of their ways" What gives you the right to pass judgement on a person's life? What gives you the insight to determine a person's religion is wrong?

You have the NY Times disease. How about you quote my whole statement instead of cherry picking my statement?

For the record I said "If my neighbor is hopping and skipping his/her way toward Hell, I am compelled by my faith to try and make them see the error of their ways in a compassionate way WITHOUT beating them over the head with my faith."

But you knew that, right?

I think the gentleman overlooks much about the unique nation he lives in. A nation founded on Christian Principles, some of whose authors who penned the document acknowledge in their writings that this form of government will fail if the majority of the general population is not Christian, a law abiding people of faith.

He over looks the astounding, almost supernatural speed that caused us to jump a century in which this blessed nation changed the entire planet with it's discoveries. the author over looks how God opened the fountain of knowledge and benefits and poured out blessing upon blessing not only on this nation, making it the greatest ever on earth, but also on the entire world from a nation that held Him in great esteem.

The world hated Him, and the world will and does hate us. A Christian is if anything an independent with a responsibility to place at the reins of government those men that hold dear the principles on which this nation was founded and adhere to them and their preservation.

Such men are no longer to be found in either major political party. There are the rare few, but they are not in positions of major power and are out numbered by those who hold their own self interest and agendas above the best interest of the nation.

Who is to blame? Could it be that majority of average Americans who no longer apply Christian principles to their every day lives. Seventy five percent of Americans define themselves as Christian, a small percentage of that number live it in their daily lives.

God is known to give a nation the type of leaders it deserves, so what does this tell us about the type of men we are forced to choose from? Today we choose the lesser of two evils. In America the Christian has political responsibilities, not the least of these is to fall on his knees and repent, asking God to redeem us from the evil that has over taken this nation. The Christian is also expected by God to participate politically in the workings of this nation by his vote, his voice proclaiming the truth, his presence, and his political activism.

The only reason God does not destroy the world as it exists today is because of the presence of Christians. We as Christians need to understand that right up front, and make sure the world understands that truth also. To claim that we tolerate an individuals choice of evil out of Christian meekness is a cop out. To say we have no place at the political table because Heaven is our home is a cop out. We have been given a nation by God, a Christian nation and yet we are loath to defend it and choose to leave the field of battle rather than face down enemies who not only boast that no one has a claim on this land of immigrants, but that no real distinct culture is present here, and what could be labeled culture and the American spirit is deficient compared to the honorable but failed cultures of other people's, is a cop out.

Evil triumphs when good men remain silent, and we remain silent, the "Silent Majority", that acquiesces by his silence and absence to every law and agenda that over throws the Constitution and God's place in the public square.

History has taught us that a nation gets the type of leadership it deserves, what does our present condition say about us? It says that on judgement day, we can not point a finger at Israel's loss of it's nation as a judgement from God for it's indifference and sinfulness, when we are far worse. For having known the truth, for having known the Redeemer, we have committed the same and far worse sins that drove Israel from it's land and stripped it of it's nationhood thousands of years ago. Should Christians participate in goverment? We better.

If our understanding of Christianity condemns abortion and as Christians we feel compelled morally to pressure government to pass laws prohibiting abortion, then why don't we also extend to government the duty to care for the poor?

Apples and oranges. The government we have empowered is charged with those matters we can't individually do. They are not given the power over our lives unless we give them that power through our own lawlessness. They have taken power over the lives of its citizens and it's time its citizens wrested that power away.

If the government is going to provide some great societal safety net, then they are infringing on personal liberty. You are not truly free if you are not free to fail. In the original wording and understanding of the Constitution, the Federal Government was not allowed to deal with us as individuals. That precluded income taxes and welfare until the Constitution was amended. I don't consider this a good thing. We are now enslaved by our government either by the tax yoke or the welfare curse.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.