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.
> A nation founded on Christian Principles
Not *this* nation, sister. The First Amendment is *explicitly* non-Christian.
> The world hated Him, and the world will and does hate us.
Please. Just because you wish to have a martyr complex doesn't mean non-Christians hate you for being Christian.
Hey, I do that. But, it doesn't mean that Caesar is using my money the way God wants it used.
The government cannot care for the poor. The best the government can do is force others to care for the poor by taking money and redistributing it. The government does not have any ability to care for the poor on it's own.
We all have a duty to care for the poor that has nothing to do with the government. If we get the government involved, given the nature of government, we are mostly caring for the government, with pennies on the dollar going to the poor.
> Mormonism adds another book to the Bible.
How does that make it a cult? Remember... the Christians added books to the Jewish "Old Testament." By your logic, that means all Christians are cultists.
> JW's change the words in some of the Gospels.
Again irrelevant.
Not *this* nation, sister. The First Amendment is *explicitly* non-Christian.
Now, who is delusional?
> I'm right behind you!
Fortunately, no. I'm able to hold a reasonable conversation. Your reason appears to stop at percieved attacks.
> who is delusional?
Someone who thinks that anyone disgreeing with him is "attacking" him, for starters.
Now, I would definitely your statement is subjective.
And who would that be?
"There is nothing in His statements saying "taxes are good!"
Nor is there anything in His statements saying "taxes are bad!"
I would not label HIM a "liberal", since he would lead by example and not use the government to enforce his words (and not actions).
Liberals love to try to make the world better using the government to do their dirty work or try using guilt for being white/rich/etc to ram their fantasy world down everyone else's throat.
Certainly the story of the good Samaritan offers a comment on the fact that the Samaritan was a despised minority and the importance of recognizing the humanity of the individual beyond such considerations.
But there is much there saying he saw the question itself as a trap.
All true.
Just thinking of when he got that whip.
You don't know your Bible.
In Revelations, it clearly states that nothing can be added nor taken away to the Bible.
Revelations is the last book of the Bible (written and added after Christians added the other books).
My logic is faultless.
>> JW's change the words in some of the Gospels.
>Again irrelevant.
Not if the changed words change basic meanings.
Quote: "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?"
I have heard more than a few so-called intellectuals use this quasi-Deist argument, expecting listeners to nod sagely in understanding at the simple *rationality* of the viewpoint. What's shocking is that far too many do, without thinking of the implications.
If God is ultimately unknowable and/or the human heart is too fractured or limited to know Him, then one is left with the logical conclusion that there is no God (at least, one who matters). At the very least, Sullivan's view implies that one's time would be better spent in pursuing one's own carnal happiness vice thinking of things spiritual. Boiled down: the superiority of humanism, moral relativism, and "anything goes".
It is pathetically amusing to see Sullivan--who does seem to be spiritually seeking something--dance through the hoops he must to justify his lifestyle (and/or avoid confronting the apparent convictions of his conscience).
Really?
1. That contradicts what the framers said in their own words.
2. If it is atheistic, tell me why the atheists are working so hard to infringe on the free exercise of Christians. This has been shown in numerous examples around the world. When the atheists implement a system, the first thing they do is stamp out the Christians. They are responsible for the greatest loss of human life in the history of the planet.
3. If it is any other non-Christian philosophy, show me one of the major religious movements in the world that tolerates individual free will as Christianity does.
You are wrong. Freedom of Conscience is a decidedly Judeo-Christian principle and was written into our very first amendment. Any other belief system seeks to dominate.
(joke) - Mrs D has done all she can to help Andrew extract his cranium from the dark place where he seems to keep it.
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