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.
> The State is man-made
So are gods. Find one that you can prove wasn't just thought up by someone, and maybe you'll be on to something.
> read the Declaration of Independence
I have. It's nice prose, but it's not law, per se. The Constitution *is*.
> the inalienable rights endowed upon all ..... by their Creator.
Natural Selection and the insensate laws of nature?
> Reading's not your strong suit obviously.
Apparently not. Where does "divine" show up in the Constitution? Where does it mention Jesus Christ or lay out Christianity as something special? I seem to have missed those. But since you're clearly the superior reader, I'm sure you can find those references lickety-split.
I know of only one and I worship Him.
"So are gods. Find one that you can prove wasn't just thought up by someone, and maybe you'll be on to something."
Sorry pal, not gonna fly. Religion requires faith, not human construction. The State requires human construction. You don't need faith to believe in it--it exists. And when the Communists control it, they'll make certain that you believe in it and obey it...or else. To believe in something divine requires the freedom to embrace it willingly. There is nothing like that in a Communist State.
But anyway, I can see you are too entrenched in your talking points to see the light.
Your post challenged the poster to show the word "divine" in the Constitution. He was quoting the dec of independence and the word "divine" is in there...where it belongs...in the Founders' statement of our national values. Values and rights are more fundamental than "law", which is written by man. King George III wrote "laws"
You think your rights come from the Constitution? The Founders were deeper men than that. Your rights are "secured" by the Constitution because the Founders considered those rights to be inalienable....and granted by a higher power...and they trusted that Divine providence would favor our nation's endeavors.
Because of our passivity as a religious people (NOT our activism, as Andrew seems to think), we have ceded the job of writing law and affirming it to men who have no fixed values and who are contemptuous of our fixed values....and by centuries of legal obfuscation, the values of our Founders.
Stay on topic.
There are plenty of other ways to categorize the groups he disapproves of, and Occam's razor and common etiquette suggest that we don't need such a term, but words like "evangelical" or even "fundamentalist" don't carry the pejorative umph that he wants to convince others. Andrew wants the parallel to "Islamism" and "Islamism" to make points that he really doesn't make on his own.
By this point we ought to be able to agree that Christians can disagree about politics without inventing pejorative categories for those who happen to disagree with us.
BTW "Christianist" isn't original to Sullivan. I believe Gore Vidal has used "Christianist" and "Christer" to discribe people he disagrees with or disdains.
I'm reminded of how Auberon Waugh used the old term "homosexualist" to loud objections by gay activists. Perhaps that term might be revived for Andrew if he doesn't stop. The "ist" in both cases irritates people.
> Religion requires faith, not human construction.
Without "human construction," there'd be no religion.
> The State requires human construction. You don't need faith to believe in it--it exists.
So... what is it that makes Communists believe that their system is better, when all the evidence points the other way? *Faith.*
> To believe in something divine requires the freedom to embrace it willingly.
Really? So how about all those throughout history who have been forced to believe in some particular alien god - Allah, say - and whose descendants have had no choice in the matter, yet believe anyway?
> He was quoting the dec of independence and the word "divine" is in there...where it belongs...in the Founders' statement of our national values.
Uh-huh. Well, if that's what your faith tells you, there's no reasoning you out of it.
Go ahead, read them.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/index.htm
And who would make the determination of whether they were the Word of God? Someone in authority? Some council? Take a vote? Or every man for himself?
Virtually every original state required its representatives to take a Christian oath.
Massachusetts Constitution
Chapter VI. Oaths and Subscriptions; Incompatibility of and Exclusion from Offices; Pecuniary Qualifications; Commissions; Writs; Confirmation of Laws; Habeas Corpus; The Enacting Style; Continuance of Officers; Provision for a future Revisal of the Constitution, etc.
Art I.--Any person chosen Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Counsellor, Senator, or Representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration, viz.--
"I, A. B. do declare, that I believe the christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth; and that I am seized and possessed, in my own right, of the property required by the Constitution as one qualification for the office or place to which I am elected."
>>Virtually every original state required its representatives to take a Christian oath.<<
I'll take your word for that, but neither the bulk of the quotes of the founders, or their personal writings or the documents they produced suggest a Christian State -their actions in having "In God we trust" and placing Chaplains in official positions, howver suggest they did not intend the current wall between religion and public life either.
Yeah, the liberals are full of love.
DELAWARE STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1776
ARTICLE 22. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either House, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit:
"I _______, will bear true allegiance to the Delaware State, submit to its constitution and laws, and do not act wittingly whereby the freedom thereof may be prejudiced."
and also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit:
"I _______, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, One God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old Testament and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.
MARYLAND CONSTITUTIONS
1776; 1851; 1864; 1867
Article XXXIII in the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of 1776 provided: That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to Protection in their religious liberty; wherefore no person ought by any law to be molested . . . on account of his religious persuasion or profession, or for his religious practice; unless, under colour of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality . .. yet the Legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion. . . .
Article XXXV required "a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion" for all state officers. (This was also required in the Constitution of 1864.) Article I of the Plan of Government stated that the electors of the House of: Delegates were to choose "the most wise, sensible, and discreet of the people";
Egomaniacs always want to coin new terms for the popular lexicon.
PENNSYLVANIA CONSTITUTION-1776
And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following
I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.
CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA ------1778
Article XXXVIII. That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated. The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. That all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State, demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully, shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges. To accomplish this desirable purpose without injury to the religious property of those societies of Christians which are by law already incorporated for the purpose of religious worship, and to put it fully into the power of every other society of Christian Protestants, either already formed or hereafter to be formed, to obtain the like incorporation, it is hereby constituted, appointed, and declared that the respective societies of the Church of England that are already formed in this State for the purpose of religious worship shall still continue Incorporate and hold the religious property now in their possession. And that whenever fifteen or more male persons, not under twenty-one years of age, professing the Christian Protestant religion, and agreeing to unite themselves in a society for the purposes of religious worship, they shall, (on complying with the terms hereinafter mentioned,) be, and be constituted, a church, and be esteemed and regarded in law as of the established religion of the state, and on a petition to the legislature shall be entitled to be incorporated and to enjoy equal privileges. That every society of Christians so formed shall give themselves a name or denomination by which they shall be called and known in law, and all that associate with them for the purposes of worship shall be esteemed as belonging to the society so called. But that previous to the establishment and incorporation of the respective societies of every denomination as aforesaid, and in order to entitle them thereto, each society so petitioning shall have agreed to and subscribed in a book the following five articles, without which no agreement or union of men upon pretense of religion shall entitle them to be incorporated and esteemed as a church of the established religion of this State:
Ist. That there is one eternal God, and a future state of rewards and punishments.
2d. That God is publicly to be worshipped.
3d. That the Christian religion is the true religion.
4th. That the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are of divine inspiration, and are the rule of faith and practice.
5th That it is lawful and the duty of every man being thereunto called by those that govern, to bear witness to the truth.
And that every inhabitant of this State, when called to make an appeal to God as a witness to truth, shall be permitted to do it in that way which is most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience. And that the people of this State may forever enjoy the right of electing their own pastors or clergy, and at the same, time that the State may have sufficient security for the due discharge of the pastoral office, by those who shall be admitted to be clergymen, no person shall officiate as minister of any established church who shall not have been chosen by a majority of the society to which he shall minister, or by persons appointed by the said majority, to choose and procure a minister for them nor until the minister so chosen and appointed shall have made and subscribed to the following declaration, over and above the aforesaid five articles, viz: "That he is determined by God's grace out of the holy scriptures, to instruct the people committed to his charge, and to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which he shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved from the scripture; that he will use both public and private admonitions, as well to the sick as to the whole within his cure, as need shall require and occasion shall be given, and that he will be diligent in prayers, and in reading of the holy scriptures, and in such studies as help to the knowledge to the same; that he will be diligent to frame and fashion his own self and his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both himself and them, as much as in him lieth, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ; that he will maintain and set forwards, as much as he can, quietness peace, and love among all people, and especially among those that are or shall be committed to his charge. No person shall disturb or molest any religious assembly; nor shall use any reproachful, reviling, or abusive language against any church, that being the certain way of disturbing the peace, and of hindering the conversion of any to the truth, by engaging them in quarrels and animosities, to the hatred of the professors, and that profession which otherwise they might be brought to assent to. No person whatsoever shall speak anything in their religious assembly irreverently or government of the government of this State. No person shall, by law, be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a religious worship that he does not freely join in, or has not voluntarily engaged to support. But the churches, chapels, parsonages, glebes, and all other property now belonging to any societies of the Church of England, or any other religious societies, shall remain and be Secured to them forever. The poor be supported, and elections managed in the accustomed manner, until laws shalt be provided to adjust those matters in the most equitable way.
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