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 liberals I've met in the conservative Christian churches I've been a part of over the years are liberals because of their compassion for the poor. They believe that government programs for the poor are the means by which we fulfull Jesus command to take care of the needy. I disagree completely; Jesus command was for his followers to do it voluntarily. His command wasn't for people to steal everyone's money and give it to others. But, for the liberal Christian, the end (the poor get taken care of) justifies the means.
What ever happened to that business where Christians were to be a light unto the World? Aren't Christians called to share their faith, convert the wayward, and bring the lost sheep to Christ?
Sullivan seems to think Christianity is all about personal growth and navel gazing. Is it really possible to save just oneself? Can faith have any meaning if it is so timid that it can't be shared?
And we Conservatives will have none of that crap!!
Is that what you're saying?
> sometimes you have to hit certain people between the eyes with a two-by-four to get their attention...
And sometimes they hit back.
Oh, I don't doubt he's a Chrisitian.
I just doubt he reads or understands much beyond the barest essentials of the Bible (e.g., Christ was God, died for our sins & defeated death).
A huge start. The Holy Spirit does the rest (did that part, too, really).
I missed the parts where he talked about equality and tolerance. Where are those parts?
Not that equality and tolerance are not fine ideals. I just find it odd that some people seem to think that every fine ideal can be ascribed to a statement of Christ.
First, "nice" Christians won't be offended by Andrew Sullivan's homosexuality.
Second, "nice" Christians have no idea what God really wants, and thus are never to be caught saying "no" to Andrew Sullivan's homosexuality.
It's a sad fact that Andrew Sullivan's rectum is the be-all and end-all of everything he writes.
Sorry, capitalize that "H". Typo.
BINGO
"He spoke of equality, love, compassion, tolerance, and peace."
Last time I checked, Conservatives were for all of that as well.
But equality does not mean special rights. it means equality.
And sometimes the most love you can show someone is discipline.
And Compassion and Tolerance do not mean acceptance and celebration of sin. (He said "Go and sin no more." People always forget that.)
Jesus of the Bible (as opposed to say, Godspell) was not a hippy. He was (is!) pretty much a hardass.
I'm not liberal, and I believe in those things: equality of opportunity & equality under the law, voluntary compassion toward my neighbors in need, tolerance of diverse opinions, and peace through reasonable deterrence.
Liberals have perverted those things to mean: collectivism (the erosion of private property rights), enforced "compassion" to subsidize laziness, acceptance of sinful actions (all while practicing intolerance of divergent opinions), and weakness.
Re: Your tagline... Reminds me of the old joke that ends, "Now cut that out, Mom!"
Andy, the truth exists and the truth is exclusive: ...Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
I once had quite an argument with a person who was adamant that "Go and sin no more" was just a throwaway line. The mindset appears to be that Christ offers infinite forgiveness (which is true, I suppose, on the condition that one is repentant), and that all that talk about judgement is just talk.
Right you are, JB. To paraphrase Vito Corleone: "Sullivan's a pimp."
That's kind of implied when Andrew Sullivan does a think piece on religion, don'tcha think?
So-called "liberal Christians" have created a new god in their own image. He/She is a socially hip, feminist, gay-friendly, politically correct deity.
My God is a holy God, who doesn't change with the whims and fashions of men.
"Jesus came to Galilee saying...'Repent, and believe in the gospel.'" Mark 1:15
"...Jesus began...to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'" Matthew 4:17
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6
Andrew's problem is not with Christianism, it is with Jesus Christ.
Jesus commanded repentance.
None of us, Andrew included, is capable of truly repenting through our own works, but perhaps one day through God's grace, Andrew will receive the strength to repent and the forgiveness of his sins.
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