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.
An interesting mindset, eh? Perhaps they should think about turning it around: Christ is judgmental, and all that talk about forgiveness is just talk.
Or perhaps Christ meant everything he said. The fools who cherry-pick which parts "seem true" are doing themselves no favor.
That list pretty much covers it!
Let's just say that Andrew's problem is that he likes the kneeling more than the actual Christian stuff.
It makes him feel bad about his pet sin.
ROFLOL!!
Now there's the oxymoronic statement of the day....
My favorites are the ones who seriously intone "Jesus was a great moral teacher, but not the Son of God", as if that statement makes any sense at all.
LOL.
Not being Roman Catholic (a Catholic of the Anglican persuasion), it took me a while to get that joke.
Isn't Andrew Sullivan gay?
And his being gay, doesn't make all that he says suspect? How can one be a practicing gay person and a practicing Christian? Cognitive dissonance doesn't cut it.
Because first He gave us prophets and the criteria by which to accept or reject them. Later on He gave us His written Word.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left.
There's already a very sizable religious left - does he really believe there isn't? Its members include the World Council of Churches and enlightened guys like Bishop Spong and nominal Catholics who think they can make up their own rules like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Kate Michelman.
I think I'll adopt a mirror-image of Sullivan's tired modus operandi:
I'm really a liberal who disagrees, except for a few key issues, which I will throw out every now and then to keep everyone off balance, with pretty much everything that modern liberalism stands for.
Problem is, Personally I can not find one left wing position that I can even pretend to be in agreement with.
LOL!
Uh... yeah!
But remember, Christians are not required to be perfect. We all struggle.
LOL!
I'm not disagreeing with your comment that Christians struggle with sin. We all do.
I think Sullivan is pushing something else, IMO.
Andrew Sullivan's idea of Religion is the same as brand recognition. He can't find a label he likes and complains loud and long so the problem will resolve itself. He needs to get a life.
Christians are to strive to be perfect.
His desire to engage in homosexuality AT ANY COST has made him unhinged. Where his P*nis is is more importnat than where his soul will be.
Love: Not sure there's anyone that at least has most of his/her marbles intact who's against that.
Compassion: True personal compassion, yes. However, Great Society-style liberal government "compassion" has nearly destroyed the lower class, torn families apart, stunted self-reliance & personal development, and fostered dependence on the state.
Tolerance: Tolerate what? You mean like tolerate "cultural diversity"? Like other cultures who treat women as chattel (or worse... much worse)? After all, it's just another culture whose values are just as valid as ours?
Peace: True peace, yes. But if you mean Jesus would advocate withdrwal from Iraq, that's not peace, that's Cambodia all over again, stacks of skulls and all.
You are NUTS!! Jesus IS goodness and life....Liberals are the party of DEATH.....and PERVERSION.
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