Posted on 02/13/2008 2:47:46 PM PST by tcg
The “Religious Right” lost its religion when it began to identify with first being a “conservative” movement within one Political Party.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
One man whom I admire, an early founder of the movement that came to be called the “religious right”, wrote me a very thoughtful response. He suggested that many of my insights in the article were valid. However, he thought that my assessment that the movement was dead was premature.
Election 2008 has proven I was correct. If not yet dead, the “Religious Right” has at least lost its ‘Religion’ and, as a result, lost its way.
Before turning to an assessment of why the religious right lost its “religion” and then, how it went wrong, I think we need a bit of what is called in our common parlance a “reality check”. The impact of the movement called “the religious right” on politics and policy has been negligible.
The mobilizing commitment of the movement was to secure in law the recognition of the inalienable right to life for every human person. That must include the smallest persons in the first home of the whole human race, their mother’s womb. They have no voice but ours.
The movement made little discernible political progress in this direction except to finally ban that infanticide which was called “partial birth abortion.” Abortion, which is always and in every instance, intrinsically evil because it is the immoral taking of innocent helpless human life, is still legal in all fifty States.
The soon to be nominee of the Democratic Party is an inspiring orator. He is also prone to speak of thoughtful notions such as an “epidemic of violence” and an “empathy deficit”. However, he has stopped his ears to the cry of those whom Mother Teresa rightly called the “poorest of the poor”, children in the womb. If he becomes the nominee, I will do all I can to engage him on this very issue. I will encourage him to expand his message of hope to include giving the hope of birth to our littlest neighbors.
The presumptive nominee of the Republican Party fares a little bit better on this vital issue, at least recognizing the right to life for these little ones who are our neighbors. However, he endorses deadly research on human embryonic life. He attempts to justify this barbarism with reference to the human embryos who will inevitably die in this unethical research as being “spare embryos”. When human persons become objects to be disposed of for parts, we have simply embraced a new form of slavery where an entire class of persons has become less than human.
Some will read this strongly worded claim and accuse me of “single issue” politics. To them I insist that right to life is not a single issue; it is a foundation for freedom and a lens through which we must examine all of our other claims of compassion. Without the right to life there are no other rights and the infrastructure of rights is thrown into jeopardy. Rights become the exclusive province of the more powerful who can make the so called “choice” to take your life.
Even if you call what is wrong a “right”, and even if unelected Justices create a “penumbra” out of whole cloth behind which to hide the evil, you cannot make it right. The natural law and science confirm what we have always known, that the child in that womb is our neighbor.
We simply should not kill our neighbor.
Without the freedom to be born, there are no other freedoms. Freedom is a good of the person. Children in the womb, like all of us, are human persons. Personhood cannot be limited to only those perceived to not be “dependent” on any other persons or we will soon eliminate many other categories of human persons.
Beside which, it is our dependency upon each other which actually makes us human. Our claims of compassion, the etymology of which means to “suffer with”, are exposed as a fraud when we do nothing to stop the killing of innocents in the womb, once the safest place on earth, with chemical weapons and surgical strikes.
The Beginnings of the “religious right”
I remember the ‘religious right’ movement in its early days. Those drawn to it were drawn by this foundational idea that every single human life was sacred and must be welcomed and protected by law. I know, there were other issues, but that was what motivated us to even begin to form coalitions and alliances with one another.
I often found myself invited to speak at some of its early events, a Catholic in a predominantly evangelical Protestant crowd.
I had some favorite lines. “I’m just a guy from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Pro-life, Pro-family Irish, French Catholic from a blue collar, Democrat family”, I said. “Seems I woke up one day being called a “conservative” because I believe in the right to life at every age and stage… well, I am neither liberal nor conservative… maybe I am a “conservital”, sounds more like a laxative…that is just what contemporary politics needs”.
I had another one I would throw out, particularly in crowds that fancied themselves to be really “conservative”. I would say “last thing I ever fancied myself, a former hippie who in the search for truth rediscovered my Catholic Christian faith, was a conservative. Even more odd to me… I am being called “religious right”. Well, I am religious and on the issue of the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death, I know I am right!”
I would also, as a former Democrat (and now a reluctant Republican), make a point of saying that I did not leave the Democratic party, it left me and millions like me when it failed to hear the cry of the poorest of the poor, our neighbors in the first home of their mothers womb.
These kinds of comments were crowd pleasers, but they were more. They helped me to speak in these settings because I was uncomfortable. I, and many Catholics like me, never felt at home in that movement. As a Catholic Christian I know that you simply cannot “fit” faithful Catholics (and I would argue this should be true of faithful Christians of any confession or communion) in the contemporary political categories of “left” or “right”, “liberal” or “conservative.”
Nor should either major party ever have a “lock” on our support. Sadly, that very situation has occurred. It has led to the movement losing its way. Far too many efforts calling Christians to political participation have ended up being co-opted by partisanship.Unfortunately, the religious right was no exception.
The Make Up of the Movement
The “religious right” movement ended up becoming a politically conservative, Republican and was mostly an evangelical Protestant movement. Though it claimed to include both Catholic Christians and evangelical Protestant Christians, most Catholic Christians never joined; and even those who worked with the movement on pro-life and pro-family issues did not fit in with the culture or model of the religious right movement.
Though faithful Catholics and Protestants certainly shared what has been called the “socially conservative” agenda, the “religious right" movement was built upon --and thrived within --a "persecuted minority" model of activism.
Some of the movements’ efforts were premised upon an "anti-" approach to effecting social, political and judicial change. The emphasis was placed on opposing the current problems and less on proposing alternatives and solutions.
The movement spoke almost exclusively of what was wrong with the culture and failed to articulate a better way forward. It focused on criticizing what was unjust and wrong and little on offering a compelling vision for a truly just social order.
It developed what could be called a hope deficit, failing to give a compelling vision for a better, more caring Nation. It did not often premise its positions within a framework of an integrated vision of the human person, the family, the social order and principles of authentic social justice.
One of the negative lasting effects of the movement was the emergence of the very term, “religious right”. It has become a label that is now used as a verbal weapon against all faithful, orthodox Christians who, compelled by their faith and their sincere understanding of their baptismal obligations to be faithful citizens- seek to influence the social order.
The term “religious right” is now routinely used to marginalize and denigrate well intended Christians who engage in any form of political activism that does not fit a socially “liberal” agenda. That practice, using a disparaging term to demonize people of faith, continues to this day even though the religious right movement has waned in both influence and numbers.
Some of the voices identified with the movement were first politically "conservative" and ended up verbally wrapping Christian language around their polemics and their politics. Unfortunately some leaders of the groups associated with the movement ended up putting biblical ‘proof texts’ on their own pet political ideas.
They failed to develop a hierarchy of values within which to posit which of their political positions were actually “Christian” (a position compelled by the Christian faith -like the right to life) and which ones were discretionary or fell within the large area of political concern properly left to the exercise of prudential judgment.
Whether any of this was intentional, I cannot say. It may have been due to a lack of a cohesive social teaching in the particular Christian tradition and formation of the leaders involved in the movement. However, the sad effect was that much of the rhetoric which emerged made it sound as though all politically “conservative” ideas were somehow “Christian”.
Thus the movement lost its “religion” and became just another extension of the conservative movement. It also forgot that many political issues are properly a matter of the exercise of prudential judgment that lies at the heart of human freedom.
For example, I will never forget the day when I took exception to a conservative icons’ claim that the Second Amendment (protecting the right to bear arms) secured what he called the “first freedom”. I insisted that the first freedom was not owning a gun but rather religious freedom and that the first right was the right to life.
Based upon the reaction of that one early leader of the religious right, you might have thought I had blasphemed, He apparently felt that the right to own a gun was on the same level as the right to life.
I further upset him when I said that good Christians could come down on either side of the gun issue, but could never do so on the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death.
I also found it troubling that some of the materials from these groups lumped “pro-life” and “pro-gun” together in their evaluation of political candidates. That still happens today. No matter how one feels about owning guns, I cannot find any basis in the Christian tradition for holding that faithful Christians must take a certain position one way or another on that issue.
There are numerous other examples.
In some of these groups, opposing “campaign finance reform” or opposing “more taxes” are seemingly “Christian” issues. They are not. In fact, good Christians can be on either side of them as well.
This failure to develop a hierarchy of values and respect freedom and prudential judgment was only one of the root errors that weakened the religious rights impact and longevity. Worse then all of this was the failure to articulate principles of engagement as to why Christians needed to be politically involved in the first place.
Flawed Principles of Engagement
The "principles of engagement" that seem to have motivated the religious right in its social and political action were limited and flawed. Perhaps it was because some of the efforts associated with that movement were built upon on a model of engagement with the "world" that was hostile; this approach is itself at odds with a classical Christian worldview.
In some instances, the movement adopted a model of cultural participation that was actually antithetical to a Christian worldview and founded instead upon a notion of freedom that was infected with the autonomous individualism of the age. For example, in some of these groups you find people who are Christians touting the political lines of the libertarian movement.
Yet, the Christian faith asserts that we are not fully human, not fully the “Imago Dei” (Image of God) in isolation. We were made for family and made for community. We only find our fulfillment in giving ourselves away to the other. Authentic freedom is not about the isolated autonomous individual being able to do whatever he or she pleases, but rather about our relationships, with God and with one another and the obligations we have in solidarity.
Many good people in what is left of the movement are now deeply discouraged and looking for direction. They did not start out to become “conservative” or “right wing” or “neo-conservative” or “libertarian” when they entered the world of social and political participation. They started out trying to be faithful to the Lord! Some have begun to feel, as I did long ago, that they “woke up one morning” being called a ‘conservative” or "accused" of being members of the “religious right.”
They are seeking another model of Christian action. It is time to build one.
Let me clarify at this point that Christians who take the classical teaching of the Christian faith seriously are less at home in what is left of the “left” in America. That is, of course, if they understand what the Christian Church teaches - and has taught for two thousand years - and actually believe it- and not what some “agenda-izer” on the contemporary political “left” tries to tell people that the Christian Church should teach.
The contemporary American “left” or “liberal” movement has often left faithful Christians behind, even on issues that once attracted some of us, like economic justice. When the left ceased speaking of a “living” or “family” wage, or proudly defending the rights of the unborn, the elderly, the impoverished and both the un and the under employed and catered more to satisfying the libertine impulses of the crowd who define “choice” as unimpeded abortion on demand, they left many thinking, self aware, faithful Christians out of their tent.
A bizarre eclectic collection of contemporary “liberals” has co-opted what was once a decent political label. Yet it is these kinds of contemporary “liberals” who populate and control much of the Democratic Party. Ironically, in their embrace of license as liberty, they are meeting the libertarians in the other party.
A Democratic Party that once built its influence among many socially concerned American Christians on a commitment to the “poor”, now champions as a “right” the killing of children in the first home of their mothers womb. It simply is NEVER compassionate to fail to hear the cry of the poorest of the poor, those who have no voice of their own.
Christians need to rediscover that we are not first Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals - we are first, last and always Christians. Christian is the Noun. Because we are Christians we now carry on the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ as His body on earth. That mission has a social dimension. That is the framework for our participation.
In the wake of the demise of the “religious right” we need a new model for action, one that will not lead to compromise, despair or being co-opted by any political party or agenda.
Four Pillars of Participation
Informed, faithful and engaged Christian citizens need to rediscover the connection between the “social teaching” of classical Christian thought (which is true for all persons and not just those “who believe” because it is rooted in the natural law) and their own call, as individuals and communities, to faithful citizenship and political participation.
I propose that we come together around what I have called four pillars of political, economic and social participation; the dignity of life, the primacy of family, authentic human freedom and solidarity with the poor. These pillars of participation can form a firm foundation for our social and political action.
Some of the past approaches to political participation, both on the “right” and on the “left”, were “outside in” rather than “inside out” in their approach.
For example, some Catholic Christians who got involved with the religious right ended up trying to dress up conservative political positions with the social teachings of the Catholic Church. It was a mistaken effort, even if well intended. It sometimes ended up confusing both those who listened and those who tried to make it work.
Catholic faith and identity is not a coat that you put on. Our identity as Catholic Christians must inform every area of our llife and that includes informing our participation in politics.
Similarly, in the last decade, some evangelical Protestant Christians tried to sort of “christianize” the entire politically conservative agenda. This was not unlike what other Christians had done with certain ideas associated with the “left”, a generation earlier.
In either case, whether it is the old “religious left” or the fading “religious right”, both worked off of limited principles of engagement, poor theology and a lack of an understanding of the unique social mission of the Christian Church. They used political ideology to motivate Christians. When Christians make political ideology their primary reason for social action, they lose their religious distinctive.
In other instances, a limited or lacking theological and philosophical foundation gave little basis for leaving the safety of religious subcultures and even engaging the culture at all. Those who held to this model of the Christians relationship with the world often proceeded from a notion of the “world” as being so corrupted that it was to be abandoned or, at most, protected against.
So, their foray into political participation was wrongly adversarial, seeing themselves as fighting everyone but themselves. Perhaps it is this misunderstanding of the Christians relationship with the world that is part of the reason the religious right has died.
The concept of “defending our rights" was a big motivation for social, legal and political action among some of the largest efforts of certain politically conservative, evangelical Protestant Christians in both political and legal activism. Unfortunately, though these efforts accomplished some good, such a principle of engagement misses a deeper truth, one that lies at the heart of the Christian vocation and mission – Christians are called to give our rights away if it means bringing others to the Lord whom we serve.
Then there was a call to secure a “place at the table" that operated as a mobilizing principle for some grass roots political efforts led by politically conservative evangelical Protestant Christians in the last decade of the second millennium. This is still the prevailing model of political action that mobilizes many Christians associated with the “religious right.”
Many involved in beginning of the movement came from a conservative evangelical community that had been almost “apolitical” in its cultural approach. By moving into this kind of cultural engagement model, they too often made a worse mistake then what they opposed. They initially arose out of their apolitical complacency to “protect themselves” - that may be understandable as a starting place given their “worldview”… perhaps. However, it was –as a principle of cultural engagement - limited and consequently ineffective.
Christians are always more than another interest group in any society. We are a redemptive community on mission. Christians across the confessional spectrum are coming to see the limiting value of these models of political and social action and are searching for a deeper response to the cultural mission, political, legal and social task, one that is first, last and always, subordinated to their Christian vocation to carry on the redemptive mission of the Lord whom they follow.
We need to learn from our past in order to build a better future.
Called to be the “Soul of the World”
Christians are never simply one more "interest group" in America or in any other nation. We are called, in the words of an ancient second century Christian manuscript entitled “A Letter to Diognetus”, to become the "soul of the world." Or, to use the Biblical imagery, we are to become “leaven” and “salt”, transforming the “loaf” of the culture from within in whatever country they live in.
Examining the words of that first century writing, written to a pagan inquirer to the Christian faith, is helpful. They are as extraordinarily relevant in the first century of the Third Christian millennium as they were in the first century of the First Millennium:
“For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life. Nor again do they possess any invention discovered by any intelligence or study of ingenious men, nor are they masters of any human dogma as some are. But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation.
They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign. They marry like all other men and they beget children; but they do not cast away their offspring. They have their meals in common, but not their wives. They find themselves in the flesh, and yet they live not after the flesh. Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and they surpass the laws in their own lives. They love all men, and they are persecuted by all. They are ignored, and yet they are condemned.
They are put to death, and yet they are endued with life. They are in beggary, and yet they make many rich. They are in want of all things, and yet they abound in all things. They are dishonored, and yet they are glorified in their dishonor. They are evil spoken of, and yet they are vindicated. They are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted, and they respect Doing good they are punished as evildoers; being punished they rejoice, as if they were thereby quickened by life. The Jews wage war against them as aliens, and the Greeks carry on persecution against them, and yet those that hate them cannot tell the reason of their hostility.
In a word, what the soul is in a body, the Christians are in the world...."
“Go into all the world”
Christians are called to “go into all the world” (John 3:16), because the Lord still goes into the world through us. The Christian mission into the world has social implications because the Incarnation, life, death, Resurrection, Ascension and coming return of the Lord Jesus Christ, has social implications and obligations. As the Lord told His early followers, the “fields are ripe for harvest”.
Especially in our day, those fields must include the fields of economics, culture, and even politics!
Christians are called to carry on the redemptive work of the Lord by humanizing, transforming and elevating all of human society. The first obligation is to give to all men and women the “Gospel” (good news) of Jesus Christ and lead them to a relationship with God in and through Him. Christians will always have that as our first and primary mission.
However, we are also called to demonstrate the compassion and love of the God whom we serve and represent. This is done by also proclaiming the gospel through our lives and service to the broader human community. A great Christian, Francis of Assisi once said: “I preach the gospel at all times and sometimes I use words” The two are to become one in all of our lives.
The Common Good
The primary purpose for the evangelization of culture and the social mission and effort is not to “protect” Christians against the “world” or even to “advance” the “power” of Christians within human society, but rather to promote the common good.
Perhaps one of the oldest references in the Christian tradition to this concept is found in the "Epistle of Barnabus", an early Christian Church document dating back to 130 A.D.: "Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together"
The living out of this concept and its implications requires the embrace of a vital Christian social "hermeneutic", a lens through which Christians are to view the very meaning of human existence and all of their efforts in human society. Christians should, if they understand the Christian faith, know that we were made for family, for community, and for social participation. We are invited to give ourselves away in service.
This service of the common good should be the mobilizing principle of a new alliance. The phrase is being rediscovered in the vacuum caused by the decline in the “religious right.” It is also now being used by some whose very positions on the fundamental human rights issue of our age, the right to life at every age and stage of human exiatence, is completely opposed to the Common Good.
That is why it must be taken back by faithful Christians, other people of faith and all people of good will.
Though it is found strongly present within Christian social teaching, this concept of "the Common Good" is also one of the foundation stones of the political philosophy and patrimony of Western civilization. It forms the social foundation for our understanding of authentic freedom with responsibility.
The notion of the “common Good” helped to forge the very existence of the American experiment.
Contrary to the individualism and atomism of the age, if we understand the true meaning of the common good we will acknowledge that the individual is not the measure of all things. Freedom is not found in solitude. Nor is it found in retreating into our little enclaves and fighting to protect "us" against them.
This entire approach, no matter what the political label or feigned justification, is a recipe for division and despair. This is especially true when such an approach is followed by Christians- who of all people should follow in the footsteps of the one who gave Himself up for all! Christian anthropology (the understanding of the nature of human person) introduced the very concept of "person" to our civilized discourse.
It is classical Christian thought that insists that we cannot be fully human without living together in family and community. We are social by nature and design.
We are also bound to one another by an obligation of solidarity (we simply are our "brother’s keeper") and we have a duty to one another, and most especially to the poor. We have a duty to participate in the social order and find a way to build a just society with all men and women, even those who are different then us or with whom we do not agree.
To not only understand all this but to live it and help foster an authentically just and human society wherein others can live freely-- is what it means to promote the "Common Good."
Conclusion
Our nation, indeed the whole world, is desperately in need of an authentically Christian social, cultural and political movement for the common good. We need new movements that understand and embody the classical Christian worldview in their call to social, political, cultural and economic participation.
Those who bear the name "Christian" carry on the redemptive mission of the Lord. That is our "apologetic" for authentic social and political action and public service. We are to be "in the world" in order to transform it from within.
We are called to serve the "Common Good" together. The values we proclaim- and seek to both live and work into genuinely "good" public policy and discourse- are good for all men and women. They are not simply "religious" in the sense that they are to be held only by those who hold to a distinct religious tradition. They are a part of our common human vocation. They are the glue of a truly just civilization.
These values that many "religious" people hold so dear are actually not really to be held at all-in the sense of clinging. Rather, they are to be given away and worked into the leaven of the whole society so that we may share this bread with every man, woman and child. In that way we can promote the "common good" of all.
These values are founded upon a respect for the dignity of all human life, from conception to natural death. They require that a special esteem, protection and honor be given to the first cell of society, marriage and the family. They are founded upon a love and respect for authentic freedom, which includes the first freedom, religious freedom. This kind of love for freedom recognizes that freedom isn't free! It was birthed in the sacrifice and the bloodshed of those who have gone before us. It still obligates us to one another in bonds of solidarity. We are our brothers' keeper!
The “Religious Right” lost its religion when it began to identify with first being a “conservative” movement within one Political Party. Our obligation as Christians to be involved in political, social and economic participation is not rooted in first being “conservatives’, rather it is rooted in our identification with Jesus Christ and His Body, the Church.
While many ask about the dwindling influence of some efforts that seemed so vibrant only ten years ago, such as the religious right, it is time for classical, orthodox Christians to look forward, not limited by the labels that have all too often marginalized and trivialized our Christian convictions and muddled our sense of duty to God, Church and country.
It is time to build a new alliance for the Common Good. It is time to frame a new public philosophy that re-presents the Common Good as the hinge and the hope of our future freedom and flourishing -- and our path to authentic peace. This philosophy must then inform movements committed to true social justice, human rights, authentic human freedom and solidarity.
It is time to offer that requiem for the old “religious right”. A requiem is a hymn, composition, or service for the dead. It is a way of honoring those who have passed on. The old religious right is dead. May we honor what was good about its short life and may it rest in peace.
The Religious Right lost its ‘Religion’, lost its way, and went wrong.
In its wake, let us build a new movement for the common good.
Seems to me that the country is getting nervous about what the Religious Right is going to do come November. The bashing has started and has been incessant since Super Tuesday.
The “religious right” is little more than a scapegoat. I keep getting included with the religious right because I want conservative candidates. The simple reality is that I couldn’t care less about how religious a candidate is. What I want is a candidate who looks out for America first and conservatives are the only ones who really seem to do that.
Those who don’t understand what principles are would never understand who the Religious Right is, either.
It's not that one right is "above" the other. Rather it's that they are mutually reinforcing. The right to keep arms, *if one wishes*, protects the right to worship and believe as one wants. The right of free speech protects them both and is protected, in the end, by the right to keep and bear arms.
So it's not either the first or the second amendment that is "first", it's both.
I’m a non practicing Methodist who believes evolutionary theory and wants to protect American sovereignty. A regular ole bible thumper huh? LOL
I would put the writer of the article into your category - I think he’s a weak Catholic who doesn’t understand politics as well - there’s a tinge of forced ecumenism in the term “Religious Right”.
Ah, another death notice for the fictional entity. The only way to get rid of “the religious right” is to deny religious people their right to participate in the poltiical process. The fictional powerhouse called The Religious Right was (is) nothing more than a loose group of religious poeple with common principles (though not necessarily common theology) all standing up against the nonsense the left was pushing. The left saw them as an enemy and set out to make the public fearful of them so as to distract from the horrible nonsense the left was pushing. It placed those with the best ability to stop the advancement of this garbage on the defensive. Periodically someone sees that the monster is not the scary monster the liberals claimed it to be so they just assume it died or something. No, it didn’t die. It was always nothing more than this or that voice stepping out and speaking out in an effort to stop the left’s advancement. The only thing that has died is the courage and wisdom of many. Those people are not dead, just cowering. Though not everyone has lost his nerve, most everyone has drastically watered down and weaked their positions so as to accomodate the left and prove how loving they really are. (It is not loving to step aside while the left corrupts the children and the basic social structure of this once great nation.)
Sounds like collectivist Marxism to me.
Or it could be a variant on:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Not all calls to promote the common good are communistic.
I will say that those who have principles are also those who can recognize some of those who proclaim their so called “Religious Right” as the only way are themselves unprincipled!
The guy is confused. The "religious right" is an epithet, and he's trying to force fit Christians into an epithet that they don't fit and never fit. And then complaining that they don't, evidently.
If you're a Christian, you're a Christian first. Since you've aligned yourself with some rather ancient principles, you will look very "conservative" to your enemies, but your ancient principles are very much alive in the here and now.
According to him, Christians should be welcome in either party, and in a world far superior to this one, they would be.
The primary difference between the two parties is quite simply that one believes in centralizing the institutions of power, and the other believes theoretically in de-centralizing the institutions of power, and that as much power as possible should remain with the citizen.
A christian might fall down on either side of that question, in most of the world the second political choice does not exist. The US is the one country in the world where the second theory has any traction at all. In the rest of the world there is no parallel to the GOP, it is a peculiarly American phenomenon.
What has changed is that the modern Democratic Party has adopted abortion as its primary litmus test, and its ranks have filled with anti-god marxists. Christians who might otherwise agree with them on centralized power find themselves forced out. Its not the GOP's fault that its becoming increasingly impossible to be a good believing Christian, and remain within the DNC.
His next mistake is in equating the loss by conservative GOP candidates with a "religious right" having supposedly lost its way, and as he says, becoming conservatives first and religious second. He misses the point. American conservatism is not mere traditionalism. It is always rooted in principle, in our case the founding principles of individual liberty, informed by judeochristian understanding of man's place in God's universe.
That we couldn't turn this election only shows that we have lost influence in the GOP itself, not that we have lost track of what guides and drives us. We know who we are. The GOP is in danger of losing track of who and what it is and must be.
Meanwhile, the DNC is doing everything it can to drive Christians to the margins.
If the deacon isn't comfortable working with Christians who are trying to save civilization, even Christians with whom he occasionally disagrees, this is something he is going to have to work out within himself. Its time for him to do a bit of soul-searching. When he sorts it out, we could use the help.
Or, if he finds that he really agrees more with centralized models of governance, then he could dedicate himself to winning the DNC back from the marxist death cult that has captured it. Good luck, and I sincerely mean that.
I don't know anyone who claims that ONLY they have principles, but those who ridicule the Religious Right for adhering to their moral and religious principles are making a serious mistake. Sometimes no candidate will be acceptable, and there is nothing wrong with that. I refuse to vote for someone that violates my standards of morals or religious views. That is my right as an American, the same as the right to oppose that viewpoint.
In fact, most of the article doesn't even zero in on the "religious right," but rather key warnings about Christians overstepping in certain areas. It really first takes aim at the beginnings of the "religious right"--in which even the "religious right" has been critical of...from there the author does in several places fall into the "straw man" syndrome in stereotyping the entirety of "the religious right." I mean, it's easy to swing away at a vague entity ("the religious right") when no one knows who exactly he's talking about...no leaders are named; no specific strategies linked to any real people are mentioned; etc.
In other places the article is off-base at key points. Example:
The impact of the movement called “the religious right” on politics and policy has been negligible. The mobilizing commitment of the movement was to secure in law the recognition of the inalienable right to life for every human person. That must include the smallest persons in the first home of the whole human race, their mother’s womb. They have no voice but ours. The movement made little discernible political progress in this direction except to finally ban that infanticide which was called “partial birth abortion.” Abortion, which is always and in every instance, intrinsically evil because it is the immoral taking of innocent helpless human life, is still legal in all fifty States.
This is like saying that because a team lost 31-3 in football, it was a "negligible" contender in the game. Listen, if the "offense" has constantly fumbled the ball away & thrown interceptions galore, and if the score easily could have been 62-3 instead of 31-3, then I would hardly call the play of that defense as "negligible." The point is seemingly never asked: How many pre-born we would have lost had not the pro-life movement played a decent defense at times?
And, yes, the "offense" has sputtered in the legal realm. But pro-lifers haven't been limited to the political-legal realm. (A big mistake for this author to assume). Frankly, we forget that many folks--including the younger generations--are more "pro-life" than their baby boomer parents because the pro-life movement has been able to get the message across that pre-borns are humans, too.
In fact, most of the article doesn't even zero in on the "religious right," but rather key warnings about Christians overstepping in certain areas. It really first takes aim at the beginnings of the "religious right"--in which even the "religious right" has been critical of...from there the author does in several places fall into the "straw man" syndrome in stereotyping the entirety of "the religious right." I mean, it's easy to swing away at a vague entity ("the religious right") when no one knows who exactly he's talking about...no leaders are named; no specific strategies linked to any real people are mentioned; etc.
In other places the article is off-base at key points. Example:
The impact of the movement called “the religious right” on politics and policy has been negligible. The mobilizing commitment of the movement was to secure in law the recognition of the inalienable right to life for every human person. That must include the smallest persons in the first home of the whole human race, their mother’s womb. They have no voice but ours. The movement made little discernible political progress in this direction except to finally ban that infanticide which was called “partial birth abortion.” Abortion, which is always and in every instance, intrinsically evil because it is the immoral taking of innocent helpless human life, is still legal in all fifty States.
This is like saying that because a team lost 31-3 in football, it was a "negligible" contender in the game. Listen, if the "offense" has constantly fumbled the ball away & thrown interceptions galore, and if the score easily could have been 62-3 instead of 31-3, then I would hardly call the play of that defense as "negligible." The point is seemingly never asked: How many pre-born we would have lost had not the pro-life movement played a decent defense at times?
And, yes, the "offense" has sputtered in the legal realm. But pro-lifers haven't been limited to the political-legal realm. (A big mistake for this author to assume). Frankly, we forget that many folks--including the younger generations--are more "pro-life" than their baby boomer parents because the pro-life movement has been able to get the message across that pre-borns are humans, too.
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This is one of those principles that the liberals don't understand.
But your post in #5 says if I think different than “you” I am unprincipled!
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