All For Secularism

Andrew:

I suppose it is worth noting that Sam Brownback's recitation of the "All for Jesus" line is a quote from Mother Teresa that he apparently deploys in his stump speech regularly. It isn't his original formulation but he uses it to describe his political motivation. It is the core of his political message. In a religious context, it is a vulgar but completely legitimate expression of faith. In a political context in a secular society, it is a toxin that will eventually corrode civil discourse into sectarian warfare. Which is, of course, what the Christianists want. They have the biggest sect, after all.

Yes, indeed: Today, 15 percent of the vote at the Iowa Straw Poll; tomorrow, majoritarian theocratic tyranny. (Hitler came to power by democratic means, you know ...)

I would go on, but it would just be the usual tedious argument about how Andrew misunderstands American history, American religion, and the intersection thereof, and how he's trying apply a continental model of faith and politics to a context where that model has never applied, and so and so forth. Instead, I'll punt to Larison:

Sullivan’s larger point is worth keeping in mind: so long as it remains nicely separated from anything involving real life, confined to an irrelevant private sphere of “religion” that need never include venturing outside beyond the front door, religious faith is fine, albeit a bit crude for the high-minded doubt-filled pundit, but once it moves into the public sphere it is poisonous and vile. Devotion to the Lord, once it escapes the safe environs of the closet, becomes an acid that destroys the bonds of the political community. That is what Sullivan and other such “skeptical” conservatives believe about religion. Religious conservatives would do well to remember this whenever they are tempted to entertain sympathy for the appeals of the “skeptics” to reason and moderation.

I would only add that I think the sentence "it is a vulgar but completely legitimate expression of faith," with its snobbish overtones and arm's-length distaste for Mother Teresa (!), is the most unfortunate - and revealing - part of the whole post.

Update: A bit more - okay, a lot more - here.

Comments

Oh, hell, let's just abandon church/state separation completely, teach outright creationism in the public schools, hang crucifixes everywhere, make buybull studies a mandatory high school course, declare biblical inerrancy as the law of the land, and call any foreign leader we don't like the Antichrist. And while we're at it, let's beat up some Papists and Jews, especially if they sneak into the Air Force Academy.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 15, 2007 12:24 PM

Andrew's point is that injecting extreme-sounding religious appeals into the political discourse makes political discussion and compromise more difficult.

You're sensitive about things religious, so you fall back on a knee-jerk reaction rather than engaging the point at issue.

Please consider, Ross, that this kind of hyperbolic reaction on your part is quite like black people cheering the acquittal of OJ Simpson.

Andrew said nothing having anything to do with Dan Larison's parade of straw men, and made no prediction at all about theocracy, much less anything in line with your sarcastic line in this post.

If you think it's a good thing for a political candidate to make "all for [insert religion's founder's name here]" a part of his stump speech, please make that case.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | August 15, 2007 12:49 PM

"it is a toxin that will eventually corrode civil discourse into sectarian warfare"

I notice that the zealous secularists and the religious skeptics who love them always lay the blame of any corrossion of civil discourse at the door of the religious. Theists are, no doubt, to blame some of the time. But the secularists need to recognize they much of the blame falls on their own shoulders. Their blatant ignorance of the subject matter, exhausting boorishness, and unwarranted condescension corrodes debate more than anything else I can think of. Nothing provides better evidence of this than books like Dawkins' recent screed.

Posted by Beauceron | August 15, 2007 12:56 PM

Hell, I'm a secularist, and even I have a more favorable view of religion in the public sphere than Larison's Straw-Sullivan does. As far as I know, Andrew is as Catholic as you are, Ross.

Is it possible for you to consider that slogans like "All for Jesus" rub a large number of people who might otherwise be sympathetic to your cause the wrong way, in much the same way that Sullivan's condescending tone rubbed you and Daniel the wrong way? There are much-less-sectarian ways to express the same spirit.

Personally, I welcome naked displays of Christocentrism in Republican politics and prefer them to insidious ecumenical euphemisms like "Judeo-Christian values." But I'm not exactly a reliable narrator when it comes to Republican campaign strategy.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | August 15, 2007 1:03 PM

Oh, hell, let's just abandon church/state separation completely, teach outright creationism in the public schools, hang crucifixes everywhere, make buybull studies a mandatory high school course, declare biblical inerrancy as the law of the land, and call any foreign leader we don't like the Antichrist. And while we're at it, let's beat up some Papists and Jews, especially if they sneak into the Air Force Academy.

And your problem with all this is...?

Posted by Mike S. | August 15, 2007 1:06 PM

Beauceron, I haven't read it, so I'll stipulate for sake of argument that Dawkins' book is astonishingly and counterproductively obnoxious.

But that has nothing to do with the discussion of candidates repeatedly making sectarian appeals.

Also, if any presidential candidate said a positive word about Dawkins, his career would be over. So even if he is obnoxious, he's also shunned by politicians. This is not so for divisive folks on the other side, such as Pat Robertson.

I'm sure that you are right that some secularists generate more heat than light, but they are not a particularly powerful group.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | August 15, 2007 1:09 PM

Andrew's point is that injecting extreme-sounding religious appeals into the political discourse makes political discussion and compromise more difficult.

So does injecting extreme-sounding appeals of any type. (How easy is it to discuss or compromise with Dennis Kucinich?) It's the special focus on religion that is problematic. American political rhetoric has always been infused with religious imagery and themes, and will be for the foreseeable future. The idea that doing so makes political "discussion & compromise" more difficult than it would be otherwise is facile and silly.

Is it possible for you to consider that slogans like "All for Jesus" rub a large number of people who might otherwise be sympathetic to your cause the wrong way, in much the same way that Sullivan's condescending tone rubbed you and Daniel the wrong way? There are much-less-sectarian ways to express the same spirit.

But why is the "All for Jesus" thing any different than anything else a politician might say? Hillary's whole demeanor rubs a lot of people the wrong way. So does Guliani's. Heck, there's plenty of people who Bush rubs the wrong way, but who voted for him anyway because they prefer his policies over Kerry's. It's the politician's job to appeal to the most number of people that he can. It's the voters job to decide whether the appeal was effective or not through the ballot box. The notion that we need to rule out certain types of appeals a priori is simply wrong.

Posted by Mike S. | August 15, 2007 1:19 PM

Sullivan's point is borne out by how religious rhetoric poisoned and ruined the abolitionist and civil rights movement. Oh, wait a minute...

And it is beyond rich to hear Sullivan, whose poisonous rhetoric was designed to and succeeded in silencing critics of the war he now believes was a disaster, calling someoene out for posiosnous rhetoric for quoting Mother Teresa!

Posted by JohnMcG | August 15, 2007 1:47 PM

Mike S.- "The notion that we need to rule out certain types of appeals a priori is simply wrong."

I don't think Sullivan is suggesting that this type of appeal should be ruled out a priori in any meaningful sense of those words. I don't hear anyone calling for the Supreme Court to outlaw such speech in political campaigns. He's saying that the slogan reflects a set of attitudes, which he defines as "Christianism", that represent a distressingly sectarian impulse on the part of certain Christian conservatives. And that this sectarianism is corrosive to public discourse in our pluralist society, because it focuses on hardening the dividing lines between "us" and "them," rather than seeking common ground.

In other words, he's saying that there's nothing wrong with Christians organizing politically and seeking to promote their values in politics. The problem stems from emphasizing the exclusively Christian nature of their movement, rather than emphasizing the values that have broader political appeal. This approach makes it less about driving driving American politics in a direction more favorable to conservative Christians... and more about putting "one of our own" in the White House and sticking it to the people they don't like. Being as Andrew is an openly gay man, one can imagine why he might be a bit touchy about that sort of thing.

Which is all to say, more "faith, hope, and love" and less "Hooray for Team Jesus."

I can't speak for Sullivan, but I don't see "All for Jesus" as somehow more objectionable than "All for the black race" or "All for the white race." But it isn't any less objectionable, either. There's a fundamental difference between a sectarian message and an off-putting demeanor.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | August 15, 2007 1:48 PM

Two words: Terri Schiavo.

Please someone, explain in a straightforward way how a candidate who seems to be saying that his campaign is 'all for Jesus' should not be expected to govern "for Jesus".

Alternatively, explain how a creationist has credentials to sit on a school board--to say nothing of the Oval Office.

Amazing to have this discussion in the 21st century.

Posted by JohnMc | August 15, 2007 2:08 PM

Yes how gauche of Andrew to keep Mother Teresa at an arm's length. After all, she did such marvelous work upholding the church's opposition of contraception in the face of the miseries of overpopulation. Also despite Charles Keating's generous donations of other people's money to her cause, Teresa never wasted it on such frivolities as sterilized hypodermic needles or painkillers for the dying in her hospices. (Though when she was sick herself, Wicked, Secularist clinics in California were good enough for her.)

On second thought, maybe an arm's length is too generous.

Posted by Chris | August 15, 2007 2:23 PM

Hmm Chris -- I suppose at that time you were in Calcutta at the time picking dying people off the streets but also giving them clean needles and condoms?

Posted by JohnMcG | August 15, 2007 2:26 PM

"But that has nothing to do with the discussion of candidates repeatedly making sectarian appeals."

My point is that this goes beyond candidates "making sectarian appeals". When Sullivan says "In a political context in a secular society, it is a toxin that will eventually corrode civil discourse into sectarian warfare", surely he does not mean that political candidates will devolve into sectarian warfare, he means the whole society. Falwell saying 9/11 was the fault of feminists and gays was part of this discourse, just as professors referring to atheists as "brights" and, ergo, theists as "dims" is part of the same discourse.

This nonsense where blinkered secularists operate under the pretense that it is only theists who corrode public discourse (as Sullivan definitely implies), and Secularists are the sacred guardians of reasonable discourse gets a bit old, particularly in light of the embarassing public statements they've made of late. Sullivan's cloying use of "Christianist", no doubt to raise the spectre of Islamist religious rule, is one of those.

Posted by Beauceron | August 15, 2007 2:28 PM

"Sullivan's point is borne out by how religious rhetoric poisoned and ruined the abolitionist and civil rights movement."

--More than you know. John Brown's campaign of murder and terror, plus the apocalyptic rhetoric of his supporters (many of them men of the cloth) certainly poisoned and ruined the abolitionist movement.

As for civil rights, Dr. Martin Luther King may have been right to quote Saint Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all", but the subsequent attitude of 'if you don't like a law, you don't have to obey it' was disastrous. All too often, overheated religious rhetoric ends up backfiring.

Posted by Tacitus | August 15, 2007 2:57 PM

The way I look at it, Anyone who believes in a particular religion will, by definition, advocate for and promote that religion. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule and I'm sure you can bring numerous anecdotal cases where so and so didn't push their beliefs on to people and so and so didn't do this or that. That's nice, but you're missing the point. Religions are based on Faith and belief. There is no empirical test to determine if a religion is right or wrong, you have to believe one is right or another is wrong.

That's what Faith is.

Where things go south is when people think that other people must believe that which they believe, or the religion itself actively promotes the concept that no other religion is permitted, no worship of other gods is permitted (a jealous God). Once you start thinking you have a supreme power on your side, there is literally no end to the damage that can be done.

And then when you have people in positions of power holding that same belief that somehow God is guiding and directing their actions, what is to prevent someone from performing some really evil acts.

For what it's worth Secularists have a tendency not to assume there is a higher power speaking to us and guiding them. And Secularists are vulnerable to excesses, those excess are generally accepted to be an internally driven process rather than given to be from an external force.

just my 2 cents

Posted by Mark | August 15, 2007 3:14 PM

Ah Mr McG (perhaps one Irishman to another?)--possibly our friend Chris was also in Ireland when Mother Teresa was trying to keep divorce illegal (except for Princess Di--which was OK)? Which seems more 'au point' to the present discussion since Jesus has authority over our marriages not civil gov't. (Perhaps shillelaghs outside the pub?)

Posted by John McC | August 15, 2007 3:16 PM

religion currupts politics and politics currupt religion.

Posted by Andrew | August 15, 2007 4:15 PM

Please someone, explain in a straightforward way how a candidate who seems to be saying that his campaign is 'all for Jesus' should not be expected to govern "for Jesus".

I don't think any such explanation is possible. Yeah, I'd certainly expect a President Brownback to govern "for Jesus" in the sense that his conscience -- and therefore ultimately his ideas about which policies should or shouldn't be followed -- is informed by his Christian faith.

But what would be nice to hear from the secularists is less in the way of criticism about a position a given politician holds because said politician is open about his religious beliefs -- and more criticism about a particular position or policy because said policy fails on utilitarian grounds. Or, indeed, criticize a position because you disagree with the morality that underpins it if you wish. Just don't say "see, that guy quotes the scriptures, so obviously his position on the issue is wrong."

Where things go south is when people think that other people must believe that which they believe, or the religion itself actively promotes the concept that no other religion is permitted, no worship of other gods is permitted (a jealous God).

Er, yeah, I guess things would "go south" under such circumstances. But is there, like, any serious public figure in the US who could be characterized like this? Last time I checked Huckabee wasn't trying to force other people to believe what he believes, nor was Santorum.

Posted by Jasper | August 15, 2007 4:17 PM

Re: so long as it remains nicely separated from anything involving real life, confined to an irrelevant private sphere of “religion” that need never include venturing outside beyond the front door, religious faith is fine

Why is the private sphere of life “irrelevant”? Except for politicians and a handful of no-good celebrities most of us spend 99% of our lives in the private sphere. Indeed, a truly valid criticism of political religion is that it focuses on handful of public controversies like gay marriages which have little relevance to ordinary life of most people, and ignores the real daily moral challenges which Christians (and everyone) face.

Posted by jonf | August 15, 2007 4:31 PM

As I understand it, Brownback uses the story to describe Mother Teresa's motivations, not his own. Is Andrew suggesting that Brownback's comparing himself to Mother Teresa? I think Brownback is a bit more modest than that. Again, as I understand it, what Brownback said was an endorsement of faith (generically), based on the good that those with faith can do, with Mother Teresa as an example. It seems to me no more objectionable than, say, other prominent politicos mentions of the "power of faith". See, e.g., Clinton, Obama, Clinton, etc.

Posted by Thomas | August 15, 2007 4:33 PM

Ross, spare us the centrist pablum on religion. As if you're coming across any less "high-minded" than Sullivan. It's reasonable to wish that people keep their religion inside the front door, or the church door, instead of injecting it into politics, because the result is almost always negative.

And try to remind yourself every now and then how absurd your Church, and expressions like Devotion To The Lord, sound to atheists and agnostics. "All for Jesus" indeed. All for Sam Brownback is more likely.

Posted by Bill | August 15, 2007 4:34 PM

Oh goody, another post wherein all substantive discussion is dodged in order to sneer at someone elses take on religion... without offering a defense of it directly.

Mother Theresa deserves a bit of a sneering at. Her desire was never to help people out of their circumstances or reduce their suffering to any large degree (in fact, she praised suffering). It was to make sure that when they screamed out in pain, they screamed out the ideologically correct phrases of her belief system.

She praised dictators for funneling money into her charity... but somehow it seems that most of that money never found its way to Calcutta.

But no no, lets not discuss any of that: let's instead pretend that she was a perfect, uncritical saintly figure with which we can instantly feel superior and refreshed by citing and supposedly siding with.

Posted by plunge | August 15, 2007 6:49 PM

I am proud to be an American when I see the way the Iowa straw poll seemed to cut through some of the hype created by the media that was in favor of the over financed candidates.

Back about 1915 or so we had a politician named Woodrow Wilson that accepted a bribe to create the Federal Reserve. They were a group of very powerful bankers and businessmen from around the world at the time. Through the monopoly of being the source of our money and by being outside of our government, or paying any taxes, they have built up a fortune that, I believe, includes owning most of the politicians of the world.

It is going to take a determined, We the People, to restore law and order in our government before we can restore law and order in our streets.

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

-Woodrow Wilson

Posted by Carson | August 15, 2007 6:56 PM

It's reasonable to wish that people keep their religion inside the front door, or the church door...

Well, that all depends. I certainly don't want Brownback campaigning on the position that we all should believe in transubstantiation, or that we ought to regularly confess our sins to a priest. Similarly, I sincerely hope Huckabee keeps his views on, say, sola scriptura private. I'd agree it's indeed "reasonable" to wish that politicians refrain from spouting off views about the idiosyncrasies of their own religious traditions.

...instead of injecting it into politics, because the result is almost always negative...

I think what you're talking about here, though, is religious-based morality, and you're quite wrong to write "the result is almost always negative." The result certainly wasn't negative with Martin Luther King, or Bobby Kennedy, or Gandhi, or Harriet Beecher Stowe. Again, if you think a public issue is wrong on a certain issue, say so, and, more importantly, say why. But don't tell us he's wrong merely because he happens to be a believer, or that he's arrived at the position he holds because of (among other things) a strong sense of right and wrong born out of religious conviction. And don't presume to tell us not to bring our moral framework with us into debates, unless you'd like to be told you can't bring your own moral framework (secular humanism? liberalism? utilitarianism? Marxism?) into debates.

Posted by Jasper | August 15, 2007 6:57 PM

I will soon fisk you

http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/

Posted by Bill | August 15, 2007 7:31 PM

Jasper-

I think what you're talking about here, though, is religious-based morality, and you're quite wrong to write "the result is almost always negative."

I don't know where you got that I was talking about "religious based morality," when I had plainly written "religion." Morals can be and have been agreed upon by people of different faiths, hence Gandhi. People of different faiths (or no faith) aren't, however, going to sympathize equally with a politician intoning "all for Jesus" repeatedly. In fact, it might just get their hackles up. See the distinction?

Posted by Bill | August 15, 2007 8:09 PM

BTW the Bill just before my last post is a different Bill, for whatever that's worth.

Posted by Bill | August 15, 2007 8:11 PM

Understood:

He is Fisked.

Posted by Bill (the one who promised fisking) | August 15, 2007 8:40 PM

Here:

http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/2007/08/ross-douthat-continues-to-annoy-me.html

Posted by Bill | August 15, 2007 8:46 PM

I'm still waiting for Ross' defense of his own faith.

Posted by Devin Carpenter | August 15, 2007 10:00 PM

Oh, come on Ross. "All for Jesus" is not the most euphonic phrase. I miss the time when conservatives were cultural elitists.

Posted by Robert | August 15, 2007 11:11 PM

Sullivan says: "In a political context in a secular society, it is a toxin that will eventually corrode civil discourse into sectarian warfare." Your post, and the subsequent comment thread, only substantiate Sullivan's claim. As long as politicians like Brownback continue to refer explicitly and in a rallying and jingoistic fashion to their membership in the Jesus club, America will be riven by sectarian warfare of the sort we witness in this thread.

There are many reasons why secularists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc. are offended by the Jesus-mongering of politicians. But just consider one, for the moment: that politicians from other faiths cannot wield their patron saints in their campaigns in the way that Christians can. There cannot be an openly atheist candidate in America who ends campaign speeches with a citation from Darwin. No Muslim candidate can end a speech by saying "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is His prophet." It's hard to work out a Jewish analogy, but imagine Lieberman ending a campaign speech "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," and then having to explain under criticism that Israel metaphorically applies to any moral person so no American should feel excluded, and by "One" he doesn't mean to invalidate those who assert the divinity of Jesus or other gods, he's simply expressing the faith which motivates his own participation in politics...

Because such a thing is obviously impossible, a Jew, hearing a Christian politician invoke his faith in Jesus, has an automatic feeling of suspicion and exclusion. Believing Christians like Jimmy Carter defused that reaction by linking their faith to specific moral beliefs which could then be shared ecumenically by members of other faiths -- "My faith is part of what motivates me to help those less fortunate than myself," etc. MLK had similar ecumenical instincts, leading interfaith dialogs with people like Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh. But when someone like Brownback says "All for Jesus", it functions as a polarizing call to arms. If he wants to do that, he can't complain when non-Christians see him as the enemy.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 16, 2007 6:42 AM

Believing Christians like Jimmy Carter defused that reaction by linking their faith to specific moral beliefs which could then be shared ecumenically by members of other faiths -- "My faith is part of what motivates me to help those less fortunate than myself," etc.

This is exactly what Brownback was doing -- even adding a level of indirection since it was Mother Theresa's story and quote -- and Sullivan wants to throw him out of the public square for it.

I have a feeling that the objection is more with it being "someone like Brownback," whose faith leads him to positions you disagree with, rather than the content of his speech that this leads to it.

Posted by JohnMcG | August 16, 2007 1:12 PM

Come on now. The cry "All for Jesus!" is self-evidently lame, and the only people who would be swayed by it are those suckers who have been conditioned their entire lives to salivate whenever they hear someone shout "Praise Jesus!". Brownback can Christmonger all he wants-it's reassuringly honest, actually. It's also a guarantee that he won't be nominated. What gets tedious is Mr. Douthat's apparent conviction that there is some aspect to American religiosity which simply defies the understanding of those who he imagines exist outside its confines. Lacking anything substantive to say, he falls back upon this notion that all secular criticisms arise out of some profound misunderstanding regarding the nature of faith. Let me say something that will perhaps strain your credulity, Ross. There is nothing about Christianity generally, or about any typical person's adherence to it, that is particularly hard for an atheist/agnostic of average intelligence to understand. The implicit logic seems to be something like: If person X is defending "secularism," it must be because person X doesn't understand religion. Because, if person X understood religion, then he wouldn't defend a secular attitude! It isn't just that this attitude of yours is condescending; it represents a major failure on your part to understand the viewpoint of those you attempt to criticise.

Most of us Atheists were religious at some point in our lives, and those of us who turned away from the notion of a benign deity in childhood have still lived in a society chock full of people of faith. While we encounter religion every day, Christians rarely encounter in any meaningful way people with truly non-theistic attitudes. On the rare occasion they do, they behave invariably as if the reason the person they just met is an Atheist is because that person didn't get "the message" about God. The plain truth is this isn't the case for the vast majority of us-we understand what religion is, where it comes from, and what it claims to offer, and knowing all these things, we have rejected it. People who openly espouse the belief that God inseminated Mary in the form of a dove through the ear so that she could have a virgin birth of a child who would be His son but whose sole purpose would be to die in agony because this is what the purportedly almighty Creator felt was necessary in order to forgive human beings for the sin of being descended from a mythical couple who were expelled from an imaginary garden and considered forever tainted because they ate an apple that God said was off limits should not go around blithely accusing those who find this myth too incredible to believe "obtuse."

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 1:18 PM

Ross,

I think Andrew just completely schooled you over on his site.

Posted by Carl | August 16, 2007 1:32 PM

While we encounter religion every day, Christians rarely encounter in any meaningful way people with truly non-theistic attitudes.

How could this be? How would it be possible for atheists to regularly encounter religion, but for Christian not to encounter atheistic attitudes?

Oh, I see -- Christians rarely encounter in any meaningful way people with truly non-theistic attitudes. Apparently, your encounters with religion are deeply meaningful because you're so much smarter and open-minded than we Christian yahoos are.

Posted by JohnMcG | August 16, 2007 1:43 PM

Here is what Sen. Brownback actually said at Ames in recounting
his experience of escorting Mother Teresa during her trip to DC:

"As I put her in the car, she grabbed my hand, she looked me in the eyes and said three words four times: 'All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus.' It was her faith that powered her to help millions. Faith is a good thing, not a bad thing." You can watch this over at C-SPAN's website (h/t Byron York)

In light of what he actually said, much of the discussion on this board has been out of place, unless you think it is wrong for a politician to act on principles shaped by religious faith.

Sen. Brownback has been one of the leading voices in the Senate for shining more light on the Darfur disaster. Presumably his religious faith has shaped his position on this matter. How is this out of bounds?

Posted by torourke | August 16, 2007 1:48 PM

"Sullivan's point is borne out by how religious rhetoric poisoned and ruined the abolitionist and civil rights movement. Oh, wait a minute..."

If you had reading comprehension skills, you would realize that what he said was that the predecessors to the actual Republican Christian groups themselves use religion to be on the wrong side of these issues. Who did Southern white Christians back, MLK or George Wallace? As King once said, America is never as racially segregated as it is on a Sunday morning. What do you think Brownback's view of divisive black religious politicians like Sharpton or Jesse Jackson are?

In addition, the abolitionist and civil rights movement used religion to expand people's secular political rights. As Sullivan notes, that's why King was able to make serious and convincing secular claims even if religion was a motivation for him. However, Republican Christianists are for denying people their rights: gays to marry, women to control their bodies and have access to rape kits, teenagers to learn how to use condoms, the right of people to habeas corpus and to not be tortured. These issues all get coated in religious rhetoric because they only make sense in a religious context but not the context of a constitutional secular liberal republic that protects minorities. To think that all people motivated in part by religious morality are equal and all deserve to have their positions respected is to group in King with the racist Christian Afrikaaners who used the Bible to back up apartheid. Christianists want to make sure gays and lesbians in America are second-class citizens. They are not talking about protecting black people's right to vote or anything honorable and just like that.

Posted by Reality Man | August 16, 2007 2:16 PM

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson: Religion is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Posted by Aqualung | August 16, 2007 2:27 PM

Ross, pardon the snark, but anyone who had to be reminded (http://www.theamericanscene.com/2007/02/22/crime-matters-andrew-says-of-this) that George Wallace talking about busing and public schools was actually a dog whistle for segregationists, frankly doesn't have any latitude whatsoever about informing someone else they have a poor understanding of American political history.

You might have been in the movie theater, but you were clearly sleeping through the major plot twists.

Posted by Michael Bacon | August 16, 2007 2:29 PM

Sorry, but Andrew Sullivan is spot on when it comes to this topic. His diagnosis of the current malignant malaise in our political discourse is accurate and well-articulated on his own blog today, and well worth reading.

Posted by Brendan Ross | August 16, 2007 2:56 PM

While we encounter religion every day, Christians rarely encounter in any meaningful way people with truly non-theistic attitudes.

How could this be? How would it be possible for atheists to regularly encounter religion, but for Christian not to encounter atheistic attitudes?

Oh, I see -- Christians rarely encounter in any meaningful way people with truly non-theistic attitudes. Apparently, your encounters with religion are deeply meaningful because you're so much smarter and open-minded than we Christian yahoos are.

Misinterpret me however you like, but I can make it quite simple. I have, on numerous occasions, been told by christians that I was the firstly openly atheistic person they had ever met. So tell me, how many people have told you that you were the first christian that they had ever met, hrm?

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 3:20 PM

Indeed. We have seen the benefit of people like Jerry Falwell and his ilk inserting themselves into politics. Please.

As a general rule, I mistrust people who wear their religion on their sleeve, especially those who use it to garner votes. Bush certainly used that tactic to get his base out. And we can all see how well THAT turned out.

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