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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't actually expect everyone to agree on political issues. There are a lot of gray areas at the edges of moral issues as well. It might piss me off that someone disagrees with me, but I can enjoy a good argument, and I generally get over it quickly if it bothers me at all.
What I don't understand, and I find terribly depressing, is the utter nut-baggery that this election has highlighted. Obama is going to change the flag? Somehow make us all muslim? Is actually pushing socialism? How can you even open a dialogue when someone is clinging to something that is just factually wrong? The claims are outrageous, but when you point out the facts and try to insert some rationality in the conversation, they either refuse to listen, refuse to believe anything that doesn't reinforce their view, or claim that they have a "feeling" or they "just know".
"We have a biblical worldview here, so vote for candidates who are going to do that -- who are going to uphold the Biblical worldview we all have."
Ironically, Jesus Christ never mentioned anything in his teachings about a "Biblical worldview." He couldn't have. The Bible had not yet been compiled as a single text consisting of two testaments- by the Council of Nicea, an essentially political body settling essentially political questions in the name of "the Christian Church", which had by then mutated into a political establishment. This was in total disregard of the teachings of the Gospel warning about the terrible problems associated with confusing a spritual quest with designs on earthly political power- for what that's worth. The words of Christ...the record is explicit about what he said on that subject, there's no need to attempt elaborate interpretations or reading between the lines in order to come to that conclusion.
Neither did Jesus ever demand a return to the strict social codes of ancient texts like Deuteronomy and Leviticus- unlike the American "Biblical Reconstructionists", who demand the "return" to a theocracy based partially on those codes.
"Bible fundamentalists" haven't yet managed to figure this con game out- even though meditation on [i]what Jesus actually said[/i] could cut through the con game quite directly.
But then, most of these people don't realize that their "ne plus ultra-orthodox" Christianity is only around a century old. Saint Paul and Saint Peter would find their interpretations largely unrecognizable; but I'm of the mind that the dry-humored rabbi who told off the Sanhedrin to their faces would have found it all too wearily familiar.
From that base, we can move forward. But we do not even have that base. With these folks, the Rational part is the problem. With their neo-con political manipulators, the problem is basic Decency.
Cizik and his coworkers in the evangelical movement represent the future of that group just as the odious James Dobson represents the past. The New Life Church is probably undergoing some of the expansion that characterizes evangelical modern thinking. It is a move away from the obsession with rectums and uteri toward concern with the environment, with health care for kids, for truly family friendly issues like child care for working parents, for AIDS treatment in Africa, etc. etc.
This kind of expansion is going to severely test the mettle of the people in the movement but will also probably harness the energy and enthusiasm of the young. I don't think the evangelicals (and New Life is evangelical, not fundamentalist-- there's a difference) are going away but I do predict that they will look very different ten years from now.
Jerry Falwell, during the Reagan years, swore he was going to get out of the political arena... until George w. Bush came calling.
Religious Fundametalists always "swear off" politics every time they might face accountability for the politicians they put in office; such as George W. Bush and Tom DeLay.
The Fundamentalists will "take themselves" out of politics so they will not have to answer embarrasing questions about the results of the man (George W. Bush) they unconditionally supported (and continue to support) for President.
I guarantee they will come running back in 2012 when the Republican party comes calling again and they smell a chance of power in Sarah palin.
"If/when McCain loses, their next step will be to form an overtly Christian party, with Sarah out front, and I think they will put the Republican Party out of business."
Good idea, fine with me. Except I don't necessarily want the Republican Party out of business; we need devil's advocates (pun loosely intended), we need other perspectives to challenge and think through our own. Instead, I'd like the Republican party AS IT IS NOW out of business. Extract the overtly Christian element. No more pandering to the baseness of their base. Let the so-called Christians fight for the prize on their own, with their own. They'll lose. Our country's founders sought to ensure that. I'm definitely a fan of our founders.
It would be hard to find more blatant, despicable instances of NON-Christ-like behavior than those exhibited through the recent months of the current Republican campaign. Go ahead and cast that stone. Lie and malign. Ms. Palin is particularly adept at that. Call me crazy, but I don't think Jesus would approve.
My hopes are with people like "Jason the Firefighter."
This author, like just about anyone writing about politics, makes the mistake of assuming that "fundamentalism," "conservatism," and "Christianity" are real concepts, tangible realities, and entities that have some kind of permanence, a constancy over time.
Actually, they are all unreal, intangible, and temporary. Figments of the imagination. Fundamentalist Christianity is all made-up, flights of fancy, obsessive, hysterical beliefs manufactured by a succession of opportunists over the span of centuries. The history of Christianity, indeed, is a history of piling up of ritual and orthodoxy to create paranoid cults that try to outdo each other in madness and conformity.
"Conservatism" is hardly any better. Supposedly a collection of beliefs in "freedom" and "individuality," it is actually an association of bigots and greedheads. The reason that "liberals" and "leftists" don't effectively pull back the curtain on all this fakery is that "conservatives" give them an enemy, an "ideological" opponent to fight against in the supposed forum of "ideas."
This will all change soon. Climate change changes the underlying support infrastructure that makes this phony divide possible. As the ecological support base weakens, the planetary superstructure that makes industrial culture possible no longer makes it possible.
Put another way, "fundamentalism" and "conservatism" are luxuries, just like trophy houses, trophy wives, and trophy automobiles. The age of luxury is about to end.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
