Many, many thoughts have been percolating, and I’m going to try and get at least a few of them out there on the table, perhaps to be developed further at some point. First, I came across this on Salon, and thought this quote was rather telling:

Because Bush and his fundamentalist backers lack a knowledge of secular disciplines, they do not realize that they are well on their way to installing in our society the ruthless system of social Darwinism and labeling it “Christian.” As in Herbert Spencer’s ideology, so in Bush’s policies: The financially fittest prosper at the expense of the weak. And ironically so, because social Darwinism is the opposite of Christian social teachings.

The irony isn’t lost on me. The Religious Right has fought tooth and nail against scientific Darwinism, while embracing it by supporting the economic policies of the Republicans. While I might argue that not every one of the “financially fittest” prosper at the expense of the weak, I would agree that it is the exception rather than the rule. The Right tends to be so caught up in the “morality” issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc) that they lose sight of the bigger picture of “immoral” behavior. Morality does not begin and end with abortion and homosexuality.

Joe Carter has an interesting insight into the roots of theocracy. The lesson in linguistic and etymology would be useful in correcting the misconceptions of the Left (and the media), and his criticisms of those misconceptions are right on. But I think he misses one of the key components of every “ignorant” stereotype: a grain of truth. No one group has done more to give Christians the proverbial black eye than other Christians. We are being judged by the deeds and misdeeds of Christians past — just as we judge liberals and conservatives by their histories. Take a moment to examine the “leading” voices on the Christian Right, and you’ll hear intolerance and bigotry in the name of Christ. When this is the public face of Christianity, we’re in trouble. One of the comments to Joe’s post is very telling:

The bigoted perspective of the left is very true and the left believes their bigorty is self evident truth. When I was in graduate school in education, I decided to hide my Christianity one semester. I played a little experiment. I wrote my papers well and impressed the teacher. She often read my papers in front of class and gave me very high marks. One time, she told me she even called a fellow teacher to share my paper with her over the phone. So at the end of the semester, I went up to the teacher. I asked her if she could guess my stance. Stance in this environment is like saying “which post-modern tribe am I from”. She said, “Well, I know you are bright. I know you gradutated from Stanford. Hmm. I do not know.” So I said, “Who are the most ignorant and backward minded people in our society.” To this she responded, and I am not lying, “YOU ARE NOT A CHRISTIAN ARE YOU.” To this I said, “The only one you have ever met. I am here to expose your bigorty.” After some discussion, she confessed she had never actually had a conversation with a born-again Christian before. I told her my entire intention of coming to speak with her is to help her realize that her bigorty against Christians is as real as a KKK person’s bigorty against blacks.
She was stunned, and I must admit moved.
Yes, indeed, there is real bigotry out there, but we can win them over one by one.

Carter raises the ghost of Martin Luther King as an example of a Christian leader who has been embraced by the left. He quotes from Eugene Volokh’s blog:

Or what do you think about the civil rights movement? The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., after all, was one of its main leaders, and he supported and defended civil rights legislation as a matter of God’s will, often in overtly religious terms. He too tried to impose his religious dogma on the legal system, which at the time allowed private discrimination, and in practice allowed governmental discrimination as well.

Interestingly, King and the specter of the civil rights movement are anathema to many on the right (both Christian and non-Christian). And Volokh also mentions labour unions. Employee rights? That’s absolutely blasphemous. As much as the Left has a double standard for religious advocacy, so has the Right. Why? Because politics has trumped faith. Instead of jumping aboard the faith wagon and letting that dictate political views, members of the Religious Right are allowing politics to guide some matters of faith. tI also think it’s a bit of logical leap to categorize the fight against gay marriage with the advocacy of civil and employee rights and opposition to the death penalty. As I’ve said before, if we’re going to fight for a law banning gay marriage, laws banning pre-marital sex and adultery better be close behind. Not sure what I was thinking there, but it wasn’t that!

So, what are we to do? Jim Hart has a good start, but he leaves out the most important piece — the development of the theologically, scripturally-bounded Christian third party. Even if you choose to vote for a third party, as a Christian, you are still forced to pick and choose which articles of faith you might be willing to look past. Perhaps we even need several Christian third parties that pledge to work on redeeming specific parts of our government.

Posted on 17 November 2004