Article VI Blog

What We Face…

I posted yesterday how religious squabbling in the political arena was hurting the church; it is also hurting religion’s voice in politics. The long knives are coming out against the religious voice in politics. Consider:

A book that blames religious resistance to teaching evolution in schools as the enemy of intellectual strength in the nation in general:

For Jacoby, Protestant fundamentalism, particularly in its resistance to the teaching of evolution in public schools, is intellectual enemy number one.

A book that claims that playing the religion card in politics is bad for democracy:

Q: You say in your book that the God Strategy in some ways threatens the democratic vitality of the nation? Can you elaborate?

A: In many respects the fusion of religion and politics is absolutely contrary to what the founders desired for the country. They fled religious sectarian violence, religious persecution and they set out build a new place where God would be part of the equation but there wouldn’t be a state, a national religion. And that was unprecedented …

E.J. Dionne, hawking his new book, is claiming the end of the religious political voice:

In truth, Bush’s victory rested both on 9/11 and on enthusiasm from religious voters. But what’s most important is that 2004, like 1928, is destined to be the last in a long line of contests in which culture and religion proved central to the outcome.

A University of Wisconsin student declares American politics a theocratic process:

For the last few decades, American politics have devolved from the democratic process into the theocratic process.

There is a striking commonality to all of this. They all have a limited definition of the religious voice in politics and that definition is identity-based. Religious people should be more sophisticated than that. The Christian religion is the basis of reason in the western world – we invented it. We should be able to arrive at reasoned positions on any issue that reflects our faith without resorting to mere labeling. When we just label, this kind of stuff is what we get.

Amazingly, given the way the Republican primaries went down, I am somewhat sympathetic to some of what is written here. That is an enormous problem!

What Is Going On Out There?

Are Evangelicals going to vote for McCain or the Dem nominee this fall? The answer is, of course, both – depends on the Evangelical in question. That is the problem with trying to be an identity group…

A Little Lightheartedness…

Wouldn’t this comment by James Dobson be considered an “admission against interest”? [Okay, that is a pretty mean joke on my part, but come on, it was earned.]

And this blog post made me laugh out loud. (Lowell: Me too.)

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