Religious Right Watch

The truth sets you free; myths become your masters

It's important to keep in the national spotlight the battle for high standards in science education. I am certainly glad that the Times ran Lawrence Krauss' commentary. The Times at least on August 15 and regarding the issue of science education standards showed it will not be a part of the relentless dumbing-down of America.

Krauss summarized:

the age of the earth, and the universe, is no more a matter of religious faith than is the question of whether or not the earth is flat.
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It is a matter of overwhelming scientific evidence. To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.

Maybe even more persuasively, Dale, a DefCon reader, summarized:

There are hundreds of thousands of pages in every scientific discipline that shows evidence for the theory of evolution. There is not one scintilla of evidence to prove creationism or Intelligent design, or whatever they want to call it today. There are no peer reviewed scientific papers to show any proof for creationism. There are people who continue to believe that one ancient book of myths preempts all of our scientific research. If there are mysteries about the origin of man, etc. they must remain mysteries for now. We shouldn’t make up myths to try to explain them. That is the controversy. Now, let’s study science.

We live at a time when throughout the republic scientific standards in general--the standards of verifiability and reason themselves--are under attack: evolution is false, condoms don't help prevent STDs, abortions cause breast cancer, the earth isn't warming, and Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction become widely believed lies because perfidious myth-makers shout our their wishful thinking at the top of their lungs, manipulatively using politics to make millions of voters feel that they are also were invested in seeing these “truths” more widely accepted.

The politicizing of veracity is a horrific reality spreading like a virus across the country. Far too many Americans are less inclined to promote a myth, like those mentioned above, because it is true than because if it is accepted their side "wins." That issues relating to clearly verifiable realities are decided more on effective spin and "messaging" than substance should alarm every true patriot. A strong republic can NOT be built upon an ill-informed electorate.

-IseFire

Christian Zionists' dreams of war

Posen's "Lobbying for Armageddon" focuses on John Hagee. He is an example of a Christian Zionist. I encountered a lot of Christian Zionist thinking when growing up in Iowa's fundamentalist Christian subculture, the one largely governing the Republican Party now.

Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.

Palestinian Christian activist, Daoud Kuttab, who I disagree with on some Middle East- and Israel-related issues, deserves to have heard his perspective on the arrogant Christian Zionist mentality exemplified by Hagee. He said that "as a young Christian boy growing up in Bethlehem and Jerusalem" he heard "false prophets" who were "too numerous to list," who "predicted the end days and the presence of the anti-Christ." He continues:

But I vividly remember...Pat Robertson in 1982 as he spoke on the CBN’s "700 Club." He stood in front of a map of the Middle East, opened up a copy of the Old Testament and claimed to know what a particular prophecy meant in geopolitical terms. As the Begin-Sharon army at the time was besieging Beirut, he pointed out exactly what he said would happen next. In particular he was keen to repeat that the PLO's leader at the time, Yasser Arafat, was none other than the anti-Christ himself.

Less than 13 years after that international broadcast, Robertson was filmed visiting Arafat in Gaza, delivering food and milk to Palestinians and applauding the peace agreement that Arafat had signed with Israel's Yitzhak Rabin.

Christian Zionists who use religious rhetoric to justify political and military actions are no better than Jewish or Islamic fundamentalists who make similar outlandish claims. Peace in the Middle East should be about the liberty, independence and freedoms of all the people of the region, and not about whose promised land the Holy Land is.

-IseFire

Don't get me wrong, there is a religious left. But...

The Interface Alliance's e-newsletter draws attention to David Heim's article, without citing its exact title, in The Christian Century, "Voters and Values: the divided mind of the religions left." From the article:

“The rise of the religious left has been rumored or trumpeted for almost two decades. A series of organizations...has been created over the years with the aim of mobilizing religious liberals....
[….]
The religious left has a long tradition behind it—indeed, a deeper and longer tradition than the religious right has. The religious left (it is "left" only insofar as it is to the left of the right) flourishes in black churches, the social witness arms and Washington offices of mainline churches, and agencies like the Catholic bishops' Campaign for Human Development, the National Council of Churches, Bread for the World, Interfaith Worker Justice and the Children's Defense Fund.

The Interface Alliance (TIA) selects as the teaser for the link to Heim's article, "Religious Left Has Deeper Tradition Than Religious Right." Indeed, that is a major point of Heim's article, and anyone who clicks through from the TIA newsletter link will read also about the religious left's "divided mind." Regardless, I couldn't help but wonder, probably very unfairly, if TIA was engaging in a bit of wishful thinking about what sympathetic commentators, or Heim at least, have to say about the religious left.

There is a religious left. It has a noble history. But, as Heim points out, it has "limitations."

What is more, the religious left is not always so left. In fact, that seems to be a reality that many on the religious left want to stress more. Consider this, from Heim's article:

the religious left enters the political field with contradictory impulses. To some extent, the left wants to oppose the religious right with its own set of vigorous religious claims. When the right thunders, "God condemns gay marriage," the left itches to retort, "God condemns a system that lowers taxes on the wealthy, cuts aid for the poor and ignores the 45 million people who lack health insurance." The left thinks that Christian values lead to a different set of public priorities. In its eyes, inadequate health care, unequal access to education, the growing disparity between rich and poor, and the despoiling of the environment are more pressing political issues—and more the kind the Bible explicitly addresses—than abortion and gay marriage. In other words, the religious left wants, at least at times, to offer a set of Christian values that parallels the right's but differs in content.

Notice how, as Heim describes it--accurately, I think--the religious left doesn't necessarily object to the Religious Right's ideas, but to how they prioritize. As Heim points out, the religious "left" isn't really left--it's merely not-right. In Heim's article, when the Religious Right says, "God condemns gay marriage," you'll note that the religious left doesn't deny that claim. On the part of the religious left, there's too often effectively an implied, "Yes, but..." in response to the Religious Right, when perhaps a "No!" would be the more difficult but just reply.

Another way to look at it is that the religious left still hasn't found a way to articulate a religious message grounded in a clear-eyed philosophy about law, rights, and government, one that would, as an example, point out that God actually might like the idea of gay marriage. (Arguing such a point is for another post, another day, but is it so unfathomable? Just for starters: what about pointing out how marriage often fosters for the two adults involved an environment that is more conducive than the alternative--being single or co-cohabiting without marital rights and responsibilities--to stability psychological, sexual, and economic, which are things many Biblical passages suggest God endorses. Why isn't the religious left at the forefront of advocating such a good thing for same-sex couples? There is no just reason that I can think of.)

What gives me pause about the religious left at times is this timidity, I guess--especially about advocating political involvement based on human responsibility towards both people and ideas scapegoated by the religious right. There are times I think that the religious left is simply too wedded to propriety, to a conservative impulse--much more so than is much of Religious Right, actually. For the Religious Right, Jesus is often a radical of the here and now. For too much of the religious left, He inspires, apparently, nothing more radical today than fiddling with the order of priorities. That's not exactly the stuff of a great movement: religious, political, or otherwise.

When mosque and state mix

The Observer is reporting one consequence of an Iraq whose legal system blends religion and government...it gives license to those with extremist religious interpretations to act on their hatreds:

There is growing evidence that Shia militias [in Iraq] have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused.
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Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

The documentary is viewable here. (Thanks to the blog Direland for posting that link.)

Liberal Christianity has not risen to the occasion

Andrew Bard Schmookler of www.nonesoblind.org writes an op-ed that correctly states that liberal Christians have failed to create a "religious left" (my phrase, not his) political movement. He's correct. It's important however, to understand why there's no religious left forming, and nowhere is it explained better, that I know of, than here, by Frederick Clarkson on Talk2Action.org.

Regardless, Schmookler's op-ed offers a great contrast between the war-god spirit of Christian nationalism permeating the republic's halls of power and the liberal alternative. Even as drought grips 60% of the US, our electorate is awash in the type of highly corrosive Christianity--growing in might since the 1970's, yet ignored by most of the media and many progressives--that Schmookler wishes liberal Christians could more successfully help challenge.

From Schmookler's op-ed:

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The many forms of Christianity incorporate, in one way or another, the wide range of disparate elements that comprise the sacred Christian texts. They can differ considerably, however, in which elements are given emphasis.

This difference in emphasis makes it possible for profoundly different spirits to express themselves. And when one of these spirits becomes the salient public voice of "Christianity" to wield power in America's national politics, it matters greatly to the whole country which spirit it is.

Will the voice of Christianity that speaks the loudest be one that emphasizes a God who smites his enemies or a God who says "Love Thine Enemies"?

When Christianity is heard in America's political arena, will the predominant voice be one that focuses on condemning those who diverge from the straight-and-narrow path, or the one that emphasizes more the teaching, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"?

Which Christianity will help shape our public policies--the one that is pre-occupied with the distinction between those of right and those of wrong belief, or the one that is most concerned with protecting the most vulnerable and needy?

With what image of the sacred will the strongest Christian voice imbue the American culture?

Will it find the heart of the Christian vision in the "Book of Revelation," where God saves his own while not only destroying his enemies but also inflicting prolonged agony on? Or will it emphasize the teachings of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, with its blessings on the life-serving virtues of the merciful and the peacemakers, and its assurance that it is the meek who shall inherit the earth?

Will it emphasize, as the heart of the human relationship with the divine, the torturing of the flesh of the flogged and crucified Christ (as did Mel Gibson's disturbing and polarizing film, the Passion of the Christ)? Or will the predominant image of Jesus be of him comforting the afflicted and healing the sick?

Will the Christianity that helps shape our public affairs be a religion of guilt and punishment and revenge, or one of forgiveness and love?

Those into God-as-Warrior are trouncing those into 'Turn the Other Cheek'

The issue here is not which of form of Christianity is more valid in religious terms, a matter which I would not presume to address. The issue, rather, is which form--which set of values and of narrative meanings--is wielding power to shape the American polity.

Clearly the ascendant and dominant form of Christianity in the public realm in American today is that of the Christian right. Clearly the power of this salient form of Christianity has been aligned with the Bush administration, and the impact of that power has been, from the standpoint of people with liberal values, to erode some of the best of America's political values, and to jeopardize even the basic structure of our constitutional democracy.

Particularly under the influence of the falsely righteous political leadership by which so many have been seduced, this is a Christianity that cares more about wars against evil-doers than about the hypocrisies of the rich and powerful; it is a Christianity that identifies with the privileged and seems indifferent to (or even blaming of) the poor; it is a Christianity that believes in the wedding of religion with temporal power more than in the autonomy of each human soul to find its own relationship with God.

The right-wing form of Christianity that has seized the public megaphone, and has organized for political action, and has allied itself with a militarist and corporatist and lawless regime, is helping drive the United States down a dark road.

-IseFire

ID Loses in Kansas, but Tone of Debate is Loss to Everyone

"Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again," the AP reported. "As a result of Tuesday's vote, board members and candidates who believe evolution is well supported by evidence will have a 6-to-4 majority. Evolution skeptics had entered the election with a 6-to-4 majority."

The Kansas primary had been viewed as a bellweather of public opinion on intelligent design since the movement suffered two major defeats earlier this year in Ohio and Dover, PA. "Moderate" Republicans made the board's decision to question evolution the hallmark of their campaigns. And, we're happy to say, the strategy worked.

Although the results are heartening to opponents of intelligent design, the race itself highlighted a worrying trend in the ongoing debate. As the rhetoric heated up, ID proponents discussed evolution as certainly false while opponents spoke of the theory as dogma. The loser in this dynamic is science itself, whose advancement depends on a mentality that views all theories as subject to debate. While opponents of the religious right must be forceful in our arguments against ID and creationism, we cannot employ the tactic of defending evolution as a given. To do so is to adopt the mentality we abhor.

from The League: Reassembled

George Bush's culture of hate

A great observation by Neal Gabler on Salon.com:

The merger of evangelical Christianity...with right-wing Republicanism has had many effects on American culture and politics, but perhaps the foremost among them is that it has legitimized attitudes that were previously considered illegitimate by the custodians of the social order....

This isn't to say that President Bush has actively sanctioned hate speech.... But Bush, in fomenting the culture wars and polarizing the country rather than uniting it as a way of solidifying his base, has given license to hate-mongers under the cover this time of an impending cultural Armageddon. Every time the president insists that he is standing on conviction while his opponents are not, every time he implies that abortion or stem cell research on embryos is a form of murder (despite press secretary Tony Snow's rapid retraction on the latter point), every time he permits Karl Rove to attack Democrats as treasonous and weak on terror, he feeds the hate machine. He doesn't have to be explicitly hateful. He can be hateful by implication.