crimsonline (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} crimsonline) wrote,@ 2006-07-24 14:51:00 |
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A moratorium on "theocracy" talk
Joe Carter, the blogger who writes at the influential Evangelical Outpost has crafted "Carter's Law of Political Rhetoric," which states that
That's why an article like this one, "Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy! by Russ Douthat in First Things is so powerful, timely, and necessary. Douthat does not hesitate to criticize the Religious Right for a great number of things, but he shows convincingly that theocracy is light-years away from what any influential religious conservative is calling for. His is a review of four recent books invoking the "T" word as an explanation of what's going on in conservative circles.
I heartily commend Douthat's entire article. It's a needed corrective to the hyperventilating debate style typified by today's political climate. God help us, it seems like we cannot disagree without demonizing our opponents these days.
Joe Carter, the blogger who writes at the influential Evangelical Outpost has crafted "Carter's Law of Political Rhetoric," which states that
...as the number of religious conservatives expressing an opinion on a moral or political issue increases, the probability that someone on the political left will invoke the term “theocracy” approaches one."Theocracy" is the boogeyman word that closes down all argument (and indeed, rational thought) for the left.
That's why an article like this one, "Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy! by Russ Douthat in First Things is so powerful, timely, and necessary. Douthat does not hesitate to criticize the Religious Right for a great number of things, but he shows convincingly that theocracy is light-years away from what any influential religious conservative is calling for. His is a review of four recent books invoking the "T" word as an explanation of what's going on in conservative circles.
The real danger, the anti-theocrats suggest, is an ecumenical theocracy that would install a right-wing Mere Christianity as its established religion, subject unbelievers to discrimination, and enshrine the Mosaic code as the law of the land.The solution, these four authors contend, is a purely secular democracy, one where religion comments only from the sidelines, and is not an influence on the decisions of policy-makers. A Rochester-area letter-writer made this same case in today's Democrat and Chronicle Opinion Page:
In The Baptizing of America, Rabbi James Rudin—the American Jewish Committee's "senior interreligious adviser"—offers a sketch of what America will look like if the theocrats get their way. "All government employees—federal, state and local—would be required to participate in weekly Bible classes in the workplace, as well as compulsory daily prayer sessions," as would employees of any company or institution receiving federal funds. There would be a national ID card, identifying everyone by their religious beliefs, or lack thereof—and "such cards would provide Christocrats with preferential treatment in many areas of life, including home ownership, student loans, employment and education." Non-Christian faiths would be tolerated, "but younger members . . .would be strongly encouraged to formally convert to the dominant evangelical Christianity." Gay sex would be prosecuted, and "known homosexuals and lesbians would have to successfully undergo government-sponsored reeducation sessions if they applied for any public-sector jobs." Political dissent would be squashed, religious censors would keep watch over the popular culture, and "the mainstream press and the electronic media would be beaten into submission."
Sadly, Rudin’s book is thin on examples of significant political actors who are proposing taking any of these steps, let alone all of them.
It is not surprising that President Bush vetoed stem cell aid, even though it was passed in both houses. This was his chance to make a positive difference and he failed. Our elected officials cannot vote with their religious beliefs. There is supposed to be separation of religion and government...Douthat counters,
LINDA GOLD RUDA
BRIGHTON
Except that nobody really believes this line. Just a few weeks before he announced that a "Christian politics" was a contradiction in terms, Garry Wills was in the New York Review of Books celebrating the role of the clergy in the civil rights movement and wiping a nostalgic tear from his eye as he declared that "there was a time, not so long ago, when religion was a force for liberation in America." After years of blasting any religious encroachment on the political sphere as a threat to the Constitution, the New York Times editorial page awoke to find Cardinal Roger Mahony advocating civil disobedience by Catholics to protest an immigration bill—and immediately praised the cardinal for adding "a moral dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics." After spending two hundred pages describing all the evils that would pour through any breach in the wall between church and state, Michelle Goldberg suggests that liberals should hope that "leaders on the Religious Left will find a way to channel some of America's moral fervor into a new social gospel."
And just a chapter before launching into a florid denunciation of the Christian Right's "lust for political power and cultural influence," Randall Balmer celebrates Victorian evangelicals for taking on "the task of reforming society according to the standards of godliness," and seeking "generally to make the world a better place." He praises William Jennings Bryan for being "a political liberal by today's standards" and even defends the Great Commoner against a "brutal character assassination at the hands of H.L. Mencken" during the Scopes trial—this from an author who devotes thirty pages to attacking Intelligent Design as a "battering ram" for theocrats bent on the "conquest of American society." Bryan, Balmer explains, "had fewer qualms about Darwinism itself than he did about the social effects of evolutionary theory."
A Christian is allowed to entertain such doubts, in other words, and allowed to mix religion and politics in support of sweeping social reforms— but only if those reforms are safely identified with the political Left, and with the interests of the Democratic party.
I heartily commend Douthat's entire article. It's a needed corrective to the hyperventilating debate style typified by today's political climate. God help us, it seems like we cannot disagree without demonizing our opponents these days.
