May 14, 2008
The Effects of the Religious Right on Politics and on Religion
Damon Linker in TNR:
Who would now deny that the political ascendancy of the religious right has been bad for the United States? Its destructive consequences are plain for all to see. It has polarized the nation. It has injected theological certainties into public life. It has led political leaders to invest their aims and their deeds with metaphysical significance. It has made America a laughingstock in the eyes of the educated of the world. And it has encouraged devout believers to think of themselves as agents of the divine, and their political opponents as enemies of God.
So much for the political damage. What about the consequences for religion itself? The strongest arguments for separating church and state--including the classic ones advanced in the writings of John Locke, accepted by America's constitutional framers, and codified in the First Amendment--have always emphasized that separation benefits religion as well as politics. The secular political order of the United States not only helps to ensure the perseverance of limited government; it also permits religion to thrive, uncorrupted by political ambition and petty partisanship.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 07:36 PM | Permalink
Comments
Unfortunately you provide nothing but assertions to make your argument. Please use reason not faith-based assertions when reasoning. A side benefit is that you will not be a laughing stock.
Posted by: bee | May 14, 2008 10:05:21 PM
Unfortunately you provide nothing but assertions to make your argument. Please use reason not faith-based assertions when reasoning. A side benefit is that you will not be a laughing stock.
Posted by: bee | May 14, 2008 10:05:50 PM
"Who would now deny that the political ascendancy of the religious right "
you people are so willfully ignorant it's not even funny.
the entire Republican Party was founded on a religious based desire to abolish slavery and resulted in Abraham Lincoln. almost every President, nay every politician, would have at least claimed to have been using Christianity and Christian morality to inform their political choices prior to the 1960s.
it is >Radical Athiesm< which is the latecomer to the national stage.
Posted by: bob k. mando | May 15, 2008 12:32:53 AM
But aren't Republicans, albeit of the Sun Belt golf course rather than the Bible Belt variety, entirely of the view that they just want it -- the Bush Administration and its serial calamities -- just to be over with? And sick to death of the religious Right, as opposed to the merely Right? Mr McCain appears to have taken the view that as a moderate Low Church Anglican like the senior Bushes he doesn't quite have what it takes: he has, nominally at least, gone over to the born-agains. Will that not sooner or later backfire with liberal and middle-of-the-road American voters? One -- be it said -- devoutly hopes so.
But as to the effect on Conservative Evangelicalism, the article is fascinating and prescient. Bring on more, please.
Posted by: Mac | May 15, 2008 5:36:35 AM
There's a big difference between using Christianity and Christian morality to inform political choices and being a member of the religious right. The two are not synonymous.
I'm curious what the difference between Radical Atheism and bog-standard atheism is. Both seem to disqualify their holders from prominence in political life.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | May 15, 2008 11:28:03 PM
Wherever there are people and big money, politicians, like vultures, will flock won't they? Just look at the recent propaganda visit of the Pope. Any public indignation over the sex scandal by Catholic priests has virtually been arrogantly forgotten by the Pope and his propaganda planners in the Vatican in Rome. This "church" used money donated for religious purposes, to basically buy their way out of prosecutions for the priests. Hollow apologies by the Pope are meaningless. Perhaps he himself was an abuser of children once, how would one know? One might think he would have been tarred and feathered and run out of the country rather than worshipped by a dumbed down population with the aid of a laughing media. Like the so-called religious right, the Catholic church is a world wide secret business, aided by the generosity of the U.S. Constitution. But unlike the RR, it is very cleverly arranged so that its headquarters in the Vatican cannot be served with legal papers. Its world wide income is a carefully guarded secret.
Its expenses are also a carefully guarded secret. You could be in any business anywhere in the world and that business could be owned by the CAtholic Church. They could even be supporting the Mafia, the drug trade and child slavery and prostitution. Who knows, its all secret isn't it? And in the end, does the Catholic Church have a conscience when they oppose all forms of birth control and therefore are basically responsible for untold human suffering in the world where suffering children of poor and unfit parents in unfit countries and environments must survive the travailles of nature with little help, while the Catholic Church seeks donations to their money plates in churches world wide from these peasants of the world. I think the Pope and his cronies in Rome do not have a conscience.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | May 17, 2008 8:32:01 AM
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