Christian rights: Part 2
LETTER TO THE EDITOR, May 6, 2004
The notion that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation is a serious danger to democracy. My original essay was directed at the “religious right” in general, whose position was instantiated in the Young Republicans Club (YRC) display. I did not know the display was set up by the students of the YRC, and they were in no way the intended target of my letter. That said, since the YRC responded to my letter in the fashion it did, it does demand a response. The following is written for both the YRC and its moderators. For brevity sake, I will limit my response to a series of questions regarding your letter.
Where is the spirit of Christianity or even of religion in your letter? For people who claim religion as the bulwark of their politics, it is noticeably absent from your virulent comments.
Why did you consistently refuse to address the issues I raised in my letter? Not once did you respond to the subjects I raised in my original letter. Instead, you tried to cover it up with a PR campaign of more of the same “proof text” nonsense. Do you have some sort of book with only such quotations in it, and no history or philosophy to contextualize such statements?
Why, when responding to my stated unsuccessful search for the quotation you attributed to Washington, did you conveniently overlook the FULL statement I made, that I not only did not find that quotation on any place I looked on the internet “but [did not find it] in any of the other speeches, letters, or writings of Washington I have read to date”? By eliminating that part of my statement, you succeeded only in constructing a straw man argument, which did not address the issue I raised.
Why do you have such a negative attitude toward education? By taking cheap shots at degreed persons, you insulted the entire faculty, almost all of whom are degreed. If you are truly that opposed to education, why are you here at IVCC? Why not collect aluminum cans for a living and thus remain natural geniuses?
Since when did the YRC set the editorial policy for the IVLeader? Last I read the editorial policy, no stipulation was made as to who was or was not permitted to submit an entry. Are you in favor of censorship in addition to revisionism, or do you just not want to be challenged for weak research and the unsupportable positions you put in a public display?
Why did you not have the courage to sign your names to your letter? Are you all hiding behind the banner of the “Young Republicans Club”?
Now back to the wider view I had in mind in my original letter. The “Christian nation” movement that is gaining a very strong foothold in American politics today is not simply the run of the mill version of biblical fundamentalism. Rather, it is a movement designed specifically to attack the Constitution and the broad view of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Their goal, at its most extreme, is a biblical theocracy. Theocracy in their case means that the principles of one single religion, in this case, Christianity and its notion of divinely ordained rule, are to be the governmentally recognized and supported interpretation of jurisprudential decisions and legislative proposals. The movement that is gaining strength in the right-wing of the Republican Party and thus in the U.S. Senate and House or Representatives, is every bit as ideologically entrenched, and every bit as dangerous to democracy, as fundamentalist Muslims who argue for a Mid-East Islamic theocracy. Consider the main players who belong to this movement, and who have the ear, as well as the support and confidence of, President Bush: Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Bob Bennet, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jon Kyle, George Allen, Antonin Scalia, and others, mentioned below. These politicians, and one Supreme Court Justice, are all supported by the movement for theocracy, if not financially, at least ideologically. The connection of all of these people to the radical Christian right has been documented by investigative journalists such as Rob Boston, Kimberly Blaker, and Frederick Clarkson, among others.
Consider further that the Texas Republican Party Platform now reads: “The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation.” The movement is generally referred to in the media as “the religious right,” and John Ashcroft has stated their vision succinctly: “America has no king but Jesus.” The main movers behind this movement include Paul Weyrich, Gary North, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, the Rutherford Institute, the National Reform Association, and others.
More specifically, this group of radical right Christians, through their well-funded representatives and senators, has sponsored “The Constitutional Restoration Act of 2004.” It was introduced into both Houses of Congress this past February, and includes “the acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law by an official in his capacity of executing his office.” The sponsors of the bill: Representatives Robert Aderholt and Michael Pence, and Senators Richard Shelby, Zell Miller, Sam Brownback, and Lindsey Graham.
Representative Aderholt is also in the process of garnering support for a bill he hopes to sponsor next year, entitled “The Ten Commandments Defense Act.” He states that the intent of the bill is to acknowledge that “The Supreme Court does not always have the final authority over the interpretation of the Constitution.” Rather, the Bible is to be viewed as the last line of interpretation of the Constitution.
Justice Scalia, in an address to the Chicago Divinity School in 2002, said: “…Government…derives its moral authority from
God. It is the minister of God with powers to ‘avenge’ to ‘execute wrath’ including even wrath by the sword.”
These developments are alarming for many reasons, but I will limit myself to two of them here. First of all, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence indicates quite clearly that these ideas are not the structure of the government the Founders were setting up. Second, whenever one party pushes a religious ideology as the exclusive or even primary position of a nation, freedom dies. It is my commitment to the wide berth of freedom set up by the writers of the Constitution and the philosophy that gave birth to it, such that no exclusionary ideology can prevail, that drives me to challenge the Christian nation hypothesis in the strongest possible terms.
I will continue to do so wherever I see it rear its ugly head, and the YRC display was one of those places.
It is important to add that not all people who consider themselves fundamentalist or evangelical Christians are consciously or by necessity supporting the movement toward theocracy. However, they need to know what cause they are supporting when they vote for “religious right” causes. In an article written in a previous issue of the IVLeader, a writer suggested that America is not at all a fascist nation. When one reads not only the PATRIOT Act, but also about the so-far successful undertakings of this subterranean religious movement, one has to wonder whether the voices of fascism are already at our door, but we just don’t hear them.
Dr. Robert Abele
IVCC Philosophy Instructor