I regret having to say this, but the Christian Alliance for Progress is off to an inauspicious start.
The new organization, presenting itself as a voice of the “Religious Left” has received some national and international press coverage, and it has set out some well articulated issue statements from a progressive Christian perspective. It says it wants to form a national progressive grassroots political organization. It has also been duly denounced by the Christian Right.
But there is one really big problem.
The group’s Director of Religious Affairs and principal spokesperson, Reverend Timothy F. Simpson, thinks and acts just like a leader of the Christian Right in one important respect. He publicly accuses the Democratic Party and “the left” of being anti-religious and suppressing religious expression. It is a baseless accusation and I hope he will abandon it.
In an interview with The American Prospect, here is what Simpson said:
“One of the great problems of the Democratic Party,” he said, “is that the 5 percent or so [of its members] who don’t want any religious rhetoric at all, and who do not represent the mainstream of American political or religious life, have been allowed to call the cadence in the [party]. And when that happens, Democrats get their butts kicked. Because people in this country are believers.”
“For Republicans and Democrats, he said, openness to religion ‘is clearly the winning strategy in this, the most religious of the Western industrial democracies. You just cannot ask people to check their faith at the door of the public-policy arena and expect to resonate with any significant segment of the electorate, because that’s not where people are. And folks on the left have just got to deal with that.'”
“Simpson characterized Democrats who are opposed to the injection of religion into politics as ‘extremists,’ saying that he can call for more religion to influence politics while still advocating a clear separation between church and state.”
“‘What we think the extremists in the Democratic Party fear, and rightly so, is a Christian takeover,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to emulate the style of [the Reverend Martin Luther] King, which is more to speak to the government than to become the government — which is what the folks on the right are doing.”
I am particularly struck by Simpson’s claim that “extremists” are calling the shots with regard to religion in the Democratic Party. Its a curious, and I think reckless use of the term.
The press release announcing the formation of Christian Alliance for Progress denounced “the extreme rhetoric and political agenda of the Religious Right.” The organization’s foundational Jacksonville Statement further denounces the “extremist political goals” of the Christian Right. If the leaders of the Democratic Party are extremist and the Christian Right is extremist, what does extremist really mean?
Rhetoric aside, the simple fact is that religion and religious expression has never been banished from the Democratic Party and Simpson presents no evidence that it has. Who is this supposed group that has “called the cadence” in the party with regard to religion? And who are these “extremists” and in exactly what ways are they extreme?
Perhaps at this point you are thinking, well, maybe Simpson was misquoted or having a bad day. Unfortunately, he said similar things at a press conference at the National Press Club on the occasion of the public launch of the Christian Alliance for Progress. Here is a quote from, the nationally syndicated Knight-Ridder newspapers account:
“Simpson said at the Press Club launch, ‘There is a sector of folks on the left that have been enormously vocal about (stressing secularism), that have shouted down the vast majority of folks on the left who are people of faith, who do believe in God.'”
This, friends, is hokum.
Simpson has no evidence that the Democratic Party or anyone in it is opposed to religion or its expression in public life. There is also no evidence that more secular people on the Left have “shouted down” anyone from the Religious Left. (It has certainly never been my experience.)
Could the Democratic Party (and for that matter, all other sectors of society, handle the matter of religion better? Why yes, as a matter of fact it could. But Simpson’s divisive rhetoric is no help at all.
Simpson seems to have internalized one of the central message frames of the Christian Right of the past quarter century. (I discussed this frame in detail in chapter 8 of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, and some of the problems that result.)
For all of the good things the Christian Alliance for Progress stands for and has set out to do, it will gain little traction if one of its main themes is to attack Democrats and the Left as anti-religion and engaging in suppression of religious expression. We already have plenty of people who do that. We call them the leaders of the Christian Right.
[Crossposted from FrederickClarkson.com, and Talk to Action]
The problem with the Christian Alliance for Progress’s stance is one word: Christian. Because there are Democrats who recognize that America is filled with more than just Christians, the group sees them as anti-religious. They’re in danger of falling into the same trap as the Religious Reich — if you’re not pushing my brand of religion, then you’re anti-religious.
I’m a Christian, but I’d like to see less talk of religion in politics, and more of morality. I’m too young to remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches directly, but I don’t recall him invoking Jesus Christ.
Just a few thoughts…
as a leader in a movement for institutional Christianity to take over leadership of the United States.
In any case, the Religious Right virtually never actually quotes Jesus because they oppose most of his core teachings. They sling his name around all the time, they demand allegiance to it, but they don’t like his words one bit–especially his instructions for how to behave.
Look at the contrast here with Dr. King from his famous “Beyond Viet Nam” a.k.a. “Riverside” speech. Recall, it was given in the Riverside church, not for a public protest or rally. In it, King affirmed the necessity for him to move strongly with his peace mission. The words are classic King, strong to read, but the audio if you can find it is heartbreaking. He sounds like a beaten, exhausted man, and 1 year later to the day, he was finished.
The final words of the sentence in my sig below are:
Whap whap whap whap
Supporting the separation of Church and State (a position endorsed by far more than 5% of Democrats) does not equal suppressing religious expression or being anti-religious. (Well, unless your definition of “religious expression” is “theocracy”) The problem is that his idea of injecting more religion into politics (read: having Church-controlled politicians) violates the separation of Church and State.
ha..good cartoon!
Well dammit all to hell. I linked to this group sometime last week here when I read about them. And while I mentioned not being a believer myself I thought this was a very good idea and about time left wing christians(so to speak)spoke up. Also their front page actively promotes equality for gays, no criminalization of abortion etc and good progressive ideals.
Now I have to read this crap. This is like the saying ‘with friends like this who needs enemies’. I simply don’t know where in the hell these people(christians on the right and left it seems) get the hairbrained idea that I want to get rid of religion…I simply don’t want one narrow view of religion-any religion-being forced on anyone or a whole country.
This Rev. Simpson seems to have fallen into the right wing talking points to demonize democrats/liberals regarding religion.
Reading this makes me so completely pissed off that at this point I’d be willing to say if religious people on the right and left are going to go about demonizing wrongly people who don’t believe than maybe I will be for getting rid of all religion…geezzzzzzz this is just completely fucken depressing.
And if anyone is being persecuted at all I’d say that it is people in this country who aren’t christian not the other way around, that’s for dam sure.
It seems that all one has to do these days to be branded as anti-Christian is to believe in something other than Christianity.
It’s that old “with us or against us” mentality. Either you’re safely within the fold, or you’re in league with Satan (even if you don’t believe in Satan). And if we’ve made you out to be the enemy, then, because you’re the enemy, you must be against us. It’s a nifty bit of circular reasoning.
No, I don’t expect anyone to check his or her faith at the door. But for goddess’ sake don’t try to ram it down my throat.
As a practical matter–
Which brand of Christianity? There are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, et al, who all call themselves “Christians”. Which version is acceptable to the Democratic Party? All of them? Anybody else see how that’s NOT going to work?
In addition, Jews make up a sizable portion of the donors to the Democratic Party, not to mention an influential portion of the electorate in some states in the Union (especially New York). Anybody else here worried about alienating Jews who are affiliated with the Democratic Party?
on the left who would like to remove all religion from public life. I don’t necessarily think they are democrats. I object to the word extremists but I can’t necessarily disregard what he is saying. I have certainly encountered a lot of hostility to religion, particularly Christianity on the internet(s). Do I see it in the democrat party elected? No
thats fair enough. And it is going to be important that we all get very good at making such distinctions.
I think there are good sociological reasons for hostility to religion–particularly Christianity–on the internet, which have relatively little to do with left politics, and lots to do with teenage rebellion (now extended to mid-to-late 30s), a non-authoritarian space for self-expression, and pent-up rage due to a myriad sins that cloak themselves in holy cloth. In fact, there’s good reason to believe that a good portion of that hostility comes from libertarians.
I think you can go a good deal farther than just saying that you don’t see this hostility in elected Democratic officials. You can look at grassroots Democratic Party organizations. They frequently take positions on all sorts of things, make recommendations to higher-level bodies, etc.
Now, being the Democratic Party, nobody keeps very good records of all these things. But the GOP being what it is, don’t you think that if the Democratic grass roots were regularly going off and passing anti-religious resolutions, we’d have heard about it 10 zillion times by now? And, in fact, we haven’t.
That’s what’s called a deafening silence.
Some very good points. As for passing legislation against religion, I think blocking nutcase dominionists from judgeships is enough for the republican party to whine about.
TJ spent a lot of time arguing that mixing politics and religion hurt BOTH:
Think we could convince the religious right of this? Yeah, me neither.
The greatest hostility to religion, eon in and eon out, comes from other religions.
I grew up in the 60’s listening to Catholics and their parents scold us proddies about the certainty of going to Hell. So did my parents in the 30’s. While our particular Protestantism didn’t hold the reverse view, plenty of others did and still do.
Our family includes ancestry on both sides of the Irish troubles, and our Protestant ancestors over there have been positively rude.
The problem is that Christianity is an intrinsically imperialistic faith. Jesus charged his followers to try to convert everyone else. On the other hand he was hard-line about it spiritually only in terms of the fate of those who rejected the message, and practically, in terms of his followers’ time and energy. He said in charging them to preach throughout the land at one point, that if they weren’t well received, they should move on.
Christian sects have applied these notions (that Jesus expressed almost purely in terms of individual beghavior) to many degrees and directions with society. So we’ve had two millennia of Christians running governments, sometimes to extremes, exercising strict controls over the people, and oppressing other religions and other sects of Christianity.
Because of all of this, many of the Founders were definitely hostile to organized Christianity; extensive references to this are posted all the time.
I find more resonance on this topic with the Founders than with many living Democrats or almost any Republicans. My personal interest in other peoples’ religions is zero for what they do in their world, but becomes vigorous wherever it drives or limits their ability to work together with me in our common world. I don’t approve or disapprove of any faiths but I’m extremely touchy about behaviors that impact me and my community. To many believers there’s probably no important difference nor any good way in these times to discuss it with them.
I’ve been reading his book recently (God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It)
He may never articulate it quite as strongly, but it is clear that he is calling for the Left to be more receptive to faith in politics.
I lent my copy of the book to a friend, so I can’t look up any key passages for you.
If this is a straw-man argument, how did the Christian Right convince so many that only Republicans are open to Christianity?
Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition …
At first, we ignored them, because they we didn’t think anyone would take them seriously – since the proposition was so ludicrous. Then it was too late. In the tradition of Nixon’s “the big lie,” it became “truth” through the very act of repetition.
The Protestant fundamentalist right is a growing movement that was much smaller 30-40 years ago. Back in the Summer of Love and before, they were beginning to organize against liberal Christianity. The Reagan Democrats were largely Catholics peeled away by the abortion and some related issues.
These are blocks of people who place considerable faith in their leaders–no, they don’t deify them, but they respect them to a degree that the athiests, Jews and “mainstream” Protestants I know find just about inconceivable. And while any individual may still vote their mind, leadership is definitely effective.
Most of the organizing and instruction happens where we aren’t even present. That’s why I repeat that for many of these issues there is no “debate” and that the right is not interested in anything we have to say or even whether we have anything to say. They’re working on a program and we’re not part of their world.
I’m wondering if what we’re seeing in Simpson’s remarks isn’t indicative of an inherent problem with religion–the perpetuation of an identity politics that cannot help but distort its images of outsiders, and generate preducial narratives about them.
I want to be very clear here. I’m not saying that all religous people are like this. But I am saying that all religions seem to have this as an issue to struggle with. Those that recognize it, and consciously struggle against it can make great strides, but I think it’s impossible to ever definitively be rid of this tendency.
In other words, I don’t Simpson is simply echoing a Religious Right frame. I think he’s echoing it because it resonates with him as a religious leader. And this is indicative of work that he has to do on himself. Naturally, he finds it much easier to say that other people need to do work on themselves.
There’s hope, however, in the Gospel of John, Paul, George and Ringo, where it is writ: “We can work it out! We can work it out!”
Yes, we should definitely get religion involved in politics.
It’s worked so well in other countries. Look at Europe’s history–whenever people thought God was on their side, and that they were absolutely right, things always turned out well! Well, except for the Crusades and the Inquisition and the Thirty Years’ War and the centuries-long persecution of the Jews and counter-persecution between Catholics and Protestants, but other than that, everything always turned out well.
Can religious organisations oppose war, the death penalty, or poverty…or oppose abortion, gay marriage, divorce, etc?
Of course they can. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent any group, religious or secular, from petitioning the government for a redress of grievances, whatever those grievances may be. The Constitution’s Establishment Clause merely prevents the government from preferring one religion over the other (which is why churches enjoy a tax-exempt status, so long as they don’t actually endorse one political party or candidate over the other.)
But when religious organisations get involved in politics in a very direct way, they ought not be tax-exempt. And it is very dangerous indeed for the Democratic Party to identify itself as one Party of God battling another Party of God.
That’s what this Simspon character (no relation to Homer, I presume) is calling for–for the Democratic Party to include religious planks in its platform.
No, that’s wrong. Christians who are Democrats can speak outside the party, on their own or as part of the groups with which they affiliate, but NOT through the Democratic Party.
I’m afraid you forgot something–the Burning Times, the centuries-long extermination of alleged witches, which reached its peak during the height of Catholic/Protestant conflict, but predated Luther by more than a century.
It’s important to note that most of the “witches” were not convicted by religious courts. They were convicted by governments applying their versions of church law.
Well, except for the Crusades and the Inquisition and the Thirty Years’ War and the centuries-long persecution of the Jews and counter-persecution between Catholics and Protestants, but other than that, everything always turned out well.
You left out the persecution of witches, both in Europe and here, in lovely Salem MA. Other than that, a damn fine post. Carry on.
So many persecutions, so little time. Actually there were a whole lot of internal purges I left out as well–the extermination of heresy is a never-ending business–that also claimed millions of victims over the centuries.
But the omission of witches–for centuries, the most important passage in the Old Testament was “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18)–was a big one!
It should also be noted that the King James version of the Bible mistranslated the original Hebrew word to satisfy James I’s preoccupation with, and fear of, witches (if one doesn’t think contemporary folk were paranoid about witches, look no further than the text of “Macbeth” by some author whose name I’ve forgotten. ) The King James Bible) was translated to keep His Royal Highness happy, so the scholars in James’ employ translated the word chasaph–which is Hebrew for poisoner– to mean “witch” instead. There is some historical evidence that the crime of poisoning people (and wells) was a big problem at the time Exodus was written.
Other versions of the Bible on the Continent translated gender-neutral words into female-specific ones. The word “witch” appeared in Christian scriptures as maleficos, which is gender-neutral, until the mid-1500’s. Then things took a nasty turn. In the “Luther Bible,” the German line is “Die Zuberinnen soltu nicht leben lassen,” which makes the word “witch” feminine. By 1566, in La Saincte Bible of Lyon, France, the word is even more clearly female, despite a footnote that the law applied equally to men.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!–some English bloke whose name I’ve forgotten…Willy Somebody.
Show off… kidding.
Other versions of the Bible on the Continent translated gender-neutral words into female-specific ones.
This is a crucial piece of information. The persecution of witches was largely a tool for female suppression. I had an English prof who made a very strong case that the Salem witch trials were about a lot of middle aged, married men who wanted to blame the devil in some nubile, young girls, for their blasted attraction to them. Well they certainly couldn’t blame their own roving eyes, now could they. The burning times in Europe were an excellent tool for wresting property from women, and claiming it for the church. So, there’s always an angle isn’t there.
I think there’s a big difference between a Christian, whether as an elected official or candidate, or as a member of the grassroots, etc., acknowledging that religious faith is an important part of his or her own personal life… and declaring that same faith as a justification for public policy, regardless of the beliefs of others.
It’s the difference between saying “I believe… and so this is how I feel, this is what I plan to do…” and saying “Americans (or good Christians) believe, and therefore you must do this…” — the implication being that if you’re a Christian, you can’t possibly want to disagree with this statement or believe something contrary to the speaker, and if you do, your religious faith isn’t good enough, isn’t ‘pure’ enough… And that is where I start getting very uncomfortable with politicians who trumpet their faith from their podiums. Religious faith is a very personal thing. It should stay that way. That doesn’t mean don’t talk about it, don’t mention it…. it means be respectful of others’ beliefs as you would have them respect yours, were the situation reversed. That’s not being anti-religion. It’s being a courteous fellow citizen of a widely diverse nation.
I’ve heard a lot of understandable frustration and resentment from Democrats on religious issues, especially from those who are members of minority faiths, or claim no religous faith at all. I can’t blame them — I’m frustrated and resentful too. I can overlook some of the things people say in anger, because I understand where the anger’s coming from, and it’s frequently quite justified.
But as a rule, Democrats seem to at least try to be tolerant of religous beliefs. Tolerant of all beliefs, and tolerant of no beliefs at all — which may or may not come across as well as we’d like. I’m hoping this new group can be educated a bit, with patience (yes, and faith)… because it does seem like we’ve got more in common than not, and God knows (!) we’ve let the Dodsons and Falwells of the Religious Right claim the authority of religion far too long.
For me, the big difference is between someone who offers their faith as a justification for public policy as part of a broader argument, and someone “declaring that same faith as a justification for public policy, regardless of the beliefs of others.”
If you look at the writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, he is always connecting his own faith and understanding of the Gospels and the Prophets (you don’t find him quoting Deuteronomy or Revelations all that much) with a wide range of other thinkers, ancient and modern. He was a truly eclectic thinker, which is not to say he was indiscriminate.
The reason I find this completely acceptable is not just because I agree with King’s politics, but because I believe the underlying principles of argument to be fundamentally sound. An argument on moral principles gains strength from being able to trace multiple roots from a wide range of thinkers. Citing secular as well as religious authorities helps to establish the difference between a credal belief and a truly central moral principle at the core of a religion.
I am not a religious person, but I have no problem making exactly the same sorts of arguments myself, simply because these moral principles carry weight of their own accord, quite independent of the metaphysics of the religions they are embedded in. And when I do, I often use King himself as one of the people I cite.
Writing this has caused me to wonder–is there anything comparable on the right? It seems impossible to me on its face, since so little of what they claim has any foundation in the Bible, and the secular supporters they would have to cite are not quite in the same class as King selected. Still, it could be possible. Does anyone know of any examples?
since he was a minister and did considerable politically-oriented speaking in churches.
(you don’t find him quoting Deuteronomy or Revelations all that much)
I like this. I neatly bookends my frequent observation that you don’t hear the “Christian” right quoting Jesus all that much.
is there anything comparable on the right? It seems impossible to me on its face, since so little of what they claim has any foundation in the Bible, and the secular supporters they would have to cite are not quite in the same class as King selected. Still, it could be possible. Does anyone know of any examples?
I may not be connecting with your question, but:
I was just rereading my excerpt of “Beyond VietNam” posted above and thinking that to my nonscholarly eyes, America only has one other speaker/writer with the gravity of King: Lincoln.
has any foundation in the Bible Well I think it’s all found in the Bible, but precious little of it has foundation as you say in a thematic sense. They pick out the bits that emphasize power, punishment and authoritarian control. Jesus taught against those ideas and emphasized that our mission–indeed the mission of the law and prophets too–is to support and lift up the downtrodden. The right is hot-and-cold on that idea. They do support some kinds of charity but they’ve been adamantly opposed to modern policies that for the first time ever massively reduced the numbers of downtrodden.
I don’t think there exists a different grand moral Biblical theme on a scale of Kings’, which is essentially Jesus’ teaching encapsulated in the Sermon on the Mount. All that’s left are the animalistic themes about regulation, punishment, conquest and revenge.
But then those are authoritarian, conquering people.
I think you must be drawing on a narrowed slice of political figures, since there are certainly many American writers who have comparable gravity.
James Baldwin, for one, springs instantly to mind. But then, I realize that for some Baldwin’s sheer eloquence detracts from the sense of gravity. This, however, was his gift–one might say, the gift of the blues, to make art of suffering in the process of transcendence. Which is an entire vein of American writing that is seriously grave. As in:
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
Blind Lemon Jefferson*
Well, there’s one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
Well, there’s one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
There’s just one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
You can see that my grave is kept clean
And there’s two white horses following me
And there’s two white horses following me
I got two white horses following me
Waiting on my burying ground
Did you ever hear that coffin’ sound
Have you ever heard that coffin’ sound
Did you ever hear that coffin’ sound
Means another poor boy is under ground
Did you ever hear them church bells tone
Have you ever hear’d them church bells tone
Did you ever hear them church bells tone
Means another poor boy is dead and gone
Well, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
And, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
Well, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
Now I believe what the bible told
There’s just one last favor I’ll ask of you
And there’s one last favor I’ll ask of you
There’s just one last favor I’ll ask of you
See that my grave is kept clean
* This song was covered by Bob Dylan. Blind Lemon Jefferson is the “Jefferson” in “Jefferson Airplane.”
The Father of the Anti-Religious Extremists, in fact.
The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.
Note: The bracketed section in the second paragraph had been blocked off for deletion, though it was not actually deleted in his draft of the letter. It is included here for completeness. Reflecting upon Jefferson’s knowledge that his letter was far from a mere personal correspondence, he deleted the block, he says in the margin, to avoid offending members of his party in the eastern states.
This is a transcript of the letter as stored online at the Library of Congress, and reflects Jefferson’s spelling and punctuation.
Mr. President
To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.
In fact he attended Church regularly. He was just anti state religion, not because he was against religion but because he was against mixing the two.
Here are a couple of quotes from his inaugural addresses:
His first:
and from his 2nd:
He also said this:
There are many. The founders weren’t deists, that was a charge thrown at some of them for not being fundamentalist enough, kind of how a member of the Asembly of God might speak about me, a Presbyterian. In fact JOhn Witherspoon (presby minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence and mentor and teacher of Madison) dispaired that future generations might believe the charges.
Jefferson was not the typical Christian perhaps, but was one never the less. Remember that the Unitarians at that time were a group of people from different Christian denominations who got together for the sake of UNITY and at that time there was no Universalist (other non christian religions and beliefs) aspect to the church. Jefferson was a member of the Unitarian church and at one time he attended both Episcopal and Presbyterian churches.
Most of what is put out on the internet about the founders and religion is innacurate and can be traced back to http://WWW.deism.com. A group that can be fairly said to have their own aggenda.
It’s clear that the early beginnings, the founders, were like the larger society, overwhelmingly Christian. The very first congressional congress which contained many of the original “founders” as one of it’s first acts installed the practice of a chaplain to open the business of congress…according to the House Judiciary Commitee of 1954
Our government and nation have alway mixed religion and politics. There is no separation in that. The only separation is between the business of the church and the business of the state.
Every single president so far has been a Christian male, does that mean it should continue to be so? No, I am hoping that one day there will be a Jewish president or a woman President or a Buddhist etc…
and we have to protect everyone’s right to express and live with their own beliefs no matter what they are (as long as the practice of their religion or non religion doesn’t include acts that are against our laws).
Most of what is put out on the internet about the founders and religion is innacurate and can be traced back to http://WWW.deism.com. A group that can be fairly said to have their own aggenda.
How is it then, that so many of us knew many of the founders were Deists, before the internet? I guess all those history books are wrong as well. But, it is true that they felt the Christian Church provided moral structure for the unwashed, whom they didn’t trust to find their own moral compass with both hands. Benjamin Franklin, who himself referred to God as “it,” felt that the Christian Church was a good socialization tool for those less enlightened than himself.
Washington also didn’t attend Church regularly, and Jefferson produced his own, heavily-edited version of the Bible that distilled it down to a book of philosophy, with most of the supernatural elements removed entirely.
And while I don’t doubt that there were sinister implications to their promotion of religion, I think the reasoning may also have been more benign. They may also have seen it as a way to get people to think of the bigger picture, and get them to think about how they should be living their lives.
Jefferson was, however, very vocally opposed to any involvement of the Church in government, even as he advocated it in peoples’ private lives.
Teresa, please read my lengthy comment below on the issue of Deism and the Founders. To address your concerns that the information about Deism has come from biased sources, I quoted not only from books (remember them, everybody?) as well as from a Wikipedia article whose accuracy is NOT in dispute.
The leading founders were predominantly Deists, and this was hardly a “charge,” any more than calling someone a Methodist might be. I learned about this in Sunday school, because I was raised Unitarian. Now, some of the Unitarian lore is as over-simplified, sanitized and perhaps even spun as any other religious lore. But just as I learned, accurately, that Akhnaten was the first monotheist, and hence, first Unitarian (saw his pics in the Tut exhibit just 10 days ago), so, too, I learned that most of the Founders were Deists and/or Unitarians.
I even had an encyclopedia–an old, majestic hand-me down–listing the Presidents and their religious affiliations, along with the popular and electoral votes in their elections and various other pertinent data. And though the encyclopedia was not Unitarian, I never heard a claim in Sunday school that contradicted what it said. If I had, I’d have gone back and caused a ruckus–which I did on several occasions, but not about that.
Furthermore, this:
is fundamentally mistaken on two fronts:
First, “Unitarians” did not refer to “UNITY” of Christian denomitions. It referred to belief in a single deity–as opposed to the Catholic orthodoxy of the Trinity. The distinction was Unitarian vs. Trinitarian. And, btw, the notion of religious freedom is strongly associated with Unitarianism. The first edict of religious freedom came in 1568, in Transylvania under John Sigismund III, the rarest of creatures, a Unitarian king.
Second, Universalists were not so-called because of taking elements of their religion from universal sources. They were so-named because they believed in universal salvation. I know it’s commonplace for people to misunderstand other faiths and creeds, but to find both branches of Unitarian-Universalism so authoritatively misrepresented in almost one breath is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
Beyond these two fundamental mistakes, there is a third historical mistake, which is not, however, definitional. To wit: Unitarians were themselves quite prone to “universalism” in your alternate meaning. They had, naturally, little contact with non-European religions at the time of the Founders, but they were temperamentally open-minded, and tended strongly toward the sciences. (This tendency would later flower into the Transcendentalist Movement, one of the offshoots of which was Thoreau’s virtual invention of the science of ecology.)
Franklin has already been noted, but perhaps the best example of this is Joseph Priestley, who was both a world-class scientists and a Unitarian minister. In 1791, his laboratory was burned and he was hounded out of England. He fled to America and founded Unitarian Churches in the Philadelphia are. Rather than turning around and persecuting other people in turn, as the Puritans and Pilgrims were wont to do, Unitarians preferred to try welcoming other open-minded seekers in.
This is precisely the temperament that went into establishing the USA with a Godless Constitution. It was certainly not out of a hostility to religion per se. But it was most certainly out of hostility to religious tyranny, and authoritarianism.
Will the dual of the religious political christians ever end? There is no difference between any of these people except what they name themselves. In the end they are out for the same thing, which is dominance of the religious aspect of politics.
I am so tired of watching Christians playing King of the Hill. To speak for myself, I would mind banishing religion from the Democratic party if only to take the first step in banishing it from politics all together. Do these people really care about Christ? I wonder if in any of his speech, Simpson even mentioned spirituality or was it all about the political process and what methods will lead to winning. Another thing I wonder is what is his background. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and some of his cohorts were born of some of the same ancestors and parents as his right wing twins were. Conspiracy anyone?
The word is DUEL. Spellcheck can’t even help with this one.
Just how left is this group, really? Since it came out that the DLC receives funding from some pretty notorious right wing sources, I’ve become a little paranoid about the legitimacy of supposedly left-wing groups, especially the ones organized from the top down instead of from the grassroots up.
The idea that only 5% of Dems are in favor of the separation of church and state is utter nonsense. Well more than 5% of Republicans, squeaky wheels to the contrary, believe in separation of church and state. You might argue that 5% of Dems are actively hostile to organized religion — I’m one of them — but we definitely aren’t choosing the direction of the party. If anything, party leaders have assiduously sucked up to the myth that religion is good for society at every opportunity.
As much as I would like for organized religion to evaporate, I think I do speak for many on the left, especially those of us who aren’t Christian, that it will be a blessed day when we no longer hear politicians pepper their speeches with references to their personal religious beliefs. When a politician stands up and starts blathering about God — which far from being “non-denominational”, tells me that he is a Christian, or possibly a Jew — the message I hear is this: “I do not represent you.” That’s not to say that I don’t think Christians should run for office, or that I wouldn’t vote for one; they should, and I do. But I do think that our representatives should attempt to represent all of their constituents to the best of their ability, and that positively requires that they recognize, even back home in the Deep South, that society is not religiously monolithic, and the proper place for preaching is from the pulpit, not in the legislatures.
Those who support constitutional demoracy, have a way of looking at this, across a wide religious and political spectrum. Whatever other of our differences, we believe in religious pluralism, and religious equality. Even if we think that somebody’s religious views are a bunch of hooey, or that atheists are missing the boat, we understand that they have the right to these beliefs, that no one has the right to impose thier views on that person, certainly not the state. In the legal and constitutional sense, we believe in religious equality.
The Christian Right as a movement are religious supremacists. They not only think that thier views of god are correct but that taxpayer funds and public resources may be used to promote those views. For many, there is a broader, underlying ideology of Christian nationalism, and even outright theocracy.
When the issue is framed as there are people of faith and people of no faith — thats a right wing frame. Its why mainstream Christians are attacked so ruthlessly. Their view of Christianity must be discounted to the equivalence of atheism.
People of faith, people of no faith. Thats all there is in the Christian Right frame. Our faith (or something close enough) or no faith.
Thats why Simpson’s statements are so revolting. He blames the failure of religous progressives to speak out on who? People of no faith.
I agree with this 100%. In a post above I was trying to get to one reason this might be so–something inherent in religious community that makes it easy to distort the views and actions of outsiders, and ultimately to blame them for the shortcomings of insiders.
Personally, this sort of talk makes no sense to me at all. I’ve been involved in a wide range of progressive politics, which has ranged from heavy religious participation (Central American solidarity work) to hanging out with evil incarnate (gay rights activists from Act Up to mainstreamers). I have simply never encountered anything like what Simpson is talking about. (The people I met in Act Up are some of the most spiritual people I’ve ever met. They hate hypocrites almost as much as Jesus did.) He just does not live in the same universe as me. And I just can’t help thinking that mine is the one that’s reality-based. Not his.
I hate to be so dualistic about it. But, then, better dualistic than duelistic, I suppose.
En Guarde!
I’d state the problem a bit differently. It’s not a lack of faith that’s being claimed, it’s a lack of religion. Organized religion is a form of governance. The heart of organized religion is obedience. When those who see themselves as representatives of organized religion become involved in politics and government, the issues usually come down to trying to enforce obedience to their rules. Those who don’t agree to those are, obviously, seen as apostate.
But I think that people who belong to organized religions actually divide into two distinct groups: those who have faith and those who have religion. People who have faith are introspective, spiritual, and concerned with exploring how their beliefs are manifested in everyday living. People who have religion are concerned with obedience, dogma, and bringing other to acknowledge that theirs is the only truth. We need people of faith to be actively involved in politics and government but both don’t need and are better off without religion.
James Dobson has religion; Martin Luther King had faith. Simpson’s pronouncements are worrying because, despite the reference to King, they sound much more like Dobson, like someone who values religion more than faith.
He thinks I am the radical extremist element which has corrupted the Democrats. It seems I am the boogeyman of religious types on both the left and the right these days (but especially the folks on the right), who don’t bother to learn anything about me.
My forebearers had the temerity to horn in on the civil rights movement in 1961 when the Supreme Court ruled in Torcaso v. Watkins that state governments could not discriminate against us. And now folks like me have even been raising money to send a lobbyist to Washington to:
Radical and extremist for sure, no?
All we want is for religion to be kept private. You can have whatever beliefs and practices you want, but keep them to yourself; you have no right to impose them on anyone else. The thing is, many Christian denominations place a high priority on proselytizing, and when we ask/demand that all religious symbols be removed from the public realm, we ARE attacking this aspect of their religion.
So what do we do? There is an unavoidable conflict between the position that religion should be kept private and the religions that require believers to spread the word.
My answer would be that you can have a nativity scene on your lawn, but don’t try to put one in the public square. You can display the Ten Commandments on your garage door, but not in the courthouse foyer.
Unfortunately, even this reasonable position is seen as an attack on religion by some people, apparently including Reverend Simpson.
There is one question that seems important to me: Are you really insistent on keeping relgion private?
The response you’ve given in examples seems to indicate the answer is “no.” You want to keep it public–people can make displays visible to the public from private property, provided they violate no other laws–but non-governmental. Furthermore, unless I’m mistaken, you have no intention to pass laws against wearing religious symbols, clothing, hairstyles, etc. in public. You want the public sphere to be religiously neutral, neither void nor dominated by officially endorsed dogmas.
This seems eminently fair, but you weaken your case by stating you want “religion to be kept private.” Religion is inherently social (both for good and ill) and demanding that it be kept private really can come off sounding like you want to restrict it (quiet apart from the whole prostelizing angle). Which, if I read you correctly, is not at all what you mean.
Private is perhaps the wrong word. If you consider private in the sense of private enterprise– meaning non-governmental– then it is not the wrong word. I admit that this is not the first interpretation of private that comes to mind.
You are correct, I do recognize the right to display religious iconography on your own property or person. I even recognize the right to prosyletize, so long as you aren’t trying to get your religion codified into law — as I said “you have no right to impose [your beliefs] on anyone else.”
I also recognize the historical and cultural reality that Black churches have been a great organizer and mobilizer of African American political activity back to colonial times. That is something that the left must recognize and accomodate so that we don’t alienate the black vote.
I apologize that my wording is convoluted, and can see where I could run into problems in the future using this wording. Thanks.
There was an interesting diary a week or two ago on Daily Kos about the religio-politics of the African American community (I’ll look for the link when I get more time). Historically, Black churches have been the political advocates and organizers of the African American community. It is no accident that Rev. Simpson cites Martin Luther King, Jr. as the role-model for his organization. What better example of religio-politics?
The writer of the dkos diary warned that we risk alienating African American voters if we push too hard for an absolute separation of Church and State. If Rev Simpson’s group really is a liberal group, I think it may help to have such an organization to reassure the Black community that they will not be abandoned. However, I am suspicious of his honesty and motives at this point.
(Interestingly, a similar argument has made me reconsider one of my other opinions as well: the argument that Blacks used the right to bear arms to fight against oppression and protect their communities from white terror — a la the Deacons for Defense — that has me conflicted about the 2nd Amendment.)
I must be in that small group because I believe exactly what Bertrand Russell said:
I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
I try to respect people’s decisions, but it’s hard to do when we look at history and ask ourselves rationally, “What has religion given us?” I’ve thought for years that mankind has no chance of being free until we shake the yoke of religion. I gotta tell ya, George Bush’s America has only strengthened that belief.
this is a shallow ploy to get Dems behind faithbased pork, and steer it to his corporation.
Why has it become such a huge deal? ‘Oh, you know those blasphemous Democrats and their God-hatin’ ways!’ Ridiculous. NO ONE has the right to accuse anyone else of not being ‘religious’ enough, or spiritual enough, or not close enough to God, or not being Christian enough….
I don’t understand this. Like I’ve said before, the Bible that I read and the God that I worship says we are all equal. We’re all the same. And it also says, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’. These ‘good Christian’ people who will not shut up already with the judgemental statements and generalizations are going to have to answer for that one day, and it makes them look as horrible as the supposed Godless Democrats they’ve suddenly becoming obsessed with. This makes me sick.
Yes, Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. Jefferson attended an Episcopal Church regularly because there was no Unitarian congregation nearby for him to attend. Jefferson did not fully participate in the life of his Episcopal Church because, unlike them, he rejected Trinitarianism (the idea of God as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and embraced a Deist philosophy.
What is Deism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
Which of the Founders of America were Deists?
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were all Deists.
* The religious views of George Washington are a matter of some controversy. There is strong evidence that he (like many of the Founding Fathers) was a Deist – believing in Divine Providence, but not believing in divine intervention in the world after the initial design. Before the revolution, when the Episcopal Church was still the state religion in Virginia, he served as a vestryman (lay officer) for his local church. He spoke often of the value of religion in general, and he sometimes accompanied his wife to Christian church services. However, there is no record of his ever becoming a communicant in any Christian church and he would regularly leave services before communion – with the other non-communicants. When Rev. Dr. James Abercrombie, rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia mentioned in a weekly sermon that those in elevated stations set an unhappy example by leaving at communion, Washington ceased attending at all on communion Sundays. Long after Washington died, asked about Washington’s beliefs, Abercrombie replied: “Sir, Washington was a Deist.” Various prayers said to have been composed by him in his later life are highly edited. He did not ask for any clergy on his deathbed, though one was available. His funeral services were those of the Freemasons.
Thomas Jefferson – Deist; Episcopalian (VA)
* Though a vestryman (lay officer) of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, his beliefs were primarily Deist. Unlike its effect on Congregational churches, Deism had little influence on Episcopal churches, which have a more hierarchical structure making them slower to modify their teachings. Of only three things Jefferson chose for his epitaph, one was the 1786 Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom. Jefferson’s views are considered very close to Unitarian [2]. The Famous UUs website says: [3]
“Like many others of his time (he died just one year after the founding of institutional Unitarianism in America), Jefferson was a Unitarian in theology, though not in church membership. He never joined a Unitarian congregation: there were none near his home in Virginia during his lifetime. He regularly attended Joseph Priestley’s Pennsylvania church when he was nearby, and said that Priestley’s theology was his own, and there is no doubt Priestley should be identified as Unitarian. Jefferson remained a member of the Episcopal congregation near his home, but removed himself from those available to become godparents, because he was not sufficiently in agreement with the trinitarian theology. His work, The Jefferson Bible, was Unitarian in theology…”
* A remarkable quote from a letter Jefferson wrote to a Dr. Woods indicates that in fact he possessed considerable antipathy towards Christianity:
“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.”
James Madison – Deist; Episcopalian (VA)
* In 1779 the Virginia General Assembly deprived Church of England ministers of tax support, but in 1784 Patrick Henry sponsored a bill to again collect taxes to support churches in general. Madison’s 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance was written in opposition to another bill to levy a general assessment for the support of religions. The assessment bill was tabled, and instead the legislature in 1786 passed Jefferson’s Bill for Religious Freedom, first submitted in 1779. Virginia thereby became the first state to disestablish religion — Rhode Island, Delaware, and Pennsylvania never having had an established religion.
James Monroe – Deist; Episcopalian (VA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Presidential_religious_affiliations
Jefferson thought that the original message of Christianty had been hopelessly perverted ages ago.
In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)
Jefferson said that both Deists and Atheists could be virtuous.
Jefferson established the University of Virginia as the country’s first purely secular university.
A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution [the University of Virginia]. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 492.)