I take a kind of grim satisfaction in this:
It is not as though [Christian conservatives] did not put up a fight; they went all out as never before: The Rev. Billy Graham dropped any pretense of nonpartisanship and all but endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Roman Catholic bishops denounced President Obama’s policies as a threat to life, religious liberty and the traditional nuclear family. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition distributed more voter guides in churches and contacted more homes by mail and phone than ever before.
“Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out.
“It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”
I honestly would not mind that we have some very traditional-minded religious people in this country if they didn’t try to take their beliefs and translate them into political power. That bothers me. A lot. It particularly bothers me because the way in which they have attained power is to ally themselves with corporate fat cats. And that is the kind of money-grubbing that caused Jesus to go ballistic in the Temple. It’s just ugly. It gives a bad name to politics, but also to Christianity and religion.
“An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”
When there is no good reason to accept them, the result shouldn’t really be a surprise.
That part just pt the biggest smile on my face…they finally are faced with the fact that theirs is a minority viewpoint.
Maybe they’ll all just leave the country?
Worse than the fat cats, they have allied themselves with fritters and conmen. Then allowed those conmen access to their congregations. Ralph Reed?
.
God damn autofill!, GRIFTERS, not fritters.
LOL! I’m so glad you added the clarification. I live in a very red county in Indiana, have right-wing evangelical family and neighbors. I’ve been avoiding them for awhile and was wondering what the hell was going on with them and fritters!!!
Hey, nothing wrong being allied with fritters. Myself, I would prefer to be allied with a good pone of cornbread, but to each his own!!
I just assumed it was a reference to those fairs in Iowa.
No, that would probably be fried pickles.
Yuck!
I usually find myself agreeing with you in general but you are dead wrong here.
Never having eaten or smelled them, I have to concede that you may be right. My German grandfather ate and relished fried pig’s brains and blood sausage, but I’m not about to try them either.
Well, the election results have certainly put everyone in a good mood!
Hey !! I resent the association of fritters with con men ! Fritters are perfectly innocent, even if they are fried.
It would have been a more reasoned to have been angry at the billionaires and their money by saying they mangled the Christian Conservative message and got in the way of all its glory.
Religion’s earned a bad name for itself all on its own. I take great satisfaction that they’re losing, and losing badly. Hopefully my generation’s children are even less religious than the 25% non-affiliated of mine.
Martin Luther King was a Christian.
Mao and Ayn Rand, enlightened atheists.
The problem isn’t religion, it’s fanaticism, and Lord knows that isn’t limited to religious believers.
Well said, and something we liberals would do well to remember. The entire civil rights movement was rooted in religion. But it was religion of and for the people; the kind of religion a hippie rabbi like Jesus might get on board with.
I find that the “moderates” are just as much of a problem as the fundamentalists because they give the fundies cover; “We’re not all like that!!!” Yeah, ok, but this is the form your religion is taking in the political process; I see Randiasm and Maoism as religions in themselves.
We’re not going to agree here, as I’m anti-theist, so I’ll leave it at that.
Without moderate Christian voters the Democrats wouldn’t win many federal elections.
I find that the “moderates” are just as much of a problem as the fundamentalists because they give the fundies cover; “We’re not all like that!!!”
You sound like McCarthy discussing liberals and communists.
They can be part of the solution when they become the face of Christianity. Right now, they’re part of the problem. If you ask people of my generation what Christianity stands for, I guarantee the answer you’ll get 70-80% of the time is, “Anti-gay.” When moderate Catholics start organizing against their hierarchy and the Vatican, I’ll see them as part of the solution. Some nuns are doing their best with their bus tour, but the people in the pews are barely a whisper.
With Muslims, I think I’ve seen how moderates can empower Islamic fundamentalism by not sticking up for Ahmadis, for example.
It might be a hard rope to walk considering they think like Joe Biden: I don’t want my faith legislating for me. Well the extremists do. So either shut them down, or vote with your feet and leave the church.
Maybe you guys don’t understand where I’m coming from because I was raised in a fundamentalist home. It’s not fun, it’s not pretty, and I hate religion because of it. Maybe it’s irrational; I don’t agree, but you could argue that my case isn’t right (Ed Brayton and Susan Jacoby don’t agree with me, for example). Then others, such as Tracie Harris (Matt Dillahunty’s spouse), argues here:
Do Moderate Christians Enable Fundamentalist Agendas?
When moderate Catholics start organizing against their hierarchy and the Vatican, I’ll see them as part of the solution
Voice of the Faithful was founded almost ten years ago, yet here you are. The largest organization of nuns in America stood up for the ACA three years ago, yet here you are. I don’t believe you; I think the chip you have on your shoulder about “those people” matters a great deal to you, and isn’t going away.
So either shut them down, or vote with your feet and leave the church.
If all the liberals leave the church, how will it ever get better?
Maybe you guys don’t understand where I’m coming from because I was raised in a fundamentalist home.
No, I understand exactly where you’re coming from because you were raised in a fundamentalist home. Anti-religious prejudice stemming from personal issues with daddy is a very old story.
What did the Southern Baptists expect when they adopted the political alliance shaped by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson’s gofer Ralph Reed, and the worst of the Roman Catholic bishops? They should be amazed that their influence lasted so long. The turn against immigration was the bridge too far. And the blatant racist attacks on the President. Those who they had divided and conquered were united by that.
Which means that progressives should not take this happy state of affairs for granted as we did during the 1970s.
I think the blatant war on women was a big part of that bridge too far. The absurd idea that an employer’s religious liberty was threatened if he can’t dictate his employees’ use of contraception was probably a big wakeup call for a lot of younger women.
Yes, definitely. I think contraception more than abortion. Abortion was their mothers’ war.
Ban contraception and you effectively ban women at work except for low and temporary positions. Ironically for the “Moral Majority” the only women who would be able to fight for executive positions would be lesbian, and of course, that extremely rare person, the true celibate.
translation: they find it amazing that a 21st century populace isn’t overly keen to return to the dark ages…which is, pretty much, the logical consequence to their “message”.
“I honestly would not mind that we have some very traditional-minded religious people in this country if they didn’t try to take their beliefs and translate them into political power. That bothers me. A lot. It particularly bothers me because the way in which they have attained power is to ally themselves with corporate fat cats. And that is the kind of money-grubbing that caused Jesus to go ballistic in the Temple. It’s just ugly. It gives a bad name to politics, but also to Christianity and religion.”
Boo,
I read the article a few days ago from which you quote, and what you say here was — point for point — also my reaction. The formation of the “Moral Majority” in the late 1970s opened Pandora’s Box, and I believe it did much more harm than good to religion in this country, for the very reasons you state. Although you might not get this from the typical lefty discussion forums, lots of people not of the right, lots of Democrats, respect and are attracted to religion, but are repelled by the politics and money that have eaten the heart out of it, leaving the brightly colored shell.
I see the politics and money part as a perhaps unintended but almost deterministic consequence of religion.
Maybe you don’t remember, but with the formation of the Moral Majority at the end of the 1970s and all that came in with that, the relation of religion to politics radically changed. It was quite startling to witness at the time.
It is not self-evident why churches ought to have the right to commandeer government in order to promulgate the doctrines they have every right to preach to their own congregants from their own pulpits.
And sure, religion is a great way to make money; yet in the last analysis, religion does not require money — it was, for example, a mainstay for slaves in this country.
Con artists, fanatics and empire-builders use religion for their own ends just like they use everything else. It’s a particularly apt instrument because of the heavy emphasis on faith. You can plug almost anything into the faith module. That doesn’t mean the connection is legitimate.
Maybe you don’t remember, but with the formation of the Moral Majority at the end of the 1970s
I can’t remember, for both temporal and geographical reasons 🙂 But my point is not restricted to a single instance of religion-based reach for power and money, there are plenty of examples across the world and through history. Even in the USA, the Moral Majority and what followed it is far from the only example. There have been a string of cults that had the power-and-money issue right at their formation yet have been rather popular (like the Mormons and $cientology, to name two pre-1970s examples). “In God We Trust” ended up on coins during the Civil War, and on paper money during the Cold War; and “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, as a result of pressure from religious groups. The first major push to put creationism into the law books was right after WWI, and, contrary to popular myth (as Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in an essay) the creationists actually won the famous Scopes Monkey Trial: the case wasn’t allowed to proceed to federal courts and Tennessee kept its law until the sixties (as did other, mostly Southern states), and pressure via school boards forced schoolbook publishers to progressively reduce the coverage of science subjects contradicting creationism.
It’s a particularly apt instrument because of the heavy emphasis on faith.
That’s the key. Religions (and quasi-religious dogmatic ideologies not generally considered a religion, like Stalinism) lead to a power grab or wealth accumulation for the few in different ways and at different times, but what doesn’t change is the susceptibility. And it’s not simply the faith part, but faith as a follower. For the overwhelming majority of religious people, their religion is not the result of some thought-through choice, but either (a) tradition (the religion of your parents or spouse) or, from those proselytized, (b) peer pressure in a tightly-knit group. This attitude to go along and not think about basic tenets is what can be exploited easily, and a believer doesn’t have to be a fanatic to fall for such an exploit.
Left out an important part:
“…This attitude to go along and not think about basic tenets, when shared by thousands, is what can be exploited easily…”
Point is, for power and money grabs, you need lots of followers. If, say, most religious people would be of the salad-bar type, those con artists, fanatics and empire-builders would have a hard time to gather a suitable following.
I wonder if there have been any true Christians since the First Century.
By my understanding of history, since Constantine recognized Christianity as the established religions, the appearance of real Christians has be random if not accidental.
But there is evidence there have been some–Martin Luther King (Sr. and Jr.), for example.
Yes, State sponsorship of religion thoroughly corrupts it.
Hello Progs!!! Welcome to Post-Republican America!!!
Perhaps the Death of the Republic?
2014…Repukes gain in the House, and finally take the Senate!!!
2016…due to second Recession due to Obama’s massive ego unwilling triangulate and work with Boehner and McConnell…
Marco Rubio is our next President!!!
You said you weren’t coming back. So about your 2012 prognostications…
I said if Romney won I wouldn’t come back…
He lost!!!
Four More Years!
Four More Years!
Four More Years!
I think it’s great that you’re back. Your guy got slaughtered. We’re basking in joy. Wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.
Say what you will about Obama; my reply is “scoreboard!” As for 2016, we’ll kick your ass again and, if you show up here, rub your nose in it too.
Pom-Poms!
2014…Repukes gain in the House, and finally take the Senate!!!
2016…due to second Recession due to Obama’s massive ego unwilling triangulate and work with Boehner and McConnell…
You told us Romney was going to win the presidential election and the Republicans were going to take the Senate.
Having proven yourself to be a south-pointing compass, your latest predictions are quite welcome.
I love this part – “it gives a bad name to politics
…”
Just beautiful – what a concept!
While the conservative leadership everywhere else persists in claiming it was the singer and not the song, this fellow is telling the truth outright.
It was the song.
The voters simply rejected clericalism and refused to elect people who wanted to require the state to obey and enforce traditional Christian moral views.
Well, majorities of them did, anyway.
Just as they rejected all the Ayn Rand surrogates and their stupid refusal to accept a century of achievements of progressivism.
Let me start out my comments with full disclosure. My father was a Methodist minister and my grandfather, a general surgeon, gave the hospital which he founded debt free to his church. Personally, I cannot identify with any one organized religion, but that doesn’t mean that I do not recognize the value and the dangers of religion in our life and how it informs decisions.
Religion has been ubiquitous throughout most all cultures since the beginning of recorded history. It has been part of the fabric of human development in shaping both how we explain to ourselves and to others an extremely complicated world and how we figure out our role in it. The problem is not religion in our lives and our politic, but the institutionalism of our religion.
Religion in our lives is no more dangerous than nationalism. In fact it is very similar. There is great comfort and strength derived from the sense of identity offered by ones community. It gives us a frame work in which to live and be productive. It gives us a sense that we can do and be more than what we are alone. However, it can also become mind numbing, ritualistic exercise in self absorption that corrupts the institution to which we bow.
Today we celebrate another institution, the military. I think it very important to also remember a quote from John F. Kennedy in a letter to a Navy friend: “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx