The Double-Edged Sword

In my last post, I discussed the claim by some on the religious right that we are and have always been a Christian nation. I want to continue the discussion on differing views regarding the foundations of our society, but I first want to clarify where I stand on religion. I know that someone reading my posts might infer a certain hostility toward religion, but such an inference would be wrong. I'm no more opposed to religion than a foe of pornography is opposed to filmmaking. My quarrel is solely with fundamentalism and certainly not with religion as a whole. I see religion as a double-edged sword that gives us both the best and worst of humanity, Mother Teresa on one side and Osama bin Laden on the other. I've seen up close how people's devout faith can drive them to lead lives of astounding kindness and generosity.

Religious faith can do for the spiritual being what some miracle drug can do for its corporal counterpart. It can make you whole, offering healing, strength and even salvation, but taken in an excessive or improper dosage, it can be fatal. It seems to me that the difference between using religion for good and using it for ill depends on whether someone is driven by that faith to perform acts of charity, compassion and service to others, or if someone is using religion as a blunt object with which to beat people into submission. It's the difference between volunteering to be an ambassador of mercy for a loving god and becoming a vigilante aligned with a vicious and wrathful god.

Fundamentalists often master trivial minutia about their religion yet somehow manage to miss the larger point entirely. If they knew baseball the way they knew The Bible, they could easily tell you that Jack Cusick hit two triples as a member of the 1951 Chicago Cubs, but they would have no idea how many outs complete an inning. This disconnect comes from picking parts of The Bible they like, claiming they are the inerrant words of God by virtue of being in that book, while ignoring whatever biblical passages don't suit them. They also greatly overstate the impact that The Bible has on society. For example, look at Alabama's former Chief Justice, Roy Moore and his band of followers, whom I call "Moore-ons." Judge Moore was a hero to these people for refusing to remove a giant monument of the Ten Commandments, which he had installed in his courthouse. He argued that these commandments provide the moral foundation of U.S. law. Needless to say, he's not even close as I intend to show by this brief hypothetical tale:

Sanjay came to the United States with little more than the clothes on his back. His parents, devout Hindus (as is Sanjay, who keeps a statue of Vishnu in his room), demanded that he stay in India but the pull of America was too strong. He dreamed of having the things that Americans had, and he worked extremely hard, often seven days a week, all the while being a model citizen with no vices besides his mild profanity. He became successful and even married the woman of his dreams after she left her no-good husband.

In this profile of the American Dream, our hero just broke seven of the Ten Commandments (see if you can spot them). That leaves only murder, theft and perjury, but I would point out that the correct term for people who think these three things should be illegal is not "Christians", "Jews" or "Americans"; the correct term is "Everybody". These were proscribed by societies before Moses was born and their prohibition is universal. The Ten Commandments all fall into one of three categories: 1) self-evident and thus redundant; 2) fairly inconsequential; and 3) flat out contradictory -- since "keeping up with the Joneses" is as American as apple pie, we would make coveting mandatory long before we would prohibit it. Moreover, does anyone really believe that a rape victim who takes God's name in vain by screaming, "Oh God, stop it!" has fundamentally violated our morality but the rapist hasn't?

When I look at hardcore right-wing "Christians" in this country I see little that would make Jesus proud. Jesus taught humility but these people maintain a hypocritical sanctimony much like the Pharisees Jesus detested. Jesus preached sharing whatever we had and condemned those who would amass wealth instead, but conservative Christian America swears that a system reflecting the motto, "I want more, more, more no matter how poor others may be" is the only one that isn't immoral. Where Jesus preached peace and loving our enemies, I see warmongers who kindle animosities as they spread division and hatred. Those who scream at the top of their lungs that they're Christians may not be the complete and perfect opposite of real Christianity, but they're certainly close. Gandhi said, "I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." This is terribly unfortunate since the path outlined by Jesus is a wonderful prescription for living, as are many spiritual paths advocated by other religions and by non-believers who push for a world of kindness, decency and peaceful coexistence.

From the Halls of Philadelphia to the Shores of Tripoli

Any wishful thinking that the Tea Party might push the religious right off the Republican stage for the moment was ill-founded and we should have known better. As soon as Republicans picked up seats in Congress but naturally couldn't fix the economy or unemployment, they immediately returned to pushing irrelevant wedge issues designed to rile up their base. Frankly, this was as predictable as the night following the day. As more nonsense is sure to come, let me address the periodically recurring and patently false claim that we have always been a specifically Christian nation, but secular socialists are trying to undo this long tradition.

Our government, unlike all that preceded it, was built on the enlightened principles of reason and popular sovereignty. Our founders believed that the just power to govern was derived from the consent of the governed, while other societies held the more primitive and superstitious belief that governing authority reflected divine providence. The U.S. Constitution's Preamble, which sets the tone for the rest of that document, begins, "We the people", and by that authority alone we "ordain and establish" the world's first such constitution. That entire document lacks a single reference to God, let alone Jesus Christ, and the only references to religion are to disentangle it from the legitimate authority of our government. Article VI prohibits any religious test for holding public office, and the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion or interfering with the free exercise thereof. This was wisely done to protect the institutions of both church and state from one another.

As I turn on the news and see unrest in Libya followed by reporting on an anti-Islamic witch hunt in Congress, I'm reminded of The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and Tripoli, which was drafted in late 1796 during the Washington administration and ratified in 1797 in the early days of the Adams administration. On May 26, 1797, the treaty was read aloud to the Senate and was unanimously approved. This was only the third instance of such unanimity among the hundreds of times that a recorded vote was required in the Senate. Article 11 of that treaty reads as follows:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Can you imagine Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) voting to approve a treaty proclaiming that we're "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"? Can you picture Glenn Beck's hysterical reaction if such language were drafted today? Both men would be outraged that we would betray our founders in that way, which should provoke laughter from anyone who knows that these words are in fact our founders'. We can listen to what Glenn Beck says the Founding Fathers say or we can listen to what the Founding Fathers say the Founding Fathers say. The choice is ours; we can either open our minds or we can wallow in a pit of fear and ignorance.

None if this is to deny that many of our founders espoused some form of Christianity, however, that's really neither here nor there. The ideas and principles that set the United States apart from the rest of the world came from Christians, Deists and Unitarians who were students of The Enlightenment. These men valued reason over church dogma and were often fiercely critical of organized religion. Christianity was popular in the Colonies but we need to be careful with our assumptions. We shouldn't claim a Christian foundation for a society that was built on universal truths and natural rights rather than anything mystical any more than we should conclude that the faith of "turn the other cheek" provides the theological underpinning for the musical genre of "I'ma bust a cap in yo' ass" just because some rapper wears a gold cross and thanks Jesus when he wins an award. While our society was and is imperfect, it became the envy of the world and the model for others to copy. It would be an unconscionable rejection of our national birthright to take a giant leap backward towards a medieval theocracy.