Tag: alt-right

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Politics

Noncooperation with Evil

Both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have been quoted as saying, “Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” I agree. In an essay titled “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression,” Dr. King wrote: “To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor.  . . . To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed fails to be his brother’s keeper. So acquiescence—while often the easier way—is not the moral way. It is the way of the coward.”

You don’t need me to tell you that we’re living in troubled times, times when we don’t enjoy the luxury of being “non-political” or of avoiding taking a side. Silence is acceptance, and certain things should never be accepted. Racism, bigotry, white supremacy, and the violence that results from those attitudes are evil. Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz survivor, wrote: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

The United States has a long history of human rights abuses, beginning with the enslaved Africans and the displaced Native Americans. Such abuses were so institutionalized that they were not always thought of as abuse but simply as a factual representation of the superiority of the white race and the inferiority of all other races. That hierarchy was the accepted starting point for many people; so signs denying people of color access to libraries, restaurants, and many churches and schools were widely viewed as simply logical outcomes of the basic premise that the black race was inherently inferior and undeserving of interacting as equals with people of the white race. Forcing black citizens to drink from separate water fountains and use separate restrooms as well as assigning black patrons to the rear seats of public buses made perfect sense to some.

Then in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some courageous people spoke truth to power, letting those in power know that their attitudes and policies were not acceptable. As a result, laws were passed which gave black citizens equal rights with white citizens, removed the discriminatory signs, allowed admission to previously all-white schools, and integrated churches and other public places. It seemed we had taken giant steps forward. In hindsight, however, it appears we forgot that attitudes live in hearts and minds, not in law books. The laws were changed, but hearts and minds were not. Bigotry continued to fester, fueled even more by resentment over the whites’ having lost their position of unquestioned privilege and superiority.

What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, two days ago is the result of that festering hatred finally being unleashed anew because those currently in power have publicly condoned hatred, bigotry, and violence. David Duke, former KKK grand wizard, made this statement about the Charlottesville rally, which he attended: “This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back, we’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump, and that’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back and that’s what we gotta do.” Donald Trump has both implicitly and explicitly condoned bigotry and violence, from encouraging rally goers during his campaign to beat up protesters and appointing known racists to high positions in his administration to his refusal to condemn white supremacy as the cause of Saturday’s violence and the deaths and injuries which resulted from it. And he is unlikely ever to denounce the alt-right—no matter what heinous things they do—since they comprise a large portion of his infamous base.

When these white nationalists (alternately known as white supremacists, the alt-right, Identarians, and race realists) say they want to “take our country back,” what do they mean? What exactly is it they’d like to see happen? According to CNN’s Ray Sanchez, who quotes Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “All civil rights for nonwhites would be removed. All political power would be in the hands of white people, in particular white men because this movement is an extremely male and, many would say, toxically masculine movement. They also have pretty retrograde views about what women should be doing. If anything, their vision of America’s future looks a lot like the 1600s or perhaps earlier.”

Admittedly, there’s little chance their full vision of white-dominated America will ever be realized; but that doesn’t mean they pose no threat. As long as one person dies because of their violence, as long as thousands of lives are diminished by their hatred, as long as their voices are so much as a whisper in the ears of our government officials, every American is affected; and no American should be silent.

I’ve never understood how even one person could have cast a vote to make Donald Trump “president” of the United States, and I never will understand. But okay, so let’s say they were conned. There was all of the fake news, and there was the Russian influence.  I’ve been conned a few times, so that I get. It’s humiliating to learn that you’ve been played, and no one likes to admit being made a fool. But as Martin Luther King said, accepting an unjust system (even if it’s to protect your own ego or cover your embarrassment for having been played for a fool) makes the oppressed as evil as the oppressor.

I’m willing to cut a little slack for those deceived into voting for this travesty, but the blinders are off now. Anyone still riding the Trump Train is as evil as he is; the blood on his hands is also on theirs. Trump supporters are complicit in every lie he tells, every time he humiliates our country in the face of the world, every attempt at obstructing justice, every selfish and narcissistic act, and every careless threat that increases the possibility of taking our country and the world into a devastating nuclear war. And they’re complicit in the death of Heather Heyer and the injuries of dozens of others in Charlottesville on August 12.

Noncooperation with evil requires denouncing evil by its name wherever we encounter it. It requires separating ourselves from it by refusing to participate in or be an accomplice to evil. And it means having the courage to speak truth to power. Silence is consent. In Dr. King’s words, silence makes the oppressed as evil as the oppressor; those who are silent share the guilt for everything the oppressor does. Declining to take a side is taking a side: the wrong side.

I love Thomas Paine’s writings, and I quote them often, so I’m going to quote Paine again:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Heather Heyer and the other counter-protesters who stood up to the armed mob in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 deserve “the love and thanks of man and woman.” To shrink into silence and implicitly condone the hatred which killed this woman and injured many others is to dishonor our fellow humans and our country. Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots are complicit in the evil from which they shrink; and that’s true whether one’s name is Joe Average Citizen or Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan.

Speaking truth to power has never been more imperative. It is our moral responsibility and our patriotic duty. As Dr. King said, “Acquiescence—while often the easier way—is not the moral way. It is the way of the coward.” Our country doesn’t need any more cowards, but we’re in desperate need of a few heroes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics Religion

Christless Christianity and Modern Politics

According to reliable statistics, 81% of white American evangelicals, in the year 2016, used their cherished voting right to help elect Donald Trump to the office of POTUS. I don’t have statistics to show how many of those who helped elect the boy president continue to support him, but it’s my personal observation that there’s little buyers’ remorse among the group and that they continue not only to support but to defend him and his execrable actions since assuming office on January 20, 2017. In the words of The Bard, evangelicals supporting and defending a person who in no way  embodies their professed beliefs is “like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh” (Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1).

How did this happen? “Christians” who profess to believe in the Bible as a literal, inerrant, God-breathed guidebook for the human race elected a thrice-married, adultery-committing, foul-mouthed, uncharitable , lying, swindling, Putin-loving, crotch-grabbing, over-sized child who shows little evidence of having read their Bible and no evidence of making any attempt to live by its precepts.

It’s a fair assertion that without the votes of white evangelicals, Donald Trump would not be sitting in the Oval Office today, so it’s also fair to ask how on earth hundreds of thousands of people would abdicate every belief which they profess to hold dear to help elect someone who is the antithesis of those beliefs. When the alt-right and the Christian right are on the same page, it’s clear that something is rotten in the state of Christendom.

Documentation for much of my information on this subject is personal experience. I was raised in the evangelical tradition; so I have first-hand knowledge of the thinking, beliefs, and lifestyles of the group. It’s also important to note that although all evangelicals profess to be Christians, not all Christians are evangelicals. The evangelical, also known as fundamentalist, tradition exists within mainstream denominations—with heavy concentration in the various Baptist groups—but they are right of center within their denominational theologies.

Most of us would have little reason to care what this subset of Christianity is up to or why they think the way they do were it not for their increasing influence on politics; and since their political actions affect us all, we have good reason to spend a little time delving into how the evangelical mind works because that thinking has played a large role in creating the situation that currently threatens the stability and future of our nation. Their political clout began with the merger between evangelicalism and the Republican Party, which happened in the 1980s. During my youth, I was consistently told that Christians should stay out of politics; church was church, and government was government.

Two changes have occurred, however, over the last several decades. First, there is little distinction in the evangelical mind between religious beliefs and political or philosophical positions. When evangelicals take a position on any subject, it becomes a part of their theology. Take climate change as a prime example. Evangelicals I know scoff at the scientific evidence proving climate change is real and is being caused by human activity as if those who do believe the findings of science are infidels. Second, their beliefs have become more and more detached from the Bible, which they claim as their infallible guide. The result is a systematic theology which is based on cherry-picked parts of the Bible but which stands in direct contradiction to the book’s broad themes and consistent principles.

To win the vote of an evangelical Republican, one need only state opposition to two things: abortion and homosexuality. Both are, in their view, anti-biblical (though they’re rarely mentioned in the Scriptures and never in the way they are cited) and are core issues which allow no room for negotiation. Crotch grabbing and Russia colluding are not related to those two core issues; therefore, crotch grabbing and Russia colluding become tangential subjects, dismissed as annoying obstacles to pursuing their goals of revoking Roe v. Wade and marriage equality. Never mind that the Bible, in its wholeness, says far more related to sexual assault than to abortion or homosexuality, because I daresay most of these avowed adherents to “the whole Word of God” have never read far beyond the cherry pickings which are used as the underpinnings of their beliefs.

A third subject necessary to an understanding of the Christians who elect, support, and defend a morally degenerate “president” is something called the “Rapture,” which they confuse with the second coming of Christ. Theories on how the world will end have abounded ever since the world began. Evangelicals believe that the end of time will be initiated by an appearance of Jesus Christ in the clouds. Jesus will take all of the people who believe the way they believe out of the world, bodily, and whisk them off to heaven in order to spare them from the devastation and destruction about to be wreaked upon the earth. Once the Christians are safely out of the way, the antichrist will take over and things will get really grim for 7 years. At the end of that time, Jesus will establish a long period of peace on the earth. There’s lots more to it, but that’s the short course.

The reward for believing as they do and for accepting the ridicule of those who don’t believe as they do is that they will in the end be vindicated. Jesus will come down and stick it to all of those critics, and the whole of humanity will have to admit that the evangelicals were right all along. They will also be the chosen few who will get to spend eternity in heaven, while doubters will burn (literally) in hell: a great pit filled with “fire and brimstone.”

This belief is supported by the usual string of cherries picked from various parts of the Bible, but the exclusivity of it gives the “true believers” privileged status. They are “in this world but not of this world.” Their other-worldly view allows them to detach themselves from such concerns as whether mentally ill people buy guns or the “president” likes to sexually assault women or a foreign adversary interfered in our presidential election on behalf of the guy who won. All that is important in their view is how these things fit into the “prophecies” of the Book of Revelation, which is probably the most misinterpreted book in all of the 66 of the Bible.

Any world event, however negative to those who live in the real world, is seen through the evangelical glasses only in terms of what it contributes to the fulfillment of those so-called prophecies. So it is possible to see Donald Trump as having been appointed by God, because God is going to use Trump to advance God’s plan of bringing God’s kingdom to Earth. I have personally been told that I needn’t worry too much about concerns for the future, because Jesus is going to come back before those things happen anyway.

Jessica Rettig, in an article titled “The Religious Ties of the Republican Party,” interviews Daniel Williams who explains the history of the merger between religious conservatives and the Republican Party. According to Williams, who also wrote the book God’s Own Party: the Making of the Christian Right, conservative Christians first latched onto the GOP during the 1970s. Although some movement was seen during the Eisenhower years, the major momentum occurred during the Nixon and Reagan eras. Since “the evangelicals were looking for a party that would champion what they viewed as moral values and their interests in the Cold War and the Republican Party was also looking for potential voters,” it was so to speak a marriage made in heaven: win-win. Williams goes on to explain how both the Cold War and opposition to Islam strengthened the political power of Christian evangelicals. They saw the federal government as “acting in the interests of God by fighting against communism internationally and by rooting out communist subversives within the country.” He adds, “In many ways, the war on terror became the new Cold War for evangelicals.”

Jessica Rettig wrote her article in 2010. More recently, Sarah Posner published an article titled “Amazing Disgrace” on March 20, 2017. Posner begins by posing the question “How did Donald Trump—a thrice-married, biblically illiterate sexual predator—hijack the religious right?” Well, that’s just what we’ve been wondering! Rettig says that Russell Moore, “a prominent leader in the Southern Baptist Convention,” began noticing the evangelical trend toward Trump even while many still dismissed Trump’s candidacy as a bad joke. Although Moore “had positioned himself as the face of the ‘new’ religious right,” he of course understood the old religious right’s mindset. In his book Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, Moore writes, “The church of Jesus Christ ought to be the last people to fall for hucksters and demagogues. But too often we do.”

Posner goes on to say,

“As Trump continued gaining ground in the polls, Moore began to realize that the campaign represented nothing short of a battle for the soul of the Christian right. By backing Trump, white evangelicals were playing into the hands of a new, alt-right version of Christianity—a sprawling coalition of white nationalists, old-school Confederates, neo-Nazis, Islamophobes, and social-media propagandists who viewed the religious right, first and foremost, as a vehicle for white supremacy.”

In Posner’s own words, “The religious right—which for decades has grounded its political appeal in moral ‘values’ such as ‘life’ and ‘family’ and ‘religious freedom’—has effectively become a subsidiary of the alt-right, yoked to Trump’s white nationalist agenda.” Once again, we’re looking at the disconnect between the avowed adherence to the Bible as the “infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God” and the failure to understand and practice even the most basic precepts of that book. The alt-right represents human nature at its most degraded, yet these “Christians” have philosophically joined hands with that movement. In the world of oxymorons, nothing is more extremely ironic than “alt-right Christians.” Yet they’re real and they walk among us.

Opposition to Roe v. Wade has for a generation been recognized as what Albert Mohler calls “the catalyst for the moral revolution within evangelicalism.” Sarah Posner argues, however, that abortion was not the issue responsible for the creation of the religious right; instead, according to Posner, it was the IRS’s revoking of the tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University and other institutions that refused to admit non-whites, which happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Posner says, “It was the government’s actions against segregated schools, not the legalization of abortion, that ‘enraged the Christian community,’ Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich has acknowledged.”

Frank Schaeffer Jr., in his 2007 book Crazy for God, agrees that abortion was not immediately a concern for evangelicals; it was only after certain influential leaders “stirred them up over the issue” that evangelicals became politicized. Schaeffer argues that evangelicals have been “played for suckers” by high-profile leaders who have little genuine spirituality and much desire for power.

Sarah Posner writes this stunning statement: “That’s why white evangelicals were the key to Trump’s victory—they provided the numbers that the alt-right lacks. The alt-right supplied Trump with his agenda; the Christian right supplied him with his votes.”

If Sarah Posner and others are correct, the driving force behind the Christian right’s theology and politics is not really abortion or homosexuality—as they say—but deep-rooted racism and white supremacy. Here are a few facts:

“According to an exit poll of Republican voters in the South Carolina primary, evangelicals were much more likely to support banning Muslims from the United States, creating a database of Muslim citizens, and flying the Confederate flag at the state capitol. Thirty-eight percent of evangelicals told pollsters that they wished the South had won the Civil War—more than twice the number of nonevangelicals who held that view.”

Matthew MacWilliams is the author of articles in which he reports the results of his own research into traits which predict support of Donald Trump. He found the usual factors of race, income, and education levels; but those were insignificant compared to the “single statistically significant variable . . . authoritarianism.”

Although authoritarians can be found in all political parties, geographic areas, occupations, and religions, authoritarianism is at the very core of the evangelical religious philosophy; and it helps to explain the disconnect between their avowed adherence to the Bible and the reality of their anti-biblical attitudes and practices. For example, their concern for life is belied by resistance to reasonable gun control and unconcern for the poor—the people Jesus called “the least of these” and said that those who serve them are serving him.

In truth, many evangelicals follow strong leaders more than they directly follow the teachings of Scripture. To name a few of those leaders, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Sr. and Jr., Rick Warren, Franklin Graham, Bill Hybels, Joyce Meyer, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Beth Moore are far more likely to influence the beliefs and practices of evangelicals than is their own personal reading and interpretation of the Bible. In fact, their interpretation of the Bible has most likely been informed by one or more of those people and others who could be listed. And no evangelical with a normal human need to be accepted within one’s tribe would dare contradict the teachings and interpretations of their esteemed leaders.

If authoritarianism is indeed the main common denominator among Trump supporters, it is no longer a surprise to see evangelicals on that list. And there is no way to reason with this group, because in their minds all of their information comes directly from God, they are privy to things the rest of us who don’t enjoy VIP status are not, their leaders hold god-like authority, and then there’s the whole thing about Jesus coming back to wipe out everyone except them and show the rest of us that we’re the ones who’ve been wrong the whole time.

To repeat, all evangelicals profess to be Christians, but not all Christians are evangelicals, and it is unfair to judge the whole lot of us by the actions of that one group. Micah 6:8 sums up Christianity for me:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”

I still have some work to do; but I’m going to keep striving for justice, kindness, and a humble walk with God and let the fundies (fundamentalists) have their rules and condemnation.

As for what all of this means to the political future of our country, the mergers between evangelicalism and the Republican Party and between evangelicalism and the alt-right mean that this group of “Christians” will continue to wield political influence for the foreseeable future. I wish I could offer a solution, but that’s above my level of influence. All I can say is that understanding a problem is key to addressing it, so I hope this article sheds a little light that may help us as we go forward.

 

PLEASE NOTE: My purpose in writing this article was not to decide the genuineness of anyone’s Christianity; faith is a private matter, so other people’s faith or lack thereof doesn’t affect me and is therefore none of my business. It’s not my job to pass judgment on others, even though some others have passed the judgment that I am not a “real” Christian. My only purpose was to examine the political influence of a large group of my fellow citizens, because their influence on governmental affairs does affect me and IS my business. The truth is that without this group, we would not have the “president” we now have. That means they’ve affected all of our lives, whether we’re mainstream Christians, fundamentalists, or atheists. And that’s a scary reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics

The Christian Right Is Neither

When it’s difficult to see daylight between the alt-right and the Christian right, we’ve wandered into dangerously wrong territory. Today’s Republican Party has made strange bedfellows of some seemingly divergent groups: KKK sympathizers, alt-right thugs, the gun lobby, and others; and in the middle of them all is the “Christian” right, evangelicals whose voices are in unison with philosophies that undermine and threaten to destroy our republic and the values which we have always held inviolable. On the surface, it’s impossible to see what could unite groups that should be at opposite poles.

This strange new coalition which has formed under the umbrella of the Republican Party is not Christian, not conservative, and not Republican. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Ronald Reagan is so far from the party of 2016 that the two shouldn’t be called by the same name.

Republicans have proudly called themselves the Christian party and the family-values party, yet in 2016 they have nominated and are supporting and defending a candidate who has lived his life by the opposite of any definition of Christianity I know. And his campaign CEO, Steve Bannon, has ties to the darkest elements from the underbelly of American civilization. At Breitbart news, he, according to Sarah Posner of Mother Jones, “created an online haven for white nationalists.”

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative. Louis Guenin, in one of my all-time favorite articles called “Why Voters Should Turn from the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession” (Huffington Post, 24 Dec 2012), offers this definition of conservatism:

Conservatism, as eloquently introduced by Edmund Burke (1729–1797), advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition. Legislators should proceed by careful deliberation guided by the counsel of prudence. Policy should change incrementally. When government errs, all citizens should, in Burke’s words, “approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.”

Has anyone seen any esteem for government at the Republican presidential rallies of 2015 and 2016? I’ve seen angry mobs screaming their rejection of “the established order,” chanting for the opposing party’s candidate to be locked up, rejecting the politics that has made our country what it is. The “accumulated wisdom” which Edmund Burke says leaders “should respect and consult” is derided as “political correctness,” which they see as having too long constrained them from expressing their baser instincts toward their fellow citizens of different race, skin color, religion, gender, or sexuality.

The campaign chief said this week, “What we need to do is bitch-slap” the Republican Party, expressing his anger at the “party elites” who are not falling in line behind the rogue nominee. He went on to add, “Get those guys heeding too, and if we have to, we’ll take it over to make it a true conservative party.” His definition of “conservative” is obviously quite different from Edmund Burke’s definition.

The new Republican Coalition knows nothing of caution, prudence, or respect for traditional American values. The scorched-earth politics that allows low and dirty stunts such as bringing people from an opponent’s past to a debate to bully and intimidate her and a candidate’s declaring himself free from the shackles that have bound him to party principles and now in a position to declare war on the party doesn’t sound conservative by any definition. Other language I’ve heard this week is that Donald Trump wants to burn down the party if it won’t play his way.

The opposite of conservative is not liberal; most liberals better fit the definition of conservatism than today’s “conservatives” do. The opposite of conservative is contemptuous: contempt for the established order, for American politics, for our constitution, for their fellow citizens, for anyone who disagrees with them.

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative, and it’s not Republican. The founding father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, devoted the last four years of his life to preserving our union when a racist, white supremacist group of states were determined to destroy it. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln eloquently said:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The coalition at work today under the banner of the Party of Lincoln seeks not to bind up wounds and create peace but to inflict wounds and perpetuate conflict.

Earlier in his address, Lincoln said, contrasting the state of the nation at the time of his second inaugural address with its state when he gave his first inaugural address: “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” I think we’re seeing that same tension today. None of us want discord and strife, but some would rather accept disunity than compromise to bring about peace and harmony.

We have to recognize, of course, that Donald Trump did not destroy the Party of Lincoln; they destroyed themselves, and Trump is the result, not the cause. A Donald Trump could never have secured the Republican nomination for the presidency until the climate was right for it, and in 2016, it’s perfect.

In David Brooks’s article “The Governing Cancer of Our Time” (26 Feb 2016), Brooks explains that in a “big, diverse society,” there are “essentially two ways to maintain order and to get things done”: “politics or some form of dictatorship,” “compromise or brute force.” Having said that politics involves compromise and deal-making in an effort to please as many within the diverse group of people as possible, Brooks assesses what has led to the state of Lincoln’s party today:

Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a generation of people who are against politics. These groups—best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the Right—want to elect people who have no political experience. They want “outsiders.” They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision making if it helps them gain power.

That attitude is greatly at odds with Lincoln’s goal to “achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The Republican Party freed the slaves and granted them citizenship; the new Republican Coalition wants to trample the rights of citizens of color. The new coalition has become the home of the alt-right white supremacists and KKK sympathizers who would destroy every bit of progress we have made in racial relations.

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative, it’s not republican, and it’s not Christian. Most shocking and perplexing of all those who now profess allegiance to this wing of the Republican Party are evangelical “Christians.” According to a new PPRI/The Atlantic survey released this week, “Nearly two-thirds (65%) of white evangelical voters remain committed to supporting Trump, while only 16% say they favor Clinton.” Among other Christian groups, the survey says support is more evenly divided.

The fact that two-thirds of the most vocal Christian group rabidly stand behind a candidate whose life and values are the polar opposite of their professed beliefs simply defies logical explanation. That their voices are indistinguishable from those of white supremacists and all manner of bigots is at odds with Christ’s words on Christianity. A group of Pharisees asked Jesus, the founder of the Christian faith, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus’ simple response was

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22: 37-40)

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, it’s that simple. If you get those two things right, you’ve got it. Don’t fret over the details.

Micah 6:8 is powerful in its simplicity:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Joining forces with a coalition that demands justice for only certain citizens, that hates our government and our politics, that seeks to destroy whatever justice for all we’ve managed to achieve does not fulfill the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves or to love justice and kindness.

Often being the nasty voices in social media discussions also fails to demonstrate a love of kindness or love of other people. Presenting themselves as God’s spokespersons to silence anyone who disagrees with their narrow stance only alienates, especially when what they’re saying is filled with scorn and hatred, and is not in the spirit of walking humbly with their God. Memes about jailing Hillary Clinton, virtual high fives every time they hear Trump talking about locking her up—how do these show justice, love, or humility? They’ve adopted what David Brooks calls “the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible.”

Defending lewd, vulgar talk and behavior and condoning sexual assault because it didn’t happen this week shows no love for one’s fellow humans. Claiming that one candidate has been forgiven by God’s grace but that the other cannot be and deserves only punishment is not only theologically screwed up, it’s not loving or kind.

When innocent children are gunned down in their little school desks, these loving, god-fearing people shrug their shoulders and say, “Bummer! But we can’t do anything because Second Amendment.” Ya know, God, guns, glory. Sorry, parents!

I listened to an interview last night with Jerry Falwell Junior, the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the world; he defended Trump, says he still plans to vote for him, and nobody’s perfect. And he cited James Dobson, another prominent evangelical guru, as agreeing with him.

Falwell pointed out that Jesus was often criticized for dining with sinners. Yes, Doctor Falwell, you are correct. Jesus dined with whoever came to him, including those scorned by the Pharisees, religious elite and chief hypocrites of the day. But there’s a BIG difference. Jesus hung out with them and broke bread with them, but he didn’t talk like them; and his life and values were clearly distinguishable from theirs. He associated with them without becoming one of them. He didn’t adopt their attitudes or defend their lifestyles. He shut down the hypocrites who were persecuting the woman at the well and sent her on her way with the words “Go and sin no more.” He wouldn’t allow her to be judged, but he encouraged her to adopt a healthier lifestyle. His voice was always distinct from the voices of the people to whom he showed love and compassion by dining with them.

The majority of evangelicals I’ve talked to are single-issue voters. The candidate who says (this week) that he opposes abortion gets their vote, regardless of what else he does or stands for. This is what the Bible they claim to follow calls “straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.” I’m not saying abortion is a tiny issue; it’s an important issue, but it’s ONE issue. If we elect someone to a powerful office because of his or her stance on this one issue but ignore gross violations on dozens of other issues, that’s not godly. If we love justice, as Micah so eloquently suggests we should, we will seek justice for all.

How did this unlikely coalition come together? What is the unifying element? Matthew McWilliams, who conducted a national poll of 1800 registered voters, says, “I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.” Bingo! This is what the alt-right and the Christian right have in common: the inclination to follow strong leaders (Falwell Sr. and Jr., James Dobson, Joel Osteen). It’s what David Brooks calls the opposite of politics. Yes, politics is messy, Brooks says, but the only alternative is the dictatorial leader; and that alternative has never ended well for any nation. We should be careful what we wish for!

Most deeply frightening is what will happen on November 9, 2016. As Americans, we’ve always prided ourselves on a peaceful transfer of power. Does anyone see Donald J. Trump making a sad but gracious concession speech and promising to get behind President Clinton to keep our country great? He’s already threatened to jail his opponent if he wins, and his supporters are already talking about revolution if he loses.

On November 9, I hope we will all—Republicans, Democrats, and everything in between—remember the words of Abraham Lincoln:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics

How Conservative Are Conservatives?

Image result for liberal conservative spectrum

Perhaps some of the most misunderstood and misused words in our 21st-century language are “liberal” and “conservative.” In a fractured and splintered political atmosphere, both ends of the spectrum have more factions than most of us can keep up with; and for many, both terms are nothing more than pejoratives used to describe the “idiots” on the other team.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a [person] from the vexation of thinking.” With our modern appetite for categorizing, combined with a widespread distaste for reflection and analysis, this saying has perhaps never been more accurate. Religious affiliations and political parties allow us the security of being surrounded by like-minded people and the luxury of having someone else articulate the beliefs to which we profess allegiance, whether or not we know or understand them.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, in this year’s Democratic primary, demonstrated the various shades of blue on the liberal end of the spectrum. And that brings us to one of the problems with categorizing: most terms are relative. To an extreme conservative, for example, even a moderate or slightly left-leaning person can seem like a raging socialist. Add to that the tendency to bandy about terms about whose meanings we are clueless and you have a recipe for the confusion and tension that now exist.

Although there are clearly shades of blue, I think they may not be quite as confusing as today’s shades of red. A favorite article, which I review periodically, especially during election season, is called “Why Voters Should Turn from the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession,” by Louis Guenin (Huffington Post, 24 Dec 2012).  In Mr. Guenin’s introductory paragraph, he suggests that modern conservatives and liberals have somewhat switched places, with liberals demonstrating more of the traditionally conservative principles than do those who currently call themselves conservative:

The politicians who now travel under the banner of ‘conservatism’ happen to espouse views and methods that . . . are incompatible with the philosophy bearing that name. Meanwhile members of the opposing political party have imbibed a dose of the wisdom conveyed by conservatism.

Guenin goes on to offer this definition of “conservatism”:

Conservatism, as eloquently introduced by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition.

According to Guenin, that was then; this is now:

Today’s Republican Party consists of pseudoconservatives, wearers of the ‘conservative’ mantle who repudiate conservatism. Rather than esteeming government, they disdain it. They seem to delight in ridiculing government’s failings.

Nowhere does one find a greater disdain for government than at Donald Trump’s rallies. The vile, abusive, violent atmosphere and language are the opposite of reverence for “the established order, its constitution, and its history”; and there is no evidence anywhere of “a cautious disposition.”

But la-de-da! We citizens of the 21st century are not ones to let facts get in our way. The pseudoconservatives of whom Louis Guenin speaks are actually a diverse group united around their religious beliefs on abortion and what they consider traditional family values.

The Tea Party Movement was a populist response within the Republican Party for whom the party was not quite “conservative” enough. Sparked by Rick Santorum’s remarks on February 19, 2009, opposing President Obama’s mortgage relief plan, the movement quickly grew through social media to include far-right voters whose common umbrella was hatred of the president.

The Tea Party ranks were swelled by ‘Birthers’—individuals who claimed that Obama had been born outside the United States and was thus not eligible to serve as president (despite a statement by the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health attesting that she had seen Obama’s birth certificate and could confirm that he had been born in the state)—as well as by those who considered Obama a socialist and those who believed that Obama, who frequently discussed his Christianity publicly, was secretly a Muslim. (Brittanica.com)

As I said, we modern Americans never let facts stand in our way! The Tea Partiers were angry at government, especially government spending policies.

According to Paul H. Jossey, “Today, the Tea Party movement is dead, and Trump has co-opted the remnants. What was left of the Tea Party split for a while between Trump and, while he was still in the race, Ted Cruz.” He goes on to say that Tea Party rallies have given way to Trump rallies (“How We Killed the Tea Party,” Politico Magazine).

Think about it: same people, same attitudes, and same utter disdain for government. Conservative? Not by a long shot!

The most disturbing right-wing faction now gaining attention is the alt-right movement. Until a month ago, I’d never heard of alt-right; and I was feeling embarrassed about that until I heard some very knowledgeable pundits on the news admit that they too were just learning about it.

The name is short for “alternative right” and, according to NPR (“What You Need to Know about the Alt-Right Movement”),

It is mostly an online movement that uses websites, chat boards, social media and memes to spread its message. (Remember the Star of David image that Trump received criticism for retweeting? That reportedly first appeared on an alt-right message board.

Hillary Clinton, in a Reno, Nevada, speech, commented on the movement:

This is not Republicanism as we have known it. These are racist ideas. These are race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim, anti-Immigrant, anti-women ideas—all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’

And Mrs. Clinton’s assessment is affirmed by the NPR description:

Most of its members are young white men who see themselves first and foremost as champions of their own demographic. However, apart from their allegiance to their ‘tribe,’ as they call it, their greatest points of unity lie in what they are against: multiculturalism, immigration, feminism, and, above all, political correctness.

Quoted in the NPR article, Nicole Hemmer, says, “They see political correctness really as the greatest threat to their liberty. So, they believe saying racist or anti-Semitic things—it’s not an act of hate, but an act of freedom.”

It should come as no surprise that this group found its ideal presidential candidate in Donald Trump, who has built his campaign on all of the same pillars articulated in the list of things they’re against. Before Trump, the Alt-Right found its home with Breitbart News Network, and now the merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign has been completed by Trump’s hiring of Stephen Bannon, chairman of Breitbart News Network, as his campaign’s chief executive. And thus what was a radical lunatic fringe group has now moved center stage in American politics.

Although Nicole Hemmer does not believe Trump “pledges allegiance” to the Alt-Right, she believes “They are attracted to Trump [and]see him as a vessel for getting their ideas out there.” And I would add that Trump has not disavowed their support; so whether he pledges allegiance or not, he clearly welcomes any fringe element (KKK et al.) that will help get him elected. Such are the choices of those who have no moral compass.

In this same article, Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying, “Donald Trump has a ‘profoundly dangerous’ disregard for the nation’s values.” And her assessment is echoed by many newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, whose editorial board has announced they are breaking with a tradition they have held to since 1964: they have always endorsed the Republican nominee for the presidency.

This year, however, the editorial board has announced that they cannot in good conscience endorse the Republican, since Trump is “no Republican and certainly no conservative.”

We have no interest in a Republican nominee for whom all principles are negotiable, not in a Republican Party that is willing to trade away principle for pursuit of electoral victory. Trump doesn’t reflect Republican ideals of the past; we are certain he shouldn’t reflect the GOP of the future.

(Huffington Post 6 Sep 2016)  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-dallas-morning-news_us_57cebaf3e4b078581f13d342?section=&

Tea Party, Alt-Right, birthers, conspiracy theorists, science deniers, guns are more important than lives advocates, racists, misogynists, “Christians” who know nothing of Christ’s example, white supremacists. Do any of these terms sound conservative?

On Thursday, September 8, the Family Research Council, a group that calls itself “Christian” and “conservative,” held a Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., and Donald Trump was the featured speaker. This is an excerpt from an article by Amy Sullivan:

Enthusiastic chants of “Lock her up!” filled the room in the middle of Trump’s speech, only to be replaced by earnest applause minutes later as he read from the New Testament: “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more graphic image of sheer hypocrisy: juxtaposing chants of “Lock her up!” with a scripture reading about love for one another as the evidence of God’s love being made complete in humans. Where’s the love? This behavior is neither Christian nor conservative, and it certainly doesn’t speak of any values I’d want to emulate. This sounds more like the alt-right than traditional evangelical values, but evangelicals have moved so far right of center that it’s hard to see the dividing line between the Christian Right and the Alt-Right.

I recall learning in my high school and college government classes about the liberal-conservative spectrum. According to the most simplistic explanation, in the center of the line are the moderates/centrists; to the left are the liberals, moving in degrees from “left-leaning” to the most extreme point: radicals. To the right of center are conservatives, also moving in degrees from “right-leaning” to the most extreme point: reactionaries. I see very little true conservatism among those to the right of center in our current political atmosphere, and I see a lot of reactionaries. According to The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought,

A reactionary is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which they believe possessed characteristics (discipline, respect for authority, etc.) that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.

Ring any bells? “Make America Great Again.” “Back to our roots.” “Back to the Christian beliefs our country was founded on” (our founders were mostly deists). These people left conservatism long ago, and they’ve been opening new right-wing territories ever since.

Donald Trump—in his ignorance and irreverence—and the Republican Party—with its factions, infighting, and collective spinelessness—have muddied the waters of true conservatism and brought the far-right fringe to center stage. The Trump Train has carried the Party of Lincoln to a place Lincoln—with his knowledge, wisdom, and eloquence—would never have dreamed of going. It’s time to turn the train around before it goes off the cliff!