Month: May 2006

A reader writes:

I can not thank you enough for writing the essay "My Problem with Christianism".
I am so sad at what the religious right has done to the word "Christian". I cringe when I hear it because in this political climate it has become almost a bad word to me. I do not share their religion, their certainty or their intolerance. They have hijacked my religion and I resent it. I especially mind the way the media has adopted this description without considering what the vast majority of Christians actually believe.
Thank you for trying to put an end to this myth and to this monopoly. Please know that we "other" Christians are indeed out here!

I have received countless emails on these lines. Here’s another I just got:

Raised a Baptist, and baptized as a Christian nearly 60 years ago, the most common portrayals of either connotation has often made me reluctant to declare any religious affiliation at all. My faith is between me and God, and as far as I’m concerned, the same goes for my neighbor, both here and abroad. Naturalists will tell you, if you don’t bother a creature, it won’t harm you. I have to tell you, Christianism is a big bother to people who think like you and me. It’s about time somebody with the necessary fangs bit back!

But I plan on publishing the critical ones day by day and addressing their counter-arguments. (I’ve already published two with responses here and here.)

Reading the "letter" from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to president George W. Bush is worth doing for an insight into the kind of propaganda Iran’s leader now thinks will work for him. There is the early insistence on the abhorrence of the existence of the state of Israel; there is the rubbing in of the WMD debacle; there is the preposterous call for human rights, from a leader of a country where such rights do not exist; there is the veiled conspiracy theory about 9/11; and there is the anti-hegemonic appeal to the developing world.

But there is also something else. Ahmadinejad writes to Bush as a fellow religious fundamentalist, a true believer. He seeks common ground based on the notion that "liberalism" and "Western-style democracy" do not "realize the ideals of humanity." Because Bush has staked the U.S.’s global position and moral authority on religion, he has given Ahmadinejad a rhetorical opening to do the same. Since American democracy is, in Bush’s eyes, a manifestation of God’s will – not the construction of human beings alone – Ahmadinejad has an interlocutor who speaks his own theological language.

Then there are these passages:

"We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvations. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (peace be upon him), and believes in the divine promises of the rule of the righteous on earth …
"The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices. Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell is that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by him. Can one deny the signs of change in the world today? Is this situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace." [My italics.]

Ahmadinejad is appealing to Bush on the basis of their shared faith in the coming Apocalypse. It seems to me a perfectly good question for journalists to ask the president if he does indeed share Ahmadinejad’s belief that God controls all human events, that the world will soon come to an end, and that there seems to be an acceleration of change that suggests this might be coming soon. That’s what Bush’s pre-millennialist base believes. It’s what Ahmadinejad believes. Does the president?

(Photo: Reuters.)

Fairfax County just experienced the cold-blooded murder of a policewoman. It was accomplished by an 18 year-old who had just escaped from a mental institution. He had on him at the time, according to the Washington Post, "an AK-47-style assault rifle, a high-powered hunting rifle, five handguns and extra clips of ammunition … He squeezed off 70 rounds before the fierce gun battle with officers ended." It appears he was trying to kill as many cops as he could. Where did he get such an amazing armory? Money quote:

His father, Brian Kennedy, 49, works as a manager in the meat department of the Food Lion grocery store just outside Fairfax City. His mother, Margaret Kennedy, 44, works at a nearby For Eyes optical shop …  Investigators are not sure who owned the guns but believe they belonged to the family. When police searched the townhouse later Monday, they found "plenty" more guns inside, Horan said. He said he thought the guns were legally owned."

A grocery store clerk in Virginia can legally own a vast arsenal of deadly weaponry. Was he planning on shooting quail with an AK-47-style assault rifle?  I guess that’s what Glenn Reynolds would call his civil rights. Now, I’m sympathetic to the arguments against gun-control, but this kind of story gives me pause. I mean: surely common sense suggests that this kind of access to legal weaponry is, shall we say, "over-kill".

W is at 31 percent; JFK is at 26 percent. Don’t even think about it, Mr Senator. One more thought. Can you imagine how battered a president Kerry would have been by now? He’d be stuck with Bush’s Iraq mess; he’d be constantly told he’s Neville Chamberlain on Iran for doing exactly what Bush has been doing; he’d be ruthlessly attacked by the Hannity right over Teresa, immigration, gays, and any other cultural issue they could exploit. And the GOP would have escaped the responsibility for their fiscal insanity, while Kerry took lumps for raising taxes. As a matter of principle, I do not regret endorsing Kerry. My decision was based on the manifest incompetence and unconservatism of Bush. But in the sweep of history, it is fitting that Bush, for the first time in his entire life, actually face the consequences of his own recklessness. It is also important for conservatives to see up-front what abandoning limited government and embracing fundamentalism leads to: the collapse of a coherent conservatism. There was a silver lining in Bush’s re-election: the unsentimental education of conservative triumphalists.

(Photo of Kerry: Charlie Neibergall/AP.)

Daily Pundit has a cow over narcing on the Minutemen; Powerline has detected some tiny flaws in the president’s policies. The author of the blog item is John Hinderaker. Yes, the same Hinderaker who wrote only nine months ago of president Bush:

"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile."

An epiphany? Just don’t expect Hinderaker to fess up to it.

"[T]he Iraq War will stand for a long time as a monument to the potential excesses of evangelical thinking – and when it comes to our foreign policy, I hope the next GOP President partakes of a little less of Bush-style missionary zeal, and a little more of that old-time conservative religion," – Ross Douthat, on how evangelicalism has changed conservatism in the Bush era.

Thanks for your emails. Here’s one I should address:

Please keep in mind that it isn’t only right-wing fundamentalists who preach politics from the pulpit. I am a relatively conservative Republican who is active in a liberal Episcopal church. I have a running battle with my priest about his insertion of his own political views (especially on the subject of Iraq) into his sermons, about the church’s one-sided providing of a forum to liberal speakers, etc. For example, the Democratic candidate for a local seat in Congress will be speaking at our adult "forum" next Sunday; I am not holding my breath to see whether her opponent, the incumbent Republican, will be extended a similar invitation.
Obviously one’s religious beliefs should mold his or her views on life in general, including moral and even political issues. And if one’s beliefs lead one to seek a particular political result – whether that result be ending the war in Iraq or opposing abortion or gay marriage – that is his or her right; after all, many of the great moral movements in our history were led in large part by people of faith who were led by their faith. My problem – as I gather it is yours – is when a person tries to bolster his or her political position by proclaiming that it is dictated by God or by suggesting that all good Christians must share that position. This sin isn’t committed solely by religious conservatives.

Absolutely. That’s why I was careful to say in my essay that Christianism can be practised by the left as well. The conflation of the black church with the Democratic party is just as distasteful, if not currently as dangerous, as the fundamentalist right’s take-over of the GOP.

I’m not arguing that faith should have no role in political discourse. Someone’s faith will affect her politics. My faith informs my own positions on torture, the death penalty, gay dignity, the Iraq war, and so on. But in the political sphere, mere recourse to religious authority is insufficient, because, by definition, it cannot persuade those of a different faith or no faith at all. And so religious doctrines need to be translated into moral arguments, applicable to any citizen with good will and an open mind. When Tom DeLay, at a Republican gathering, invokes Christ as his ally; or when the Catholic hierarchy comes close to barring votes for Democrats; or when Jesse Jackson uses the pulpit to garner Democratic votes, they have crossed an important line. It’s important to defend that line – for the sake of politics, and for the sake of faith.

The first rule for a Christian should be, to my mind, humility in the face of God. That does not square with absolute certainty about God’s politics or the willingness to force others to share the same interpretation of Christ’s message as you do. America was founded on this insight, hence the Constitution’s remarkable decision not to endorse any form of religion as American. We face great peril if we forget it.

(Photo of Pope Benedict XVI by Andrew Medicini/AP.)

A pity, I think. It’s hack fiction. People might actually believe it. This isn’t to say there isn’t a fascinating and important discussion to be had about the divisions and debates among the early Christians, and if the "Da Vinci Code" provokes such a discussion, fine. But on its own, it’s fictional dreck and Hollywood hooey.

Can you imagine what Islamists would do if a similar movie were made about the far more dubious origins of the Koran? I guess we should be grateful for our fundamentalists. They may be misguided; they may even be malign; but they are not murderous. For this, muted thanks.

(Photo: Jean-Pierre Muller/AFP/Getty.)

A reader dissents:

To briefly comment on your characterization of Spencer Ackerman as a ‘pathological pessimist’: may I just remind you that in his blog Iraq’d, and thereafter, Mr. Ackerman demonstrated the kind of intelligent foresight that was all but missing in the governing institutions of the US of that time?
The issues that he worried about were rising instability, the excessive focus on taking out a few individuals (especially Saddam), sectarianism in politics and the constitutional conventions and most particularly the rise of the militias – exactly the things now most endangering the security of Iraq. He has been optimistic about the role of Ayatollah Sistani and the long term (in)effectiveness of Zarqawi, and has been neutral on things like the disastrous rebuilding effort (to the best of my recollection). All this at a time, when many, (including you yourself, as you have admitted) have at times been too quick to reach for rose-tinted glasses.
In short, loth though I am to engage in dispute over meaning of words with a master of prose such as yourself, might I suggest you scratch ‘pathological pessimist’ and replace with ‘balanced realist’?

As a semi-resident of Cape Cod, I’m all in favor of the project to generate most of the Cape’s power from an off-shore wind-farm. So why is Ted Kennedy planting legislative poison pills to kill it off? I’m with Jeff Jacoby on this one. We have the Kennedy family to thank for preserving much of the Outer Cape as a wildlife and seashore reserve. Why would they not back an anti-pollution measure that also helps the Cape be energy-independent? It can’t be the view from Hyannisport, can it?