In some ways, the emergence of a Republican candidate who takes every single aspect of George W. Bush’s political persona and adds a logarithm, is a healthy sign. I’d rather have a candidate who is explicitly saying that his politics is based on religion and his political rallies are actually spiritual rallies, than one whose theocratically-driven conservatism is on the downlow. There’s a reason Sarah Palin’s favorite Republican is Perry; and a Perry-Palin ticket would, in so many ways, epitomize the moment when Republicanism shuck off its secular outer garments and embraced an entirely God-driven, gut-enhanced, gun-toting agenda. Their Jesus is a very personal one. He believes in increasing wealth and power as the ultimate goal, the universal ownership of lethal weapons, pre-emptive warfare, rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants, the death penalty on steroids, and, of course, torture. But some neocons are fine with that. The neocon Jesus, is, after all, a precinct manager. Jonathan Toobin:
Though liberal elites may mock the tens of thousands who turned out to join Perry in prayer, their public expression of faith probably seems perfectly normal to many Americans and not just those who are right wing GOP activists. The idea of a “naked public square” in which faith is conspicuously absent has little support among most Americans.
There is surely a distinction between the expression of religious faith in politics and a mass religious rally as the de facto announcement of a presidential campaign. But at least Toobin blurts out what so many on the right seem to elide or downplay or simply deny:
the enormous influence religious conservatives have on GOP caucuses and primaries
Tom Van Dyke zooms out to note how the Deist Founding fathers, lionized by those dedicated to a fundamentalist myth of America’s constitution, would be amazed (and appalled) by the spectacle:
To the Founders, God was a reality, not a theory. When Washington presumed to speak for “my fellow-citizens at large,” this raised no controversy. But America’s Deity to which he gave thanks was “the Almighty Being,” “the Great Author,” with an “Invisible Hand.” Not Jesus the Christ, with all the doctrine that accompanies him.
And so, the irony is that here in the 21st century, while religion, religious conscience and Christianity itself are punked in various courtrooms as being inherently irrational, presidents and maybe-presidents are becoming more explicit in articulating Christian doctrine than the Founders ever found proper, even back when there were few Jews and even fewer Muslims thereabouts.
Josh Green quoted Dr. Richard Land, the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Council:
[T]he most interesting question for me is whether the country is ready for somebody who looks and sounds like George W. Bush on steroids.
(Photo: George R. Lawrence, General View, Opening Prayer of the 1904 Republican National Convention, 1904, via Tyler Green)
The Dish 