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Matthew
Zemek
About the author
Matt Zemek is a Roman Catholic and publisher
of the blog entitled "Matt
Zemek's Wellstone Cornerstone."
The blog is a Catholic twist on efforts
by deceased U. S. Senator Paul Wellstone
to bring a moral, spiritual center to
American politics that is rooted in an
identification with the vulnerable. The
blog explores intersections between faith
and politics, and seeks to make a progressive
vision palatable to Christian conservatives
while also encouraging secular liberals
to rediscover the virtues of faith--faith
done well and expressed compassionately.
Matt is also the author
of an e-book, "Liberalism the
Right Way," that is due out in
paperback in late July.
A 27-year-old freelance
writer and volunteer at St. James Cathedral
Catholic Parish in Seattle, Matt is a
member of the Society of St Vincent de
Paul, a member of a Catholic Worker soup
kitchen staff, and a participant in RCIA,
the Catholic Church's adult Christian
education and faith formation program,
which prepares Catholics for Baptism and
reception into the Church.
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Papal
Infallibility: Perceptions and Reality
by
Matthew Zemek
There's an abundance of
irony in any exploration of papal infallibility
or the overall power of the papacy. To
then connect the influence of the papacy
and Catholic institutional structures
to the development of the Christian Right
introduces even more irony.
A constant source of frustration
for me as a Catholic--and yet, a constant
source of educational opportunities as
well--is the large collection of oversimplified
or mistaken impressions the larger non-Catholic
public (Christian or non-Christian, faith-based
or atheistic) has acquired about Catholicism,
and specifically the papacy. These mistaken
impressions--driven by the same kind of
fearful and grim outlook the Christian
Right brings to our political and religious
culture here in America--have created
and reinforced anti-Catholic suspicions
and sentiments for a very long time.
Papal infallibility is one
of those ideology-laden and structurally-oriented
elements of Catholicism that draws so
much heat and criticism from conservative
Protestants (and secular liberals, too).
Yet--and this brings
up one of those mistaken impressions I
referred to earlier--papal infallibility,
in the nearly 2,000-year history of the
Catholic Church, has been invoked only
two times.
That's right: twice in nearly
2,000 years.
The point of papal infallibility
is not to somehow "elevate the pope
and the institution of the papacy above
the people," but to establish dogmas
that are absolutely essential and non-negotiable
within a Catholic outlook on Christian
faith and the world. When the pope invokes
his infallibility, he is speaking with
total and permanent confidence and clarity
on a major issue that is central, and
anything but peripheral, to the Catholic
Christian faith.
I'm kicking myself for not
remembering the other reason (it was a
supremely foundational and fundamental
one, I can assure you--so obvious that
I can't remember what it is), but one
of the two invocations of papal infallibility
was made to establish and affirm the sinlessness
of Mary as the Mother of God the Son,
Jesus Christ. This is celebrated on December
8 through the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception: Mary was immaculate, along
with Jesus (many people get the mistaken
impression that the feast celebrates only
the immaculateness of Jesus; no, it focuses
on Marian purity).
So that's one mistaken impression
of papal infallibility from conservative
Christians and secular liberals: that
it is and has been invoked with regularity.
Here's where the irony comes
pouring into this discussion: many--surely
not all, but many--of the very conservative
Protestant Christians who find papal infallibility
so distasteful are the same people who,
to a considerable extent, insist on belief
in a virgin birth of Jesus as a non-negotiable
element of faith which, if not held, marks
a person as a non-believer. This particular
conflict between conservative Protestantism
and Catholicism is amplified when you
consider that, in Catholic culture and
Catholic institutional life (and specifically
with regard to this pope, John Paul II,
if not the papacy as a whole throughout
the ages), devotion to Mary runs high
in conservative circles, whereas liberal
Catholics are less tethered
(or perhaps, simply less FORCEFULLY tethered)
to Marianology and such Mary-centric prayers
as the rosary.
Irony runs so richly through
explorations of the papacy as related
to the Christian Right because conservative
Protestants and conservative Catholics
should have so much in common (much of
it good, though certainly not all, to
be sure) on matters of social morality.
Yet, both groups get bogged down in the
ideological and institutional elements
of religion, thereby coming across as
groups that are equally petty, removed
from Christ, and--last but not least--unreflective
of the love of God.
American anti-Catholicism
Distrust or suspicion of
the papacy runs deep in America, specifically
conservative Protestant America. The way
in which Catholic Al Smith was trounced
in the 1928 presidential election offers
one kind of proof. The
constant, explicit and high-profile way
in which John F. Kennedy pleaded to the
American people--especially in Protestant
Appalachia during the 1960 West Virginia
Democratic Primary--that if elected, "I
will not be a servant of the pope,"
offers a different yet equally telling
kind of proof. Today's sex abuse scandal--and
media coverage of it--has done nothing
to change the climate, regardless of what
you personally believe about the pope
as a moral being. The papacy is, has been,
and always will be a big, fat target for
non-Catholic America... even though the
pope and conservative Protestant Christians
would, if locked in a room, find quite
a lot in common ideologically.
Flowing from a suspicion
or dislike of the papacy (or both) comes
a constant refrain I hear from conservative
Protestants when I tell them I'm Catholic.
It's not about "sola scriptura,"
but it's a similar Protestant rallying
cry that's been heard since Luther: "sola
fides," or "faith alone."
This has taken shape in the Christian
Right through the very personal and evangelical-sounding
"Jesus and me" catchphrase,
where nothing stands
between the believer and Jesus in a total,
open and personal relationship. It bothers
conservative Protestants--and surely the
Christian Right--that Catholics have to
have these priests get in the way of a
personal relationship between the believer
and Christ.
Just as the pope is the
head of the Church, and the bishops are
the heads of diocesan communities, so
too are priests the heads of local parishes
who are also present in the confessional--a
huge source of disagreement and bitter
conflict between Catholics and conservative
Protestants. It angers and upsets conservative
Protestants to no end that someone else
is in the room when a person confesses
his or her sins, at least in a sacramental
context. That it interferes with "Jesus
and me" is the main reason why the
Christian Right finds it so outrageous.
A second very important reason why conservative
Protestants--those who comprise the Christian
Right--can't stand it is that, to them,
it reflects that priests are above the
laity, as elevated people somehow better
or more important than the believers in
the pews. These are both mainstream misperceptions
of Catholicism from the larger non-Catholic
culture in America.
To bring this discussion
full circle, papal infallibility was never
meant to elevate the pope above the world,
Catholic or otherwise. It was meant to
affirm and establish--for all time--very
foundational and essential elements of
the Catholic faith that, despite its appreciation
of how dogmas do evolve, would always
remain as permanent pillars of the faith.
Invoking papal infallibility is a way
of saying, "Times always do change,
and with the changing times, so realities
and truths also change and emerge. But
in the midst of the changes that are taking
place now, and which will take place in
the future long after we are gone, there
are some absolutes and essentials which
need to be entrenched into our faith tradition
and made a permanent part of the Catholic
imagination, practice and outlook."
That's what papal infallibility has done,
and was always meant to do. The fact that
it has been invoked just twice proves
how wise, or at least, disciplined, the
Church has been in not abusing--in practice
or in doctrine--papal infallibility and
its place in the Church. If it had been
used dozens or hundreds of times, one
could then say that it's just a Catholic
political
tool for elevating the pope above the
rest of the world. But it's been invoked
just twice.
Similarly--and I realize
this is beginning to become a separate
discussion for another day, so I'll wrap
up for now--the priesthood, as defined
and lived out in the Catholic Church,
was never meant to elevate the priest
above the people, or to somehow interfere
with people's personal relationships with
God. The Catholic understanding of the
priesthood is not that it is a "higher"
or "better" or "elevated"
position, but rather one
unique vocation among many, as a special
channel of grace that, while very important
and powerful, is no better than the vocations
other (lay) people receive. The purpose
of confession before a priest--or in the
option of a communal penance service (obviously
quite popular among Catholics today--you
can imagine why)--is to link a personal
confession before God to one's
relationship with Church and society.
Confession isn't just done to avoid sins,
but to live better for others. Making
confession public and in the presence
of others hardly interferes with a personal
relationship with God. In fact, since
our love of God is reflected in how we
treat other people, public confessions,
confessions made in the presence of others,
are actually meant to magnify and strengthen
our relationships with God.
It all gets back to something
I've said before, in this message and
in other postings on this site: while
it is true that, ideologically and institutionally,
it's easy to see the differences between
Catholicism and the Christian Right, Catholics
and Protestants, liberals and conservatives,
etc., a focus on bottom-line realities
is what is so desperately needed in society,
and in the religious communities of our
land. Comments are most welcome, and I'd
love to, with the good Reverend Brill's
follow-up questions (which I'm sure will
come), extend this discussion and, from
it, ultimately reinforce the need for
people-centered politics and religion
instead of unproductive ideological and
institutional turf wars that are life-draining.
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Attacking
Marriage Promotes more Divorces
by Matt Zemek
A prime example of the intersection between
religion and politics--and within a Catholic
context, no less--comes from the Vatican's
push to fight gay marriage, in America and
elsewhere around the world. The problem
I have with the Catholic Church's effort
lies not so much in its content, but in
its focus.
As a Catholic, I can speak with some knowledge
about the Church's reputation in America,
especially with respect to Church teaching
(and politics) on matters of human sexuality.
Why did so many Americans leave the Church
in the 1970s, including and especially priests
and nuns_ The exodus occurred largely because
of Pope Paul VI's 1968 issuance of Humanae
Vitae, an encyclical that examined issues
of sexuality and reproduction.
The tale of Humanae Vitae is instructive
on a number of levels. First, the short
story: the encyclical, issued just three
years after the end of Vatican II, the council
that radically reformed the Church in a
direction of openness toward the Catholic
laity, essentially came down against the
practice of birth control and reinforced
pre-existing Church teaching on matters
of sexuality and reproduction. This alienated
the many progressive Catholics--including
those in seminaries and convents--who thought
Vatican II was going to mark the dawn of
a bright new day for Catholicism. The counterforce
of Humanae Vitae dispirited many Catholics
to no end.
Here's the longer story, though: since
the average Catholic doesn't read papal
encyclicals in thick canonical/scholarly
publications, the grossly oversimplified
conclusion of the media and the Catholic
world--that Pope Paul and the Church came
down against birth control--drowned out
any of the nuanced points Pope Paul tried
to make in the letter.
Priests I've talked to about the encyclical
have said that, in between the basic pronouncements
of where the Church stood on birth control
and related issues, there existed a very
elegant and contemporary blend of pastoral
understanding and compassionate expression
that evoked the beautiful and life-affirming
elements of Church teaching in a positive,
forward-thinking, non-threatening way. Paul
was and is misunderstood in much of Humanae
Vitae, according to many Catholic priests
and scholars who have either lived through
and/or extensively studied both the letter
itself and Vatican II, the council whose
vision made Humanae Vitae such a disappointment
to progressive Catholics among the clergy
and laity alike.
Building from this longer story on the
significance of Humanae Vitae, one needs
to note the current sex abuse scandals that
are still impacting the Church and reverberating
through its halls, particularly in Boston,
where the wounds of the scandal are ever-fresh,
roughly 18 months after reports first began
to break with regularity in the area.
Why have the sex scandals been so hurtful
and disillusioning to so many Catholics,
outside of the obvious reasons pointing
to the priestly abuse of a sacred trust
in the most disgusting way possible_
The sex scandals have infuriated many Catholics
as much as they have because--and this speaks
primarily to the same progressive Catholics
who felt so hurt, betrayed and ignored by
Humanae Vitae, to the point that they either
left the Church or simply ignored Pope Paul
and the Church's teachings on birth control--they
showed that the same Church that preached
against birth control and abortion with
such moral force for so long was all the
while guilty of either acting out (among
the priests) or covering up (among the bishops)
profoundly sinful actions relating to--guess
what_--SEXUALITY!!!
The sex scandals revealed the larger Church,
at parish and diocesan levels, to be profoundly
hypocritical in addition to being both vicious
(the priests who abused) and derelict in
episcopal duties (the bishops who covered
up and/or reassigned abusive priests). The
wrongdoing was bad enough; the hypocrisy,
at least for progressive Catholics who lived
through Vatican II and then Humanae Vitae,
made it hundreds of times worse.
With the past as prelude, then, why is
the Catholic Church choosing to focus not
on outreach toward gays and lesbians, but
toward the denial of marriage to gays and
lesbians_ Why further alienate and irritate
more progressive Catholics by giving gay
and lesbian Catholics an incentive to bolt
to--for example--the Episcopal Church, which
is considering ordaining a gay bishop and
has a gay pastor right out here in Seattle
at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral: The
Very Reverend Robert V. Taylor.
Why not emphasize outreach to and acceptance
of gays, while trying to work on the marriage
question. I realize there are significant
theological, historic and real-world obstacles
and challenges that prevent gay marriage
from being an easily-resolved question.
This is not an easy call, by any means (whereas
allowing for women priests is and should
be an easy call in the Catholic Church),
but does that mean the Church should close
the door to dialogue and invest its time
in, of all things, opposing something rather
than promoting something_ This will only
reinforce the faith-as-fortress model the
Church used for so many years before Vatican
II, and which resurfaced in the sex abuse
scandals, the result of closed, inaccessible
and non-transparent actions from the bishops_
Faith is something that should be shared
to promote a life-affirming vision of humanity,
rather than being something that is defended
to preserve an old way of doing things.
It is said that the Catholic Church thinks
not in days or years, but in centuries.
WELL, if that's the case, the Church should
realize that homosexuality will have the
full acceptance of the world a century from
now. It's happened with other issues in
the past, and it will happen with still
other issues in the future.
Again, does this mean the Church must or
should cave in on this question_ No, not
necessarily. (Disclaimer: I personally believe
in gay marriage, but my focus here is on
smarter politics and more compassionate
preaching and teaching to the whole of global
society, especially here in America.)
But should it also mean that the Church
should shut out any room for dialogue, which
is what it is essentially doing with this
focus on being against gay marriage, rather
than for promoting more openness, harmony
and fidelity to Catholic Christian values
among all people in all kinds of relationships_
The theology might be sound and well-intentioned,
but the politics and the points of emphasis
the Church are using here are quite unproductive
in both the short run and the long run.
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Introduction
As a priest I am often asked how I can support
a woman's right to choose abortion. From
the perspective of the Hebrew Bible I am
asked, "if the Lord slew Onan for 'spilling
his seed on the ground,'" which has
been interpreted as coitus interruptus,
"how can you support abortion_"
This question is usually followed by the
pronouncement that the sixth commandment
prohibits murder and that abortion is murder.
Finally, as a member of the clergy who is
expected to stand for the highest standards
of ethical and moral conduct I am asked
how I can support the slaughter of millions
of innocent babies when Jesus told his disciples
to bring the little children to him because
unless we become like children we will not
inherit the kingdom of God.
These questions are designed
to back me into a corner and make my defense
of abortion appear to be both in opposition
to biblical teaching and un-American. They
presume that what are perceived as religious
issues, dialogue, and decisions occur in
a vacuum separated from the social and political
milieu of the past, present or future. Nothing
could be farther from the truth.
This article will discuss
the multifaceted issue of a woman's right
to choose abortion not simply as a religious
issue but moreover how that issue cannot
be discussed or understood without an analysis
of the ascendancy of the radical right and
their attempt to hijack Christianity and
America. To do so we must begin at the beginning
with the ideas of the Founding Fathers and
their vision of America.
Vision
of the Founding Fathers
The radical right would like us to believe
that the Founding Fathers created America
as a Christian country. They believe the
expansion of individual rights and liberties
that began in the 1960's have perverted
this intention of the Founding Fathers.
They also believe that since the presidency
of Ronald Reagan they have a mandate to
impose their version of what a Christian
America should become upon us all. The problem
with this belief is that it is totally and
completely contradictory to the intent of
the Founding Fathers.
While the Founding Fathers as a group loosely
held the Judeo-Christian values prevalent
in Europe, as individuals many held widely
divergent religious and cultural beliefs.
Their conscience and word view was much
more informed by the discoveries and principles
of the Enlightenment than Christianity.
In fact, many of their leaders were not
Christian at all. They were Deists, Unitarians,
Universalists and Quakers.
As such they did not believe
in a personal God that informed governments
or intervened in people's personal lives.
They did not believe Jesus was their personal
savior or that prayer would result in a
closer relationship with God. They did not
even believe that God hears individual prayer
or answers it. They most emphatically did
not believe in a Trinitarian God: Father,
Son, Holy Spirit. What they did believe
in was the complete and absolute separation
of church and state.
As the spiritual heirs of
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Matthew Tindal,
Anthony Collins, and George Fox their religious
perspective was that a supreme being is
the ground and source of reality but does
not intervene or take an active interest
in the natural and historical order; that
is, the day-to-day affairs of individuals
or nations. Deists, Unitarians, Universalists
and Quakers emphasize natural religion as
opposed to the revealed religion of Christianity.
Thus, they sought to establish
reasonable grounds for the establishment
of the nation through the philosophy of
the Enlightenment philosophers where logic
and reason replaced faith in God as the
underlying principle of government. In their
wisdom and from their experience of the
many European wars fought over religious
issues they recognized that for a people
to truly have liberty and justice there
must be complete and total separation of
church and state.
The radical right chooses
to ignore these facts of history and maintains
that Christianity and America are one and
the same. They point to the Declaration
of Independence and Bill of Rights as proof
of their claim. To underline this proof
they offer our country's motto "In
God We Trust" and the "One nation
under God" phrase of the Pledge of
Allegiance. The truth of the matter is they
are wrong on all counts.
The Declaration of Independence
contains three references to a deity. The
first sentence speaks of the necessity to
dissolve political bonds and in part says,
…the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of nature and of Nature's
God entitle them… In this statement
the Founding Fathers wanted to make it absolutely
clear this was "Nature's God"
and not Christianity so that it is clearly
understood there is no attempt to connect
Christianity with what it means to be America
or American.
The second paragraph begins
with the statement, We hold these truths
to be self evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights…
It is again obvious there is no attempt
to connect Christianity with what it means
to be a nation in this statement as the
term "Creator" encompasses a much
wider understanding of God than only that
of Christianity.
The last sentence of the Declaration
of Independence is, And for the support
of the Declaration, with a firm reliance
on the Protection of Divine providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
Our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Once again the Founding Fathers did not
try to link Christianity with the declaration
of an independent America as any understanding
of "Divine Providence" must include
expressions of the deity other than those
that are exclusively Christian.
A close reading of the Constitution
of the United States reveals it makes no
mention of God in any manner or form. As
a consequence of opposition both in and
out of Congress to the Constitution because
it was not sufficiently explicit as to individual
and State rights it was agreed to submit
to the people immediately after its adoption
a number of safeguarding amendments. These
safeguards are known as the Bill of Rights
and contrary to common belief there were
twelve and not ten rights enumerated.
The beginning of the first
article states, congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibit the free exercise thereof…
It is undeniable from this statement that
the Founding Fathers felt it necessary to
express the belief that Christianity should
not become the established religion of the
United States of America. To better understand
the specific nature of what the Founding
Fathers meant by "established religion"
we need to understand that term as it was
commonly understood in the American colonies
and England at that time. If one reads the
Federalist Papers, a series of letters between
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John
Jay, they will discover that there were
three understandings of what constituted
an "established religion." The
first was the Church of England, the second
was the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
and the third was the ruling inner circle
of any nation that predicated public policy
and created law as a consequence of and
to reflect their personal religious beliefs.
It is obvious that our country's
motto, In God We Trust has nothing
to do with the Founding Fathers and was
never intended to be a metaphor for Christianity.
The phrase derives from the line "And
this be our motto, 'In God is our trust,'"
in the British bar room drinking song that
later became "The Star Spangled Banner."
The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins
in 1864 and became obligatory on all U.S.
currency in 1955. It was not made the national
motto until an act of Congress in 1956.
As with In God we trust
the phrase One nation under God in
the Pledge of Allegiance has nothing to
do with the Founding Fathers. As the buildup
of the cold war between the United States
and Russia escalated during the 1950's many
on the religious and political right felt
a need to clearly delineate the difference
between America and the Soviet Union. In
the middle 1950's the Knights of Columbus,
a Roman Catholic right wing organization
for men founded to counteract the Masons,
proposed that the Pledge of Allegiance include
a reference to God as the Soviet Union had
declared itself to be an atheist country.
The proposal was accepted and the phrase
under God was added in 1954 but it must
be recognized the impetus for including
God in the Pledge of Allegiance was a purely
political act.
Contrary to the rhetoric of
the radical right it was never the intent
of the Founding Fathers to in any way relate
or link Christianity with what it means
to be America. In fact, they went out of
their way to specifically state that America
was to have no established religion whether
that be by means of a specific denomination
or an inner circle of leaders who promulgated
policy and law predicated on their religious
beliefs.
The authors of the Constitution provided
for a secular state not based on religion
but on toleration and liberty of conscience.
Influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment
that promoted individualism, liberty, and
free inquiry the Founding Fathers committed
the nation to protecting minority viewpoints
and beliefs. All Americans were to have
freedom of religious expression but religion
was to have no role in government or the
governance of the nation and to ensure it
would ever remain so they wrote that belief
into the Constitution.
Christianity
As Moral Law For America
The radical right believes that Christian
faith is the backbone of America. They believe
that Christian faith, specifically their
Evangelical and Fundamentalist expression
of Christianity, consists of an ethical
and moral belief system that is the antidote
to all that they see wrong in America: separation
of church and state, abortion, exclusion
of school prayer, gay rights, teenage promiscuity
and pregnancy, decline of church attendance,
institutional secularism and the rise of
anti-patriotism.
Once again the radical right
chooses to ignore the lessons of history.
Every society extinct and extant has created
ethical and moral standards. However, such
standards cannot be exerted or imposed by
one segment of society, religious or otherwise,
on other segments with the expectation that
they will be universally accepted. We can
document the truth of this premise at least
as far back as Plato by a speech in which
he laments the youth of his day. He complains
they do not obey their parents or teachers,
are rowdy and disrespectful, are sexually
promiscuous, are inappropriately dressed,
and do not respect the religious teachings
of the day. In short, he says they denigrate
the political process and are a menace to
ordered society.
History teaches that it may
be possible to artificially impose a practice
of ethics and morality upon a people to
control their behavior. However history
also teaches that once external control
is no longer manifested chaos results. If
individuals doe not internalize the ethical
and moral value system and make it a part
of their informed conscience they do not
own it and revert to behavior informed by
their own conscience when such controls
are no longer imposed.
The belief of the radical
right that their brand of Christianity with
its restrictive and prohibitive ethical
and moral mandates imposed on America would
be the magic bullet that would remake America
in their image is nothing more than convoluted
self-aggrandizement. From the time of Thomas
Aquinas's "Treatise on Man" in
his Summa Theologica it has been
recognized that God gifted humanity with
both free will and free choice.
The Radical Right
There has always been a radical right in
American politics. While those on the left
most often view the Constitution as loose
constructionists those on the right most
often view it as strict constructionists.
Throughout the long course of American history
neither the right nor the left viewed a
particular expression of Christianity or
Christianity itself as being on "their"
side either in the public debate of issues
or influencing policy or law. From the Revolutionary
War to the Civil War through the wars of
the twentieth century being right or left
had a strictly political meaning.
However, as the second half
of the twentieth century progressed it became
apparent that while the Democratic Party,
the party of the left and loose constructionists,
embraced policies and laws that were enabling
by extending individual Constitutional rights
and liberties the Republican Party, the
party of the right and strict constructionalists,
perceived the effects of these rights and
liberties as a departure from the core values
of what it means to be America and American.
There were six events that
occurred during the 1960s and 1970s that
galvanized the difference between the political
right and left. These events included: 1)
the civil rights movement that challenged
the Jim Crow laws of the South by legitimizing
civil disobedience as a means of achieving
an end to racial discrimination, 2) the
Hippie movement characterized by the breaking
of long held social taboos and rejection
of core societal values by a whole generation
of teenagers and young adults, 3) the anti-war
movement against the Viet Nam War that discredited
the legitimacy of America's involvement
in a war it could not win and did not need
to fight, 4) the women's movement that challenged
the belief that it is a man's world and
women were to be subservient to men, 5)
the gay rights movement that demanded gay
people no longer be marginalized but be
given full inclusion in American life, and
6) the Supreme Court decision Roe vs.
Wade that legalized abortion.
By and large the left embraced
the civil rights movement, the anti-war
movement, the women's and gay rights movements
and Roe vs. Wade. Contrarily the
right condemned all six of these events
as being un-Constitutional and un-American.
As the Viet Nam War ground
to its painful end the radical right wing
political hawks, most of whom were Republicans
who had been the engine driving the war
through both Democratic and Republican administrations,
found themselves on the outside looking
in. With the closure of the war their power
base evaporated and more telling those people
representing main stream America who had
supported the war even if they didn't agree
with it pointed their collective finger
of blame at the hawks for the needless death
and carnage they had caused.
How
the Radical Right Got Religion
Although unknown by most of America the
events of the 1960's and 1970's were diametrically
opposed to the biblically inerrant belief
system of Evangelical Christians and Fundamentalists
but what vexed them most was that the case
of Roe vs. Wade that made abortion
available on demand. The Roman Catholic
Church also opposed Roe vs. Wade
and proclaimed that human life and personhood
began at conception. By their opposition
to Roe vs. Wade these two very different
expressions of Christianity became strange
bedfellows in the fight against abortion.
Just as there has always been
a radical political right in America there
has also been a radical religious right.
The radical religious right can be traced
to its earliest beginnings in the 1740s
in New England. Known as the Great Awakening
it was an offshoot of the Evangelical and
Pietist/Quietist movements in Europe and
was centered mainly among Presbyterians,
Baptists, Congregationalists and the Dutch
Reformed Church. It was a movement with
Calvinistic tendencies with Jonathan Edwards
and George Whitfield as its leaders that
caused serious division within these denominations.
A second Great Awakening began
in New York in the early 1800s. This movement
was characterized by mesmerizing tent preachers
whose central dogma was biblical inerrancy.
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that God
wrote each and every word in the Bible and
maintains that one must accept the literal
meaning of every word, phrase, and sentence
of the Bible even when the Bible contradicts
itself. It does not allow interpretation
of any kind.
The objective of these preachers
was to put "the fear of God" into
people because Hell was certain unless one
accepted biblical inerrancy, repented their
sin and accepted Jesus as their personal
savior. This movement merged democratic
idealism with Evangelical Christianity arguing
that America was in need of moral regeneration
by dedicated Evangelical Christians. Although
the movement burned itself out in the early
1840s it had sown the seed, particularly
in Southern backwoods and hollows, for what
was to become the burgeoning radical Evangelical
right wing movement of the 1990s.
The beginning of the 20th
century saw the development of Fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism is a Protestant movement
that crosses many denominational lines and
emphasizes biblical inerrancy. Its inception
can be traced to the emergence of 19th century
biblical criticism that utilized the historical
critical method. This method challenged
traditionally held biblical truths such
as creation and the virgin birth by holding
that the truth of the Bible must be determined
by applying the same tools of literary and
scientific criticism that are applied to
any other book.
The Evangelical and Fundamentalist
religious right had long sought a political
platform from which to advance their truncated,
inerrantly biblically centered, vision of
America. The vacuum created in the political
radical right wing of the Republican Party
after the Viet Nam War provided the window
of opportunity they had previously been
denied. What may have started as a marriage
of convenience soon became a love affair
as Republican coffers began filling with
money and radical right wing faith issues,
especially the fight against abortion, received
the political support of the Republican
Party.
The election of Ronal Reagan
to the presidency marked a turning point
in American history. For the first time
a man had been elected president of the
United States as the representative of a
political party that made little if any
distinction between the agendas of the radical
political right and the radical religious
right. President Reagan lost no time in
firing a shot over the bow of the hard won
extension of individual rights and liberties
of the previous generation especially the
right of a woman to choose abortion.
Whereas President Roosevelt
had pushed through legislation to pack the
Supreme Court with men of his own choosing
so that he could get his New Deal legislation
passed President Reagan began the little
noticed practice of only appointing federal
judges who passed the anti-abortion litmus
test. Thus the agenda of the religiously
driven radical right quickly became obvious:
the way to circumvent the Constitution and
overturn the enabling legislation extending
individual rights and liberties, especially
abortion, was to appoint appellate judges
who were in the pocket of the radical religious
right. That there could be no question of
this agenda occurred when President Reagan
nominated Judge Robert Bork, who was a rabid
opponent of abortion, to the United States
Supreme Court. It was only thorough the
extreme effort made to put sufficient political
pressure on President Reagan that he was
forced to withdraw Judge Bork's nomination.
Beginning with the Reagan
presidency the radical Evangelical and Fundamentalist
elements within the Republican Party have
been very successful in achieving two goals.
The first is that the radical religious
right has become very successful in hijacking
what it means to be Christian in America
to mean only their faith principles. The
second is engineering the election of presidents
and state and national congressmen and senators
that champion their religio-political agenda
that makes no distinction between their
faith beliefs and political agenda.
As a consequence of the opportunity
presented by the attacks of September 11th
the radical religious right is hijacking
America both by the legislative process
and suspension of Constitutionally guaranteed
rights and liberties. In the aftermath of
September 11th congress passed and the president
signed the Patriot Act. This Act makes it
legal to create a suspect class, which is
prohibited by the Constitution, as well
as to make wholesale arrests and hold such
persons incognito without due process of
law for an indefinite period of time.
Creation of a suspect class
and the suspension of due process are the
first tools of repression enacted by every
dictator from Hitler to Stalin to Pot Pol
and every theocratic Islamic state from
Iran to Saudi Arabia. Creation of a suspect
class and the suspension of due process
are the first two steps down that well known
slippery slope to fascism and dictatorship.
Creation of a suspect class and the suspension
of due process are the first two steps in
the death of a country established where
these truths are self-evident that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness to one in which
the people serve the state.
The
Fruits Of The Radical Right
While one may disagree with the Patriot
Act few would question that its purpose
is to protect individuals and the nation.
However, this cannot be said of the
June 2003 vote to ban the "partial
birth abortion" procedure. The
radical religious right has been trying
every method it can conceive whether
legal or illegal to stop a woman's right
to choose abortion. Although not the
belief or practice of most anti-abortion
advocates it cannot be denied that abortion
clinics have been blown up, doctors
killed and staff and patients maimed
by anti-abortion terrorists whose conscience
was informed by the radical religious
beliefs of the religious right. It also
cannot be denied that they commit these
horrible criminal acts in the name of
saving babies in the belief they are
doing God's will.
The fruit of the radical religious
right can be seen in their vision of
America. In their America there would
be no separation of church and state.
The rights and liberties granted all
citizens under the Constitution would
cease to exist and in their place would
be established policies and laws that
flow from Evangelical and Fundamentalist
religious beliefs. America would become
a de facto theocracy; that is,
a country predicated not on the secular
state envisioned by the Founding Fathers
and proclaimed in the Constitution but
rather a country where public policy
and law is determined by Evangelical
and Fundamentalist theology.
This is how Tom DeLay, Republican representative
from Texas and the House Majority Whip
in a recent speech at a Baptist church
in Texas described how he sees the relationship
between right wing Christianity and
government: Ladies and gentlemen
Christianity offers the only viable,
reasonable, definite answer to the questions,
"Where did I come from_,"
" Why am I here_," "
Where am I going_," " Does
life have any meaningful purpose_"
Only Christianity offers a way to understand
the physical and moral border. Only
Christianity offers a complex worldview
that covers all areas of life and thought,
every htmlect of creation. Only Christianity
offers a way to live in response to
the realities we find in the world -
only Christianity. ()
How would the radical right's vision
of America impact on the lives of ordinary
Americans who do not share their vision_
It would mean school prayer would become
mandatory. It would mean "Creationism"
would be taught as science and evolution,
if taught at all, would be presented
as simply another theory. It would mean
the civil rights legislation that is
central to empowering women, gay people,
and other minorities would be systematically
dismantled in favor of states rights.
It would mean that all Americans as
well as the rest of the world would
be judged by the litmus test of their
religious beliefs.
The radical religious right's vision
of America is brought sharply into focus
by the actions of the Attorney General
of Alabama, William Pryor, whom President
Bush has nominated to sit on the Federal
Bench for the Southeast District in
Atlanta. While Attorney General of Alabama
he:
-
Denigrated the Supreme
Court for delaying an execution by
calling the justices "nine octogenarian
lawyers."
-
Ended a speech with
the prayer, "no more Souters."
This is a reference to the moderate
Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
-
Turned the office
of the Attorney General of Alabama
into a taxpayers financed right wing
law firm.
-
Testified to congress
to drop a key part of the Voting Rights
Act.
-
In a Supreme Court
case challenging the Violence Against
Women Act was the only state attorney
general to argue the Act is unconstitutional.
-
Submitted a brief
to the Supreme Court in favor of a
Texas law that makes gay sex illegal
and compares it with necrophilia,
bestiality, incest and pedophilia.
-
Supports "federalism"
which is a states rights movement
that seeks to take away Constitutionally
proscribed rights of the federal government.
-
Urged the Supreme
Court to make it illegal for five
million state employees to sue under
the Family and Medical Leave Act.
-
Declared that Roe
vs. Wade is "morally wrong"
and responsible for the slaughter
of millions of children.
-
Rescheduled his family
vacation to Disney World to avoid
being there on the same day many gay
people planned to attend.
The fruit of the radical
religious right is already beginning to
ripen. With the passage of the ban on
"partial birth abortion" those
women who need such a procedure no longer
have the right to a safe and legal abortion.
One state, Louisiana, now requires as
a matter of law that "Creationism"
be taught in the public schools as science
co-equal with evolution. A biology professor
at the University of Texas who told students
he would not write a recommendation to
graduate school for them to major in biology
if they stated their belief in "Creationism"
to the exclusion of evolution was forced
to rescind his policy or be fired. The
radical religious right's assault on abortion
has led President Bush to re-impose President
Reagan's executive order that denies humanitarian
aid to any health care agency anywhere
in the world that presents abortion as
an option for unwanted pregnancy whether
or not that agency performs the procedure.
As poisoned as these fruits
are the most far reaching and most egregious
is the radical religious right's push
for faith-based government aid known as
faith-based initiatives. Implementation
of such a program that would grant religious
bodies the same status as secular social
service agencies in receiving public tax
money beginning with a $600 million voucher
plan is designed to destroy the separation
of church and state. The danger of faith-based
initiatives is clearly found in the words
of Bill Thomson of the Christian alcohol
and drug rehabilitation center Good Shepherd
Mission in Hackensack, New Jersey. In
commenting on faith-based initiative money
he hopes to receive Thomson states, People
are going to see Christ coming, and the
souls of the dead are going to be coming
with him. We will all be with Christ.
All the believers. (New York Times, June
22, 2003)
What makes faith-based initiatives
so dangerous is that they provide public
money to religious groups whose central
focus is winning converts and who see
the social ills of individuals and society
as the wages of sin. When considering
the impetus for faith-based initiatives
it is not a coincidence that one of the
most important beliefs of the Evangelical
and Fundamentalist religious right is
the belief that it is their God given
mission to convert every human being on
earth to become true believers as are
they. It is also no accident that they
believe secular social service agencies
are incapable of meeting the needs of
dysfunctional individuals because to them
the origin of everyone's problems is that
they have not accepted Jesus as their
personal savior. This belief was underscored
again and again in a recent two part series
on Ted Koppel's "Nightline"
that featured the national preaching contest
sponsored by the Christian Schools Association
where the focal point made by each competitor
was that belief in the Bible and accepting
Jesus as one's personal savior was the
answer to all personal and world problems.
(Nightline, June 19, 20, 2003)
Faith-based initiatives
are an audacious assault on the separation
of government and religion. Having taxpayers
support what amounts to a program to fund
religious conversion is absolutely contrary
to the Constitution. Religious ministries,
many equipped with only Bibles and missionary
zeal, make a sham out of legitimate secular
treatment centers staffed by trained counselors
and social workers.
Conclusion
The underlying concept of the Founding
Fathers was to create a nation of freedom
characterized by rights and liberties.
It seeks to guarantee the greatest possible
domain for choice by warding off the idea
of absolute truth, particularly religious
truth, which seeks to limit choice.
Supreme Court Justice Brandise
said that liberty requires that government
keep its hands off but that rights require
the protection of government. It is the
ability of individuals to make choices
predicated on their informed conscience
that signifies what it means to be America
and American. It is the ability of individuals
to make choices and pursue activities
independent of interference by religion
that separates America from much of the
world. These choices and activities are
the personification of ethical and moral
beliefs that speak to the higher plane
of our existence.
The danger of the radical
religious right is that they think what
they believe is absolute truth and the
only truth. Moreover, they believe they
have a mandate from God to impose their
version of the truth on all of us no matter
how intrusive it is in the lives of non-believers
and that the best way to do that is to
hijack what it means to be Christian and
America and remake it in their image.
The primary understanding
of what it means to be Christian and American
for main stream America and Americans
is that our rights, liberties and freedom
to make our own choices are God given
and protected by the Constitution. It
is a vision of faith and nation that enables
us to freely determine our own values,
choices and lifestyles without interference
by religious zealots who would make themselves
both pastor and king. Our vision of America
is one of ennoblement, entitlement and
a recognition that the Constitution exists
to protect those rights and liberties.
The fruit of the radical
right's vision of America would remove
the right for each of us to exercise our
own conscience to determine ethical and
moral issues. It would prohibit us from
living the life given us by God to be
one of self-determination exercising the
most basic gifts of God: our free will
and free choice.
Most importantly the fruit of the radical
right is to hijack Christianity and America
and remake it in their name. It is a redefinition
of the relationship between religion and
government where they become one and the
same. To be Christian becomes synonymous
with the faith tenants and political agenda
of the radical religious right. To be
American becomes synonymous with the faith
tenants and political agenda of the radical
religious right.
If we allow this to happen
there will be no more America as envisioned
by the Founding Fathers. If this is allowed
to happen the so called "Nobel Experiment,"
our America, which has endured and prospered
for over 200 years will cease to exist.
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The Mission
of the Right Christians
"The Right Christians" was founded
to serve people of faith who object to the agenda of the Christian
Right. Our purposes are fourfold: 1) serve as a source of
information about Christianity and politics; 2) provide a
voice for those whose faith leads them to different conclusions
about political issues than those of the Christian Coalition,
etc.; 3) create a Web community for the mutual support of
like-minded Christians and those of other faiths; and 4) reach
out to those in the Christian community who have begun to
question the motives and agenda of the Christian Right.
There is currently no formal membership process
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About the Founder
Allen H. Brill, founder of "The Right Christians",
is a private citizen and Christian who wanted to see viewpoints
of progressive Christians better represented in the public
forum. He provides a Weblog on issues involving Christianity
and politics that is updated five times a week.
Rev. Brill is an ordained Lutheran minister
educated at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO. He is also
a member of the South Carolina Bar with a B.A. degree in Government
from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Virginia
Law School.
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About "The
Right Christians"
We thank the Rev.
Al Sharpton for our name. Confronted by an anti-abortion
protester at NARAL's January rally to celebrate the 30th anniversary
of Roe V. Wade, Rev.
Sharpton responded, "Young lady, it is time for the
Christian right to meet the right Christians." Our site
is not otherwise connected with the Sharpton campaign and
he is not responsible for its content nor we for his campaign.
We do appreciate his stating so succinctly what we have been
feeling for some time and wish him well.
"The
Right Christians" was founded by the Rev.
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