A Wrest Coast Perspective

by Frank Darbe

But do They Really Mean It?

This evening on the AP Wire I saw "Evangelicals say faith is now too political." My first thought was, what they hell took you so long? The second thought is more cynical, "Do they Really Mean it?"
Yes, I'm skeptical. For two elections cycles, the religious right actually preached for Bush from their pulpits, put out voter guides to vote for Republicans, and now they are afraid they might have gone too far. Where did this come from? Do they really feel some sense of remorse for the failed course of the nation? Has the emergence of a Christian left put the fear of diluting their message and loosing their influence with the White House with the seats of power into their souls?
I really don't know, but I'm willing to watch and evaluate, judge them by their actions rather than accept the content of their words.
Before I go to far, lets look at their words, at least those published in the article if what Os Guiness and Richard Mouw, president of the Fuller Theological Seminary call their "Manifesto."

quote:

"That way faith loses its independence, Christians become `useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology."

Curiouser and curiouser. Obviously, according to their point of view they, at least those writing this manifesto, fear that they are being used by one party or the other, though the left has not, until recently, made any alliances with a Christian left. Could the religious right at last see how they have been used by the Republican Party, or are they afraid that the forming religious left will be used by the Democratic Party? I mean until the rise of Obama, and only with Obama, the religious left had no voice.
But what else do they say?

quote:

"All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others," they wrote, "while we have condoned our own sins." They argue, "we must reform our own behavior."

Wow! Ya-think? I've lived with they hyper moralizing of the religious right for years. They have a tendency to put things in context of "Good and Evil." That which they oppose is, of course, evil, and there is little sense that there can be shades of gray let alone personal preference.
The story also hints that this "Manifesto" may mean less than a kiss from a politician.

quote:

Some champions of traditional culture war issues are not among the supporters.

And who would those people be? Richard Land, head of the public policy arm for the Southern Baptist Convention and James Dobson to name just two haven't signed or even acknowledged the "Manifesto's" existence. Even the group behind this document say,

quote:

Phil Burress, an Ohio activist who networks with national evangelical leaders, said that if high-profile evangelical leaders such as Dobson and Land don't support the document, "it's like throwing a pebble in the ocean" and will carry no weight.

Obviously, not all evangelicals want to give up their hold on power. The push for theocracy that many of us on the left see and fear that includes wholesale rewriting of American History and the desire to make the Supreme Court subservientto the ten commandments rather than the Constitution is still there. Unless the real power brokers in the Religious right eschew their attempt to change the US of A into Gods Holy Republic nothing will change.

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AP Newsbreak: Evangelicals say faith is now too political

Frank, as expected, a very introspective and insightful essay.

I never cease to be amazed at your ability to "see" inside others, and glean the real message they seem to be imparting to us.

Terrific commentary, my friend!

Frank, I did some speed reading of your article. It's about 4:30 AM our time and I woke up with storm rumblings in the distance. We are under a tornado watch. I'll have to read all this more carefully after I come out from under the mattress in the closet.

Newt Gingrich is not evangelitical, but it was he who was the architect of the contract with America, faith-based. He seems to be on a "redemption campaign," appearing jurst recently here, there, and everywhere.

When asked if he planned to run for office in the future, he said that he is busy coming up with a new form of his contract with America.

Seems like the same old, same old to me.

Kathy

I do applaud any move to keep religion out of politics. The First amendment was intended to protect religion from the corruption of political power. Our founding fathers hated tyranny and knew that all state religions were tyrannies. I hope their attempt works, but I am skeptical that those in pistons of power and influence will give up that power.

I too wish to see politics and religion kept as far apart as possible. But at times religion can have a positive effect on politics. The abolition of slavery and women's sufferage started out as Christian movements. Would anyone have wanted to prevent either of those movements from succeeding just because they started out in churches? Also let us not forget the success of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A very large number of Christians condoned slavery as biblical and used the bible as justification to own other humans.
Christianity and slavery

quote:

"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts."
--Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America

"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." Rev. R. Furman, D.D., a Baptist pastor from South Carolina.

Christians also used the bible to justify subjugating women.
Christianity and Women This is from the "promise keepers" but they are simply spouting the same old things that Christians used to subjugate women for 2000 years.

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Ephesians 5:23 is an example of a verse that Promise Keepers, and other fundamentalists, use to oppose women's equality. It says "the man is the head of the woman, just as Christ also is the head of the church. . . . [J]ust as the church is subject to Christ, so must women be to their husbands in everything."

Other Bible verses also promote invidious sexism. Paul teaches at I Timothy 2:11-15: "Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. . . . Yet woman will be saved through bearing children. . . ."

Additionally, Peter 3:1-6 exhorts wives to "be submissive to your husbands" and have "a gentle and quiet spirit." It also states they should behave toward their husbands "as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." And Titus 2:5 directs that women should be "keepers at home."

Christianity, like all religions, is a mixed bag. Some individuals will take a religion and do wonderful things with it. Mother Teresa is an outstanding example. Some religious people use religion to push intolerance, divisiveness and hate.

"Gott Mit Uns" means God With Us and appeared on many Nazi soldiers belt buckles during WWII. They were good Christians even when they were butchering 20 million people.

Religion has made many positive contributions to humanity. But religion is the first thing nations use to justify murdering the people of another nation.

Slavery was ended because a few good individuals took a stand and fought to end an injustice, their religion was irrelevant because those people who advocated slavery most fiercely shared a religion and used that same bible to justify their ownership of other human beings.

Women have become almost equal members in our society because individuals were willing to fight for those rights. Some individuals were Christian. Many of them were not. God was used to justify keeping women in bondage and giving them the right to vote, so their religion was irrelevant. The actions of ethical individuals is what makes a difference, not the religion they happen to belong to. An ethical individual does what is right, not because God will punish him if he doesn't, but because it is the right thing to do.

The Biblical justifications for slavery and that women must be subservient to men come from the Old Testament of the Bible not the New Testament. The New Testament treatment of women was based on Old Testament laws.

Actually, if you take Paul out of he equation, the gospels and the book of Acts brings women to the forefront. The four gospels and acts tell many of story of women being in at an event and participating in many a historical moment, not in the background. The world Jesus invisioned was highly socialistic and fair to all sexes and peoples.

Kathy

Senator and Kathy, it doesn't matter which part of the bible the idea comes from. The justification for slavery and the subserviance of women came from the bible and has been used repeatedly throughout history. The Southern Baptist convention, in 1998, determined that women could no longer be ministers and that they would submit to their husbands. They can not preach. Women simply arn't equal. That decision was based on the bible. Other groups are much harsher than the Southern Baptist in keeping women barefoot and pregnant.

I am not saying that the bible or relgion is good or bad, it is a tool humans use to bind groups together and justify what people want to do to each other. I don't think St. Paul, St. Timmothy, or St. anyone should be the defining word on how we, as a society and a species, treat each other. Philosophies and ideas have developed since St. Paul said it was better to Marry than to burn, and noted that wives should call their husbands "lord." Truely equal rights are not an idea from the bible, because they were not practiced at any time during the biblical period or even until the middle of the 20th century. Voting rights for women are a development of the 19th century as was a lot of the ideas about equality.

Individuals did not sit down and detemine that owning another person was unethical or immoral from the bible. Slavery was common and accepted when Jessus taught, and remained common and accepted until the later part of the 19th century. The role of women as subervient to men is still the most common relationship anywhere in the world. That doesn't make it right, but the bible or whichever religion practiced in a region is used to justify that relationship.

I was born of a liberated woman, but that said, there is something to be claimed for division of labor. In your house Frank, I believe your wife works outside the house and you work at home and are the primary care-giver of the children.

My husband makes so very much more in income than I ever could. I don't feel it is subservance that I try to give him relief for anything that I can do so that he can have some down time when he is not earning the income that we both enjoy.

I have noticed just recently that we no longer have scriptural readers in our church. I think it is just that we haven't had those who are willing to devote the time -- I certainly hope it is not a step back to times prior to Vatican Two.

I do believe in evolution and we are evolutionary people in search of God. the Bible records markers on our way.

Frank, you and I agree basically. We just come at our agreement from different angles.

Senator?

Kathy

Kathy, subserviance isn't division of labor, its a division of power. Right up into the early part of the 20th century there were many Christian countraies in which women were not allowed to own property. Until the 60's there were firecly held beliefs about the role of women and the place of women. Surveys show that women with the same job and the same experience make less than men. Women's liberation occured not to determine whose on top but to alter the power structure from dominant subserviant to coequal. We, as a society, are not there yet.

There were times I made more money than my wife. The change in the market place for technical writers and the fact that I am now finishing my courses in prepartion to change careers to teacher means I make less than my wife does at the moment. But our concern has been that there be enough money, not where it came from. We share the decisions. We share the power in our home.

I am a secular Jew, a member of the tribe who keeps the religous trappings at arms length. That sounds pretty funny from a guy who keeps a Kosher house hold. I do it so that my boys will feel like part of the tribe and so the parents of their more religous friends will let their children come over and play.

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Individuals did not sit down and detemine that owning another person was unethical or immoral from the bible. Slavery was common and accepted when Jessus taught, and remained common and accepted until the later part of the 19th century.

Yes they did. The abolition movement was started because slavery as it was practiced here in the western hemisphere was different from the way it had been practiced prior to the 17th century. The difference was that then most of the slave population were Africans who were considered to be less than human. The African slave trade was started by Arabs/Muslims who then traded them with the Portuguese.

(The word slave has the same etymology has does the word Slav, as in Yugoslavia.)

quote:

[Middle English sclave, from Old French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus, from Sclāvus, Slav (from the widespread enslavement of captured Slavs in the early Middle Ages); see Slav.]

Word History: The derivation of the word slave encapsulates a bit of European history and explains why the two words slaves and Slavs are so similar; they are, in fact, historically identical. The word slave first appears in English around 1290, spelled sclave. The spelling is based on Old French esclave from Medieval Latin sclavus, "Slav, slave," first recorded around 800. Sclavus comes from Byzantine Greek sklabos (pronounced sklävōs) "Slav," which appears around 580. Sklavos approximates the Slavs' own name for themselves, the Slověnci, surviving in English Slovene and Slovenian. The spelling of English slave, closer to its original Slavic form, first appears in English in 1538. Slavs became slaves around the beginning of the ninth century when the Holy Roman Empire tried to stabilize a German-Slav frontier. By the 12th century stabilization had given way to wars of expansion and extermination that did not end until the Poles crushed the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410. · As far as the Slavs' own self-designation goes, its meaning is, understandably, better than "slave"; it comes from the Indo-European root *kleu-, whose basic meaning is "to hear" and occurs in many derivatives meaning "renown, fame." The Slavs are thus "the famous people." Slavic names ending in -slav incorporate the same word, such as Czech Bohu-slav, "God's fame," Russian Msti-slav, "vengeful fame," and Polish Stani-slaw, "famous for withstanding (enemies)."

When most of the slaves being held were Africans racism became a justification for slavery. Prior to that slaves were those who had been captured in a battle and while treated poorly they were still considered to be human. The abolitionists saw the African slaves as human beings and as such entitled to the same rights that our Constitution protects for all of us. It was the cruelty of slaveowners in the southern US that so offended some Christians that they searched their souls and their Bibles to realize that slavery was wrong. Thus Christians led the movement first in England then in the US to end slavery. That it took a bloody civil war* in the US for the ownership of another human to end is not a bright spot in our country's history.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

quote:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Senator, are you saying that several million Christians in the South and north who continued to believe and advocate slavery as biblical were unchristian?

Were those Christians who lived prior to the abolition movement unchristian though thy justified slavery as biblical and an institution defined by God?

I see those abolitionists who fought to abolish slavery as ethical and moral individuals who stood against the wishes of the majority, deeply ethical liberals willing to take an unpopular stand. Christianity wasn't the determining factor since the enjoyed that religion as a shared belief with those they opposed. As long as both sides were Christian, religion was not the factor that drove the abolitionists.

And as for your quote of that wonderful old song. Both the North and the South went into battle led, in their own minds, by God. The first thing any side does is claim to have God on its side. So, a better song in my own thoughts, is Body Dylans' "With God on our side."

quote:

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Humans will do anything and rationalize it in the name of God.

quote:

Senator, are you saying that several million Christians in the South and north who continued to believe and advocate slavery as biblical were unchristian?

Not un-Christian but that they were racists who incorrectly used the teachings of Jesus and the Bible to justify their behavior.

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Were those Christians who lived prior to the abolition movement unchristian though thy justified slavery as biblical and an institution defined by God?

Not really. Racism is based not any religious beliefs but the unfortunate human trait of the need to put others down to build oneself up. That trait is in all of us. When we insult someone we are putting them down to make us feel better about ourselves. Racism is that trait taken to its sickest and ugliest extreme.

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I see those abolitionists who fought to abolish slavery as ethical and moral individuals who stood against the wishes of the majority, deeply ethical liberals willing to take an unpopular stand. Christianity wasn't the determining factor since the enjoyed that religion as a shared belief with those they opposed. As long as both sides were Christian, religion was not the factor that drove the abolitionists.

Christianity was and was not the motivating factor. You and I share the belief that America is a great country. Where we differ is how our country could be improved. Does the fact that we differ on how to improve our country make either one of us less a patriot than the other?

quote:

And as for your quote of that wonderful old song. Both the North and the South went into battle led, in their own minds, by God. The first thing any side does is claim to have God on its side. So, a better song in my own thoughts, is Body Dylans' "With God on our side."

My quote of the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic is that it was the desire to do what they understood Christianity really called for, freedom. Because of the idea of Jesus dying to free people from sin they were willing to die to set people free from slavery. The idea of making the ultimate sacrifice, to die, so that people could be free. Their love of Jesus, freedom and their fellow man was/is true Christianity.

quote:

Humans will do anything and rationalize it in the name of God.

Yes we do. But I think that in the case of the Battle Hymn of the Republic it was because G*D is, IMO, on the side of love, tolerance and freedom.