Post by nana on May 11, 2005 2:38:27 GMT -5
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
'Babylon in exile'
By Tim Abbott, Roanoke Times
The Christian right strikes again.
This time, its adherents are striking at the senatorial filibuster, therefore at the Senate's role to advise and consent (meaning it can approve or disapprove, not rubberstamp a presidential choice), and at an independent court system, therefore at the American checks and balance system.
They strike, under the auspices of such groups as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptists, and with the aid of Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., at American traditions and institutions in a way that Osama bin Laden could not hope to do, claiming that these traditions do not conform to the Bible - the Bible being their standard for what the Constitution means, what democracy means, what freedom means.
They claim that such traditions attack their belief, their faith, their conscience. They have faith from the Bible, therefore God; therefore they have the truth, the only truth. They are a godly people. In short, only the biblically inerrant are to have freedom, while we who do not belong to the spiritual super-race are to be restricted in our thoughts and beliefs, controlled because we do not know the truth, do not have faith.
We are allowed only to conform to the right-wing interpretation of the Bible, because their faith is superior to anything the rest us might think; there is no other truth but their truth. We, who do not belong to the saved, have no conscience. Because we have no conscience, the right-wing Christians want to tear down the wall between church and state; like good Puritans, they will press a conscience upon us: their conscience, whether we want their conscience or not.
The Christian right sees the United States, and the world, as a free-wheeling Babylon: a world of secularism, relativism and immorality. This world, this American system, is ungodly; they want the godly. They want a lock-step Jerusalem.
But the American system, as it is, is not godly. Rather, the American system, following the best ideas of the Western tradition, supports and often lives in the ideas of individual freedom, political liberty and social justice. It promotes free expression.
Many consider such ideas as possible only in a secular, pluralistic and liberal society. Only in a free society can there be freedom of thought, therefore conscience. Our country is not a lock-step Jerusalem, the city of the holy, but a country of fallible people muddling through, trying to balance the requirements of self and of living in community.
The Christian right claims that they are persecuted by the American system and by society. The world is against them and they against the world, even though the Republican Party and the Christian right are nearly synonymous, and George W. Bush and Bill Frist pander to them, and are pressing their agenda upon the world; they, in their apocalyptic desire, see themselves as martyrs and soldiers of Christ. Their victimhood is pretense. They use it to press their own biblical agenda on us who have no belief in their ideology or their religion.
In a secular, freewheeling society, you have a right to conscience; in a lock-step Jerusalem, someone else chooses your conscience for you. I'll take Babylon.
Abbott, of Hillsville, teaches English as an adjunct at New River Community College.
© Copyright 2005
Reprinted from The Roanoke Times:
www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary%5C23308.html
'Babylon in exile'
By Tim Abbott, Roanoke Times
The Christian right strikes again.
This time, its adherents are striking at the senatorial filibuster, therefore at the Senate's role to advise and consent (meaning it can approve or disapprove, not rubberstamp a presidential choice), and at an independent court system, therefore at the American checks and balance system.
They strike, under the auspices of such groups as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptists, and with the aid of Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., at American traditions and institutions in a way that Osama bin Laden could not hope to do, claiming that these traditions do not conform to the Bible - the Bible being their standard for what the Constitution means, what democracy means, what freedom means.
They claim that such traditions attack their belief, their faith, their conscience. They have faith from the Bible, therefore God; therefore they have the truth, the only truth. They are a godly people. In short, only the biblically inerrant are to have freedom, while we who do not belong to the spiritual super-race are to be restricted in our thoughts and beliefs, controlled because we do not know the truth, do not have faith.
We are allowed only to conform to the right-wing interpretation of the Bible, because their faith is superior to anything the rest us might think; there is no other truth but their truth. We, who do not belong to the saved, have no conscience. Because we have no conscience, the right-wing Christians want to tear down the wall between church and state; like good Puritans, they will press a conscience upon us: their conscience, whether we want their conscience or not.
The Christian right sees the United States, and the world, as a free-wheeling Babylon: a world of secularism, relativism and immorality. This world, this American system, is ungodly; they want the godly. They want a lock-step Jerusalem.
But the American system, as it is, is not godly. Rather, the American system, following the best ideas of the Western tradition, supports and often lives in the ideas of individual freedom, political liberty and social justice. It promotes free expression.
Many consider such ideas as possible only in a secular, pluralistic and liberal society. Only in a free society can there be freedom of thought, therefore conscience. Our country is not a lock-step Jerusalem, the city of the holy, but a country of fallible people muddling through, trying to balance the requirements of self and of living in community.
The Christian right claims that they are persecuted by the American system and by society. The world is against them and they against the world, even though the Republican Party and the Christian right are nearly synonymous, and George W. Bush and Bill Frist pander to them, and are pressing their agenda upon the world; they, in their apocalyptic desire, see themselves as martyrs and soldiers of Christ. Their victimhood is pretense. They use it to press their own biblical agenda on us who have no belief in their ideology or their religion.
In a secular, freewheeling society, you have a right to conscience; in a lock-step Jerusalem, someone else chooses your conscience for you. I'll take Babylon.
Abbott, of Hillsville, teaches English as an adjunct at New River Community College.
© Copyright 2005
Reprinted from The Roanoke Times:
www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary%5C23308.html
