Man Bites Blog

There’s something about Mike Huckabee that brings out the worst in his critics. I can’t think of any other public figure about whom I have heard more posts and columns beginning with something like, “I am by no means a Huckabee fan, but…”

In that vein, I pass along this from Andrew Sullivan:

Huckabee relates the key prudential principle of Christianism. Yes: it’s vertical. When addressing what a polity needs, you just need to ask God. And then we obey. At least now no one will hide it. This dog whistle is loud and public and audible by anyone:

“When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ… When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go. It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”

Geez — it’s almost like it’s a religion or something.

Sullivan would have us believe that this type of thinking is an innovation of Huckabee and the Christian Right.

The reality is that this is a princliple, not of “Christianism,” but of Christianity itself, at least if its Founder has anything to say about it:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, ²⁰ take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Maybe this is incompatible with “conservatism,” as Andrew Sullivan might define it. But it is Christianity. The notion that Christianity is something to be compartmentalized and seaparated from one’s public life is antithetical to what Christ preached.

If you have a problem with religion touching all aspects of a believer’s life, then you have a problem with Chritianity, not “Christianism.”

In a post entitled “Christianism In The Military” Sullivan passes on the story of a chaplain doing damage control after an NCO in the marines tells a soldier’s friends that he is burning in hell because he committed suicide.

Not Christianity’s finest hour for sure, but not a new, dangerous fusion of faith and politics, either, and not a reason to discredit the pro-life or anti-same-sex marriage movements, which is the normal purpose of the “Christianism” smear.

These posts may seem non-objectionable. Who wants to defend what the NCO did? But what Sullivan is doing is poisoning the waters, so that when he calls someone like Ramesh Ponnuru a “Christianist,” you think of scenes like this, even though Ponnuru would never advocate what the NCO did.

This is why I find the label so offensive.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Those who are so concerned that Sam Brownback will whip the nation into a sectarian frenzy by recounting anecdotes about what motivates Mother Teresa might want to look into the “root causes” of why this would have appeal.Imagine your an Evangelical or conservative Catholic.  You don’t approve of your school district’s sex education program, so you homeshool or send your kids to private school, at considerable sacrifice.  For this you are sneered at and assumed that your teaching Creationism.  You try to shield your kids from a popular culture that glorifies little but banality, sexuality, and beauty, and are called a prude for doing so.  You got to church, but it’s getting more an more lukewarm.  You’ve been chastised at work for inviting people to a retreat you work on.Now, here comes this candidate who unironically refers to Mother Teresa as a paragon of virtue, and reassures you that your faith is a good thing.  Might you find that appealing?If secualrists are so damned concerned about candidates like Sam Brownback gaining appeal, I can think of few more counterproductive things they could do than drive mentions of God and Jesus from the public square.
• When people are challenged to point out an example of the poisonous influence of the Christian Right on American policy, the answer inevitably comes back, “Terri Schiavo.”So, let me get this straight, the Republicans held all three branches of the federal government, and the president’s brother was the governor of the stat in question.  The “Religious Right” wanted to stop a feeding tube from being removed from a comatose woman.  Her parents had volunteered to see to her care.  She was opposed by her husband, whohad since married another woman.In spite of some last minute Congressional acts, the feeding tube was removed, and guards were stationed to make sure nobody tried to feed her until she starved to death.According to the emerging history, this led to political backlash against the Republicans, and contributed to their defeat in 2006.

  Man, sends chills down your spine about how powerful the Religious Right is, huh?  They almost prevented the government from removing a feeding tube from one woman.  Shudder to think what’s next…

This seems to be the way of resolving the notion that religion inevitably poisons politics with the religious backing of movements like abolition and civil rights which have been vindicated by history.

 In his rejoinder to Douthat Sullivan writes:

Some of this, as the theocons keep reminding us, has been to the good - the abolitionist and the civil rights movements spring to mind. What they’re less likely to say is that the institutional core of today’s Christianism was on the wrong side of those struggles(SBC anyone?)

As Sullivan is well aware, Brownback is a Roman Catholic, which was on the right side of those struggles, in the case of civil rights, courageously so.

<snip>The difference between the good and the bad in Christianism is that the good was also often framed in terms of secular, non-sectarian arguments (as MLK took pains to do), while the bad, having much less logic to stand on, was more reliant on pure Biblical authority.

This is where Sullivan doesn’t play fair.   Because the only thing from Brownback that we’re looking at is this speech, compared to the entirety of the civil rights movement.  So MLK’s meetings with other groups count, but Brownback’s ecumenical efforts to stop genocide in Darfur don’t. 

Read any of MLK’s speeches, and see how entrenched in Christian imagery they are — “I have been to the mountaintop, etc.”  If any Republican used similar language to support his causes, Sullivan would be all over him for rising tide of Christianism.

The notion that this kind of politics has no victims, has not led to evil, has not at times led to absolute insanity (like Prohibition), and is not still a constant threat - is preposterously complacent.

I don’t think anyone is asserting that the fusion of religion and politics always leads to only good things.  We are disputing the notion that it always leads to evil, and that any politician who utters the word “God” must be immediately scolded for doing so.

 Policies like prohibition were wrong because they were wrong.  The civil rights movement was right because it was right.  Prohibition was not poisoned by religion any more than the civil rights movement was sanctified by it.  It provided fuel, and made both movement more powerful than they would have been, for good or ill.

 Once this happens, once it is acquiesced in, once it becomes normal, the immense power of religion and its unequaled capacity to change society and politics is unleashed in unpredictable and dangerous ways. If you doubt that, look at Iraq.

Yes, look at Iraq.  And look what side the Roman Catholic Church was on that issue before it.  And look what side Andrew Sullivan was on.  It seems to me that if more politicians seriously applied their faith (rather than being suckered by Bush and Rove’s appeals to it) we might be better off.

If Sam Brownback is wrong on issues, a commentator as smart and Andrew Sullivan ought to be able to demonstrate how.  But shouting, “Faith! Poltitics! Foul!” isn’t such a demonstration.

Is this a dangerous fusion of faith and politics, or just Christians doing something that Sullivan disagrees with? Read the rest of this entry »

according to this Sullivan post.

I just hope none of them are doing this for Jesus. Becuase that would be poisonous.

Daniel Larison and Ross Douthat have good posts in reponse to Andrew Sullivan’s notion that the biggest threat to public discourse is people going around quoting Mother Teresa (rather than say, Sullivan’s own rhetoric during the run-up to the Iraq War which was designed to and suceeded in pre-empting debate and investigation into the matter).

 I guess I’d like to know when religious practice stops becoming veers into poisonous territory.  Which of the following are examples of Chritianism?

• Because of his religion, someone engages in private prayer.
• Because of his religion, someone attends church services.
• Because of his religion, someone attempts to raise his own children according to a moral code.
• Because of his religion, someone performs some public acts of service for those less fortunate.
• Because of his religion, someone votes for officials who will enact policies to help those less fortunate.
• Because of his religion, someone publically supports cnadidates and policies he believes will help those less fortunate.
• Because of his religion, someone seeks public office to enact policies to help those less fortunate.

I’m guessing this is where people will start to get off the bus, so let’s subdivide these…

• William Wilberforce seeks to end the slave trade.
• John Edwards aims to improve the state of the nation’s poor.
• Sam Brownback seeks to end or reduce abortions.

If Sam Brownback is the only one who crosses the line, why?  Just because you disagree with him?  What if I don’t share John Edwards’s notions about how to help the poor?

• Because of his religion, someone seeks public office in order to nudge people to his religion, and map civil law to his religion’s precepts.

And I would get off the bus here.

At first, I was going to say that Andrew Sullivan had a point with this post:

“All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus,” - Sam Brownback’s stump speech in Iowa. And some say I exaggerate the sectarian nature of the GOP base. 

Well, that certainly sound bad, until one gets the context:

In the portion of the speech that Sager cited, Brownback explained that he met Mother Teresa once, when she came to Congress, and he was given the assignment of accompanying her to her car: ‘As I put her in the car, she grabbed my hand, she looked me in the eyes and said three words four times: ‘All for Jesus.  All for Jesus.  All for Jesus.  All for Jesus.’  It was her faith that powered her to help millions.  Faith is a good thing, not a bad thing.’

 UPDATE: Sullivan notes the context, but doesn’t back off the sentiment:

I suppose it is worth noting that Sam Brownback’s recitation of the “All for Jesus” line is a quote from Mother Teresa that he apparently deploys in his stump speech regularly. It isn’t his original formulation but he uses it to describe his political motivation. It is the core of his political message. In a religious context, it is a vulgar but completely legitimate expression of faith. In a political context in a secular society, it is a toxin that will eventually corrode civil discourse into sectarian warfare. Which is, of course, what the Christianists want. They have the biggest sect, after all.

Well, I’m unconvinced.

Unless Sullivan believes that the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and the American Revolution were similarly corroded by religious motivations and rhetoric. 

Suliivan’s desire to cleanse all political speech of religious rhetoric is much more radical and unconservative than Brownback’s appeals.  Politicians noted that they are inspired to do good by their faith is not new.  Pundits declaring that this will ruin discourse is.

Christainism Watch

“I had one letter from a vicar in England — this is the difference — saying would I please not put Christmas trees at Hogwarts as it was clearly a pagan society. Meanwhile, I’m having death threats when I’m on tour in America,” - J.K. Rowling on the reception given the Harry Potter books.

Er, is this a new dangerous fusion of faith and politics, or just Christians doing things that Sullivan doesn’t like?

Sullivanism.

If pressed, I will define Sullivanism as pretending that a position based on personal taste or distaste is based on principles. But really, I’ll just apply this label to anything Andrew Sullivan writes that I disagree with.

If you’ll remember, Sullivan defined Christianist as follows:

You will notice no mention of terrorism or violence. My use of the term Christianist similarly and simply describes those who believe that the source of any political system should be Christian revelation, rather than the secular principles of the Enlightenment and the American constitution..

Right, it’s not a smear; it’s not meant to linke Christians with terrorism; it’s a description of a modern notion about the fusion of faith and politics. Right.

But then, Sullivan relates the story of a Christian who kiled a gay man because he believed homosexuality was evil under the title of “Christianist terror?

Hmm — did the perpetrator beat his victim with a rolled up copy of First Things? Has he offered any opinions on the proper role of religion in politics?

Not that I could see. But he’s a Christian. And he did something Sullivan (and most people, including myself) don’t like. So he gets the label.

Can we therefore please stop pretending that “Christianism” is a neologism designed to describe a novel development in religious political life, and admit that it’s nothing more than a smear?

To drive home the smear, Sullivan ends the post with the query, “And this is different from Islamist barbarism how, exactly?”

I offered an answer, as did a reader.

In response, Sullivan admits that the Christianist threat is “nowhere near” the threat of Islamism. Gee, that might explain why “the conservative media” failed to highlight it to Sullivan’s satisfaction.

I mean, if they can get a letter to the editor containing religious bigotry printed in the Charlottesville Daily Progress, can anyone deny the threat any longer?

Can mandatory Church attendance for all Americans be far behind?

Andrew Sullivan has posted some defenses of his offensive and ridiculous “Christianist” term for those he doesn’t like.

To pick of the low-hanging fruit, let’s start with this reader’s defense of the term:

“Christianist” is a strictly neutral term - it describes a specific political position about the relationship between Christian faith and the state. If I actually believed that Christianity is the one true religion, and that the US government should be based on my understanding of the dictates of Christianity, I’d think that Christianist would correctly describe me, and I wouldn’t take offense. If you had said something like “evil Christianists,” then I’d take offense.

Bullshit.

Sullivan meand the term to sting. And he means it to sting by bringing to mind “Islamist,” which is a term that descibes people who, among other things, have killed large numbers of Americans and would like to kill more.

If “Christianist” is merely a neutral descriptive term without any perjorative connotation, like, say, “left-handed,” then it should be easy to find a post on Sullivan’s blog where he is complimentary of either the movement or someone he describes using the term.

You’llbe looking for a while, though, because no matter how much Sullivan tries to offer non-perjorative definitions of the term, he uses it as a smear, and to create in people’s minds a moral equivalence between people who want to kill Americans, and people who don’t see what the big deal is about a nativity scene in the town square.

Then there’s this reader’s defense, which I’m not sure I completely understand — the gist seems to be that if Islamists don’t mind being called Islamists, then Christianists shouldn’t mind being called Christianists, and their objection to it proves they’re no better (and in fact worse) than Islamists. I think I’ve already given this more time and attention than it deserves.

Finally, we’ve got Sullivan’s own defense.

First he starts with the tired, it’s-just-desriptive-not-a-smear stuff that is bullshit.

But here’s the core:

realize, after reading countless emails on the matter, that the real source of offense is my equating Islam and Christianity as interchangeable religious beliefs, for the purposes of politics. I see them as potentially equally threatening to freedom. History suggests that both have been deployed in the service of terrifying dictatorships, mass murder and religious war. In some ways, Christianity’s record in this is actually worse than Islam’s. This is not a reflection on the utterly peaceful intent of Jesus of Nazareth, but, then, he was also adamant on separating religion from politics. It is a reflection on the profound danger of fusing faith and power. If I’m right, the offense is mainly taken by Christians who simply refuse to see their faith as equally valid as Islam. They are offended that a Christian could even be equated with a Muslim. Which means, I believe, that they have not begun to understand the meaning of toleration at the core of Christianity, let alone the central insight of liberal constitutionalism. Hence our political and religious crisis.

There is a kernel of truth here — any religious follower obviously believes his is the true faith and, thus, others are incorrect and inferior.

But I don’t see why this is no antithetical to Jesus’s message. I don’t remember Jesus ever saying anything like, “it really doesn’t matter if you believe in me or not.” He said some things that are pretty exclusionary — “Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you shall not have life within you.” So, I don’t buy that Christian exceptionism is some malevolent innovation of the Religious Right.

Next, the offense isn’t that Christians don’t like being equated with Muslims — it’s that we don’t like being conflated with a movement with which we are currently at war. And, it’s baloney.

Go ahead, Andrew, pick your favorite “Christianist” bogeyman — maybe some mix of John Ashcroft and Rick Santorum. As a gay man, would you rather live under his rule, or the rule of even the mildest Islamist regime. Would you rather be a Muslim living under Christianist rule or a Christian living under Islamist rule?

The answer is obvious, which is why your sloppiliy grouping them together is so offensive.

BTW, when he’s not warning of the gathering Christianist storm resulting from people fusing religion and politics, Sullivan has been trying to drive a wedge between Christians and the Mormon Mitt Romney, and calling same sex marriage advocates who decline the opportunity to kick the pregnant Mary Cheney “closet tolerants.”

The implication of the latter is that there can be no gap between what is condemned and what is socially normalized — there is no grey area.

And there is no gap between private values and public policy. If you don’t want to personally condemn Mary Cheney, then you must support same sex marriage.

But someone with a deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception should work for justice for them?

Hey - maybe conservatives aren’t condemning Mary Cheney because they have a healthy sense of doubt about their views.