Religious Right Pro & Con
The online edition of today's Wall Street Journal opinion page, OpinionJournal.com, has opposing views on the future of the "Religious Right" in American politics. The pro side is written by OpinionJournal.com's editor, James Taranto. The con side is written by Christopher Hitchens, a writer for a variety of "progressive" publications such as Vanity Fair, Atlantic Monthly & Slate.
Both are well written and interesting. As a regular reader of Taranto's daily Best of the Web, I enjoy his writing, though I daresay Taranto does not make as strong an argument as I would have preferred. I would have liked, for instance, more evidence that judges are being opposed for their personal religious views.
Hitchens' first mistake was calling Jesus a "possibly mythical Nazarene," but I will choose to overlook that mistake despite the mounds of evidence supporting the existence of such a man 2,000 years ago in Israel.
He also displays an apparent lack of knowledge about Christianity (really, that's the limit of his definition of the Religious Right) as he tries to poke fun at Christians about what Jesus indicated as the most important commandment. He quotes the 18th chapter of Luke:
Thus, it becomes evident in short order that Hitchens takes a rooting interest in the demise of the Religious Right because he is part of the camp that looks down its nose at people of faith.
He then suggests that the Religious Right is listening only to the teachings of Jesus — which contributes to a "shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity" — to the exclusion of such "modern intellectuals" as Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss. He fails, at least to my shallow little mind, to explain why Rand and Strauss are superior to Saul of Tarsus, the Mouse of Disney, or anyone in between. Apparently, Christians aren't smart enough to read the right philosophers, so we must be guided by people like Christopher Hitchens.
Even though he supported Bush ("slightly"), this Democrat can't explain why greater numbers of American Jews switched to George W. Bush in the 2004 election, so he belittles the Republican Party (as if the entirety of the party consists of people of faith) by asking if it plans to welcome these Jewish voters by shoving the most irrelevant of tenets down their throats through megaphonic televangelists like Falwell. (Does Hitchens think Falwell and Pat Robertson are the official spokesmen for the Religious Right? That would show a remarkable lack of knowledge about the subject he's addressing. Maybe they were 20 years ago, but their day has passed.) Hitchens can't stand the thought that maybe the Jewish vote moved toward Bush because the Jewish voters found more to like in the GOP and less to appreciate in the Democrats.
In referring to Falwell & Robertson, he wonders why such "grotesque characters . . . are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?" Maybe it's because the Republicans are able to discuss disagreements without calling the other side names (such as "bigot," a friendly term Hitchens uses to describe the Religious Right near the end of his article). Maybe it's because they see the value in a diverse group presenting a united front. Taranto described this nicely near the end of his piece:
Hitchens ends with a call for GOP leaders to "disown and condemn the creeping and creepy movement to impose orthodoxy" on our country, as if Christians have no right to follow their conscience in civic participation. I like the way Paul Mirengoff at Powerline dealt with this in his comments:
Both are well written and interesting. As a regular reader of Taranto's daily Best of the Web, I enjoy his writing, though I daresay Taranto does not make as strong an argument as I would have preferred. I would have liked, for instance, more evidence that judges are being opposed for their personal religious views.
Hitchens' first mistake was calling Jesus a "possibly mythical Nazarene," but I will choose to overlook that mistake despite the mounds of evidence supporting the existence of such a man 2,000 years ago in Israel.
He also displays an apparent lack of knowledge about Christianity (really, that's the limit of his definition of the Religious Right) as he tries to poke fun at Christians about what Jesus indicated as the most important commandment. He quotes the 18th chapter of Luke:
A certain ruler asked [Jesus], "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?""No 'Moral Majority' type," Hitchens wrote, "has yet proposed that the most important commandment, the one underlined by Jesus himself, be displayed in courtrooms or schoolrooms." Maybe I misunderstand Hitchens, but I don't think Jesus' story in Luke highlights the most important commandment. If you read Mark 12:28-31, you find out what Jesus really thought about that topic:
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.' "
"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
One of the teachers of the law . . . asked [Jesus], "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"Hitchens also attempts to cast Christian businessmen in a bad light through backhanded suggestion that the Bible universally condemns money other than for its use as gifts to the poor, so they are hypocrites to work for monetary reward. Again, this shows a profound lack of knowledge about the Bible, which is chock full of guidance in the area of finances.
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Thus, it becomes evident in short order that Hitchens takes a rooting interest in the demise of the Religious Right because he is part of the camp that looks down its nose at people of faith.
He then suggests that the Religious Right is listening only to the teachings of Jesus — which contributes to a "shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity" — to the exclusion of such "modern intellectuals" as Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss. He fails, at least to my shallow little mind, to explain why Rand and Strauss are superior to Saul of Tarsus, the Mouse of Disney, or anyone in between. Apparently, Christians aren't smart enough to read the right philosophers, so we must be guided by people like Christopher Hitchens.
Even though he supported Bush ("slightly"), this Democrat can't explain why greater numbers of American Jews switched to George W. Bush in the 2004 election, so he belittles the Republican Party (as if the entirety of the party consists of people of faith) by asking if it plans to welcome these Jewish voters by shoving the most irrelevant of tenets down their throats through megaphonic televangelists like Falwell. (Does Hitchens think Falwell and Pat Robertson are the official spokesmen for the Religious Right? That would show a remarkable lack of knowledge about the subject he's addressing. Maybe they were 20 years ago, but their day has passed.) Hitchens can't stand the thought that maybe the Jewish vote moved toward Bush because the Jewish voters found more to like in the GOP and less to appreciate in the Democrats.
In referring to Falwell & Robertson, he wonders why such "grotesque characters . . . are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?" Maybe it's because the Republicans are able to discuss disagreements without calling the other side names (such as "bigot," a friendly term Hitchens uses to describe the Religious Right near the end of his article). Maybe it's because they see the value in a diverse group presenting a united front. Taranto described this nicely near the end of his piece:
Last week an article in The Nation, a left-wing weekly, described the motley collection of religious figures who gathered for Justice Sunday. A black minister stood next to a preacher with a six-degrees-of-separation connection to the Ku Klux Klan. A Catholic shared the stage with a Baptist theologian who had described Roman Catholicism as "a false church."But after all this, it is Hitchens' final sentences that take the cake. He argues that the only hope for our soldiers overseas is if secular governments are established in Iraq & Afghanistan and establish the wall between church and state to hold out the extremist influences that had previously prevailed. That hope, however, is being "stabbed in the back" by the Religious Right, which is consistently breaching that wall. This is Hitchens' biggest reach. To claim that Islamist extremism is somehow equivalent to Christian conservatism is no more accurate than saying all Republicans are ready to follow Eric Randolph to the next clinic bombing, or all Democrats have a problem with young female interns. The last time I checked, members of the Religious Right weren't strapping sticks of dynamite under their clothing and wandering willy nilly through the malls of America. Even strong disagreement between the ACLU and Focus on the Family does not begin to approach the twisted religious beliefs of an Islamic extremist.
These folks may not be your cup of tea, but this was a highly ecumenical group, united on some issues of morality and politics but deeply divided on matters of faith. The thought that they could ever agree enough to impose a theocracy is laughable.
And the religious right includes not only Christians of various stripes but also Orthodox Jews and even conservative Muslims. Far from the sectarian movement its foes portray, it is in truth a manifestation of the religious pluralism that makes America great. Therein lies its strength."
Hitchens ends with a call for GOP leaders to "disown and condemn the creeping and creepy movement to impose orthodoxy" on our country, as if Christians have no right to follow their conscience in civic participation. I like the way Paul Mirengoff at Powerline dealt with this in his comments:
Hitchens writes as moralistically as any pundit. His views of what is moral don't stem from Christianity (nor do mine), but they must be rooted in some core values and beliefs. On what grounds does he contend that policy makers should consider moral judgments founded in his belief system but ignore on principle those grounded in fundamentalist Christianity?Indeed.
posted by Ken @ 11:19 PM
2 Comments:
At 11/27/2007 1:02 PM,
Anonymous said…
if you don't know what the religious right beliefs are maybe you should study it Just as Billy graham was a pastor to many political leader so is
Pat Robertson
Pastor to Presidents
Graham has had a personal audience with every sitting United States President since Harry Truman.[10] He visited in the Oval Office with Truman in 1950, urging Truman to counter communism in North Korea. However, Graham and his accompanying pastors were not aware of Washington protocol; they appeased the press corps waiting outside with details of the visit, with the three pastors even acquiescing to the calls of the press to kneel on the White House lawn, as if praying.[10] This led to Truman calling Graham a "counterfeit" publicity seeker, and Truman did not speak to Graham for years afterward.[2][10] Graham has often told the story, usually as a warning that he would not reveal his conversations with world leaders.[10] Graham became a regular in the Oval Office during the tenure of Dwight Eisenhower, who he urged to intervene with federal troops in the case of the Little Rock Nine,[2] and it was at that time, on a Washington golf course, that he met and became close friends with Vice-President Richard Nixon.[10] Eisenhower asked to see Graham on his deathbed.[16] Graham also counseled Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and the Bush family.[9]
The single notable exception among modern presidents is John F. Kennedy, with whom Graham golfed; but Kennedy was Roman Catholic;[17] Graham enjoyed a friendship with Nixon and prominently supported him over Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election.[2] Nixon wrote to Graham after that election: "I have often told friends that when you went into the ministry, politics lost one of its potentially greatest practitioners."[2] Graham spent the last night of Johnson's presidency in the White House, and he stayed for the first night of Nixon's.[16]
After Nixon's victorious 1968 presidential campaign, Graham was an adviser, visiting the White House and leading some of the private church services that the President organized there.[10] Nixon offered Graham the ambassadorship to Israel in a meeting they had with Golda Meir, but Graham turned down Nixon's offer.[2] Nixon appeared at one of Graham's revivals in East Tennessee in 1970; the event drew one of the largest crowds to ever gather in Tennessee.[10] Nixon became the first President to give a speech from an evangelist's platform.[10] However, their friendship became strained when Graham rebuked Nixon for his post-Watergate behavior and the profanity heard on the Watergate tapes; they eventually reconciled after Nixon's resignation.[10] Graham announced at that time, "I'm out of politics."[4]
After a special law was passed on his behalf, Graham was allowed to conduct the first religious service on the steps of the Capitol building in 1952.[2] When Graham was hospitalized briefly in 1976, three Presidents called in one day to wish him well: former President Nixon, current President Ford and President-Elect Carter.[16]
He was one of Reagan's personal guests at his inauguration and gave the benediction at George H.W. Bush's inauguration.[16] He stayed at the White House the night before George H.W. Bush (who called Graham "America's Pastor") launched the Persian Gulf War.[9] Two days before the 2000 presidential election, Graham spoke at a prayer breakfast in Florida with George W. Bush in attendance but did not officially endorse him.[citation needed] At a New York revival in 2005, Bill Clinton recalled how he had attended Graham's revival as a boy in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1959.[4]
Graham has also spoken at one presidential funeral and one presidential burial. Graham presided over the graveside services for President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973 and took part in eulogizing the former President with former Texas Democratic Governor John Connally, an LBJ protégé and fellow Texan who was wounded in the assassination. Graham also spoke at Connally's funeral and the funeral of former First Lady Pat Nixon within one week of each other in June 1993.[2] He also spoke at the funeral of Richard Nixon in 1994. Graham was unable to officiate the state funeral of Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, because of recent double hip replacement surgery, which former President George H.W. Bush acknowledged during his eulogy. Graham had been Reagan's first choice. Because Graham was hospitalized, Rev. John Danforth, a Missouri Republican Senator during Reagan's tenure, officiated the funeral. Failing health prevented Rev. Graham from officiating at the state funeral of former President Gerald R. Ford in Washington D.C., on January 2, 2007, as well as the funeral of former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in July 2007.
[edit] Foreign policy views
Graham has been outspoken against communism and supportive of U.S. Cold War policy, including the Vietnam War. However, in a 1999 speech, Graham discussed his relationship with the late North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, praising him as a "different kind of communist" and "one of the great fighters for freedom in his country against the Japanese." Graham went on to note that although he had never met Kim's son and current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, he had "exchanged gifts with him."[18]
At 11/27/2007 1:04 PM,
Anonymous said…
Pastor to Presidents
Graham has had a personal audience with every sitting United States President since Harry Truman.[10] He visited in the Oval Office with Truman in 1950, urging Truman to counter communism in North Korea. However, Graham and his accompanying pastors were not aware of Washington protocol; they appeased the press corps waiting outside with details of the visit, with the three pastors even acquiescing to the calls of the press to kneel on the White House lawn, as if praying.[10] This led to Truman calling Graham a "counterfeit" publicity seeker, and Truman did not speak to Graham for years afterward.[2][10] Graham has often told the story, usually as a warning that he would not reveal his conversations with world leaders.[10] Graham became a regular in the Oval Office during the tenure of Dwight Eisenhower, who he urged to intervene with federal troops in the case of the Little Rock Nine,[2] and it was at that time, on a Washington golf course, that he met and became close friends with Vice-President Richard Nixon.[10] Eisenhower asked to see Graham on his deathbed.[16] Graham also counseled Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and the Bush family.[9]
The single notable exception among modern presidents is John F. Kennedy, with whom Graham golfed; but Kennedy was Roman Catholic;[17] Graham enjoyed a friendship with Nixon and prominently supported him over Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election.[2] Nixon wrote to Graham after that election: "I have often told friends that when you went into the ministry, politics lost one of its potentially greatest practitioners."[2] Graham spent the last night of Johnson's presidency in the White House, and he stayed for the first night of Nixon's.[16]
After Nixon's victorious 1968 presidential campaign, Graham was an adviser, visiting the White House and leading some of the private church services that the President organized there.[10] Nixon offered Graham the ambassadorship to Israel in a meeting they had with Golda Meir, but Graham turned down Nixon's offer.[2] Nixon appeared at one of Graham's revivals in East Tennessee in 1970; the event drew one of the largest crowds to ever gather in Tennessee.[10] Nixon became the first President to give a speech from an evangelist's platform.[10] However, their friendship became strained when Graham rebuked Nixon for his post-Watergate behavior and the profanity heard on the Watergate tapes; they eventually reconciled after Nixon's resignation.[10] Graham announced at that time, "I'm out of politics."[4]
After a special law was passed on his behalf, Graham was allowed to conduct the first religious service on the steps of the Capitol building in 1952.[2] When Graham was hospitalized briefly in 1976, three Presidents called in one day to wish him well: former President Nixon, current President Ford and President-Elect Carter.[16]
He was one of Reagan's personal guests at his inauguration and gave the benediction at George H.W. Bush's inauguration.[16] He stayed at the White House the night before George H.W. Bush (who called Graham "America's Pastor") launched the Persian Gulf War.[9] Two days before the 2000 presidential election, Graham spoke at a prayer breakfast in Florida with George W. Bush in attendance but did not officially endorse him.[citation needed] At a New York revival in 2005, Bill Clinton recalled how he had attended Graham's revival as a boy in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1959.[4]
Graham has also spoken at one presidential funeral and one presidential burial. Graham presided over the graveside services for President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973 and took part in eulogizing the former President with former Texas Democratic Governor John Connally, an LBJ protégé and fellow Texan who was wounded in the assassination. Graham also spoke at Connally's funeral and the funeral of former First Lady Pat Nixon within one week of each other in June 1993.[2] He also spoke at the funeral of Richard Nixon in 1994. Graham was unable to officiate the state funeral of Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, because of recent double hip replacement surgery, which former President George H.W. Bush acknowledged during his eulogy. Graham had been Reagan's first choice. Because Graham was hospitalized, Rev. John Danforth, a Missouri Republican Senator during Reagan's tenure, officiated the funeral. Failing health prevented Rev. Graham from officiating at the state funeral of former President Gerald R. Ford in Washington D.C., on January 2, 2007, as well as the funeral of former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in July 2007.
[edit] Foreign policy views
Graham has been outspoken against communism and supportive of U.S. Cold War policy, including the Vietnam War. However, in a 1999 speech, Graham discussed his relationship with the late North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, praising him as a "different kind of communist" and "one of the great fighters for freedom in his country against the Japanese." Graham went on to note that although he had never met Kim's son and current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, he had "exchanged gifts with him."[18]
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