Posted on 12/03/2008 4:59:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Do we need God in politics?
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker recently penned a provocative column titled "Giving Up on God," wherein she suggested that the Republican Party ditch G-O-D. The piece so rankled James Dobson (Ph.D. in divine insight) that he compared Parker to that seditious bum Benedict Arnold.
Among factions of conservatism, there is a general willingness to coexist and -- sporadically -- win elections. Dobson, conversely, employs a saintly litmus test that marginalizes large swaths of his own party. He has redefined "traditional values," an essential ingredient for Republican victory, to mean illogical rigidity.
Californians, Dobson rationalizes, proved that values voters still matter, because "many who pulled the lever for the 'change' (Obama) espoused also pulled it for the stability provided by marriage as recognized for millennia in all civilized societies."
Actually, if California voters proved anything, it is that voters don't feel the need to vote Republican, even if they happen to recognize the stability provided by the millennia-long need to be hassled by a clingy do-gooder from the opposite sex.
And despite perceptions, Barack Obama did not support gay marriage. In fact, few national Democrats of note explicitly back gay marriage -- notwithstanding their demonizing conservatives. Democrats have made social issues irrelevant by simply ignoring them. Abortion may elicit passionate quarrels among online commentators, but on the ground, policy has scarcely stirred in decades.
Those Californians who voted for Obama and also against gay marriage signaled that social issues are, at the very least, of secondary political importance. Nationally, polls ranging from USA Today/Gallup to CBS News/New York Times to NBC News/Wall Street Journal to Fox News/Opinion Dynamics bear this out. Factors such as "improving the economy," "creating jobs" and "stabilizing the nation's financial institutions" were on the tops of voters' minds this time around, while values issues brought in the rear with other subjects Americans pretend to care about, such as "helping the environment."
Sure, there are citizens who oppose gay marriage not out of bigotry or irrational loathing but out of a sense of tradition and faith. The problem is that the Dobson wing hinders Republicans from offering any feasible counter-solutions. Dobson opposes not only man-on-man matrimony but also civil unions. He opposes adoption for gay couples. Let's face it; he opposes the existence of gays.
Good luck with that.
These are not so much ideologically "conservative" positions as they are moral injunctions. Dobson may grouse in conservative jargon about a court undermining the will of the people. But does anyone believe that Dobson will pound the dais similarly when judicial activism falls his way -- as it has on issues ranging from free speech to medical marijuana?
Aren't Republicans also (hypothetically) the party of limited government and individual freedom?
Dobson claims that Parker and other secular conservatives are trying to marginalize Christian voters, when, in effect, he has it backward. Poor Rudy Giuliani once dressed up as a woman. And Mitt Romney, yeah, he was born into a cult. And this one was divorced too many times, and the other one well, pleasing James Dobson can be a holy hassle.
No, evangelicals are not "ailing" the Republican Party, as Parker contends, but the acceptance of the traditional values wing should not be a prerequisite for being a "real" conservative.
Unless Jesus is going to rectify the stock market, Republicans are in for a lonely ride. And as long as the Dobson wing fools itself into believing political fortunes can be resuscitated by ruining Billy and Bobby's honeymoon, they are in for a decade-long surprise.
You mean like the founders of the Constitution and the fathers of the country???
Naw, we won't tar and feather you but we won't vote for you either...
The old axiom applies; 'if you don't stand for something, you may fall for anything'...
Take a look around...Look at the nations where God holds (held) the pre-eminent position...And compare those nations with the others...
What would this nation look like had God never been in the political mix??? I'm not kicking God out of politics just because some of you Republicans think you can do it better than God did...
I am only going to handle this one because the rest of what you have to say is from the same well. Your statement might be Biblical and rational but it is not in point of fact lawful.
Oppression of faith by law is one of the most grievous forms of oppression, it is not new or unique but instead normal. Nevertheless, allowing space for the peaceful, private practice of one's faith is a core value of the United States and is protected by the US as well as most of the Constitutions of the individual States.
The argument is and has always been the acceptable boundaries of religious expression in the public square and by extension the expression of preference of religious expression enforced by Act of the State which is by its nature coercive to the point of causing death of those who would defy the Law.
It was Christian sects that pressed for varying versions of the Secular vision of our government. This is because the differing sects being in control of State Legislatures were finding that this situation didn't promote the common good. And, even though the various religions having adherents in the US today may have been present in small numbers, these numbers didn't approximate anything like an actual voting block.
Today, the effective largest single voting block is the Secular Humanist rabble claiming to be nominal Christians but who have never crossed the door of a chapel or said a single prayer in their lives.
This is the result of the State establishing a "religion" called Secular Humanism as the official "neutral" non-religion.
However, this didn't work any more than any other attempt at finding a happy medium. This is because Secularism's attempt to rise above creed and establish shared norms was co-opted by functional atheists into being defined as the rejection of all religions and the concept of God as the source of values that support our society. Once, the standard became Secular Humanism = "Religion Neutral" rather than Religion Rejecting which it happens to be the current situation was made inevitable. This is because the State has the Power to Coerce all other philosophies out of the schools by the power of regulating the curriculum. Once a preferred "Religion" was selected all others have been on the wane.
Most faiths have responded by providing alternative Religious schools to handle the responsibility for religious education and fighting for the schools not to openly contradict their private instruction.
This isn't easy. Worse when you have a teacher who openly attempts evangelism no matter what faith they are selling.
The challenge is to provide a faith welcoming environment without allowing a faith coercing environment to occur. And this answer has not been found.
Just remember, it sounds neat to say Christian and see this as a great representative whole but just under the surface the sects are so wildly different as to press for relief from any other sect gaining control of the state's apparatus.
We say that we are founded on Judaeo-Christian values but even this is inaccurate. The first source is the British Common Law. Judeo-Christian values undergird much of the Common law. But, the founders specifically reached to Natural Law to cite a source for Rights even more basic than provided by the Common Law because the Common Law was based on the Divine Right of Kings and the Founders were specifically reaching back to Samuel and rejecting Kings and placing us back under Judges and the Law. Lastly, the founders adopted much of the Greek Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Placing much of our governance not in the realm of God and Faith but in the hands of humans working to find rational answers to the great majority of human problems.
The founders warned not to shut Faith out of the system, for this is the basis that all stands on. This is our error of recent years. But, reversing this error must be done carefully, in that the issues of Justice and Freedom can easily be lost in a rapid attempt to recapture God's place at the center. Yet recapture it we must. But this will not be done by law, but instead in the hearts of men. Where it always must be. Convention and norm are sufficient to provide for God's presence if a society wills it. And no law can provide a place for God that is not entirely not already existing before anyone considered setting this down.
The only fix needed now, is the identifying of Secular Humanism as a faith that must also stand back from the center.
I don’t think you are considering that those pushing gay marriage, unlimited abortion etc. aren’t content to let those issues be resolved at the lowest level.
Also, your description of the religious right is distorted and not realistic. I am one of those religious people, but can’t stand Huckabee because he’s a socialist.
“Simply stunning.....there are no other words for it. I never realized just how hated God is and how hated evangelicals are.”
It’s the same old story. Christians and Christianity has always had it’s enemies. One particularly powerful enemy has been around since that apple incident in the garden.
“Seems like we’re starting to get a lot of so-called anti-Evangelical Christian “conseratives’ on this web site lately.”
Yes. Interesting isn’t it? I wonder how many of them actually subscribe to what we would recognize as conservative/small government principles.
I can call myself the King and High Lord of India. My doing that doesn’t necessarily make it so.
“Conservatives with moral scruples will either take back the Republican Party, or the Republican Party will die.”
My money is on the latter.
Conservatives in general and Christians in particular are coming to the conclusion that they have little meaningful representation in either of the major political parties.
What you seem to be overlooking is that it is not presumed, at least in the eyes of the law, that life begins at any other time than at birth. I happen to think that life begins at conception but that view, and in the eyes of the law, is not universally accepted.
Bingo. Without the religious Right, the conservative cause is a backwater trend with zero influence and the Republican Party is a permanent minority of Rockefeller and Ford country club types who enjoy being lap dogs for congressional liberals.
That's right.
It's also right that the Democrats have figured out how to use the public face of political Christianity to unify the 70% of the voters who are NOT part of the religious right, and have been able to elect (again and again) extreme left-wing radicals using the "religious right" boogyman.
You religious right folks have at least SOME responsibility, in areas where you are not 51% of the voters (i.e., everywhere) to find common ground issues and to facilitate coalition-building, rather than to despise those issues and to do everything you can to break up coalitions.
You aren't strong enough to sustain your current rule or ruin politics.
Principled enough to avail himself of the same legislative process accessible to homosexuals, welfare leeches, race pimps, eco-nazis, feminist extremists, socialists, and atheists, yes.
What’s yer point? You believe me to be an infant because I’ve only been registered here since August? If not, then what?
We are a product of all that comes before us, not just the Bible. There are those who may claim slavery is acceptable because of references to it in the Bible. Are we to presume conservatives in China are that way because of Confucius? Must be so, or else Mao wouldn’t have spend so much time attempting to eradicate him from Chinese society.
My point about “real” Conservatives is a response to attitudes I have seen here. Tolerance isn’t about a lack of principles, it’s about being secure enough in your own principles that you don’t feel the necessity to inflict them on everybody else.
Accepted. No one is speaking of oppression of faith, nor has faith been generally oppressed here.
Nevertheless, allowing space for the peaceful, private practice of one's faith is a core value of the United States and is protected by the US as well as most of the Constitutions of the individual States.
Again, accepted. The key provision being private. That does not suppose the exclusion of all faith in the public square, nor does that exclude the teaching of faith in the schools. Those that are of different faith are free to opt out. They are not supposed to remove the needs of the many for the demands of the few.
It was Christian sects that pressed for varying versions of the Secular vision of our government.
There we part ways to a degree, perhaps. I agree in part- I have always said that libertarianism (classical liberalism) is a design that requires a moral/religious people, and that a moral/religious people who wish to remain free to worship require libertarianism- That design in the American system was matched and founded in the Judeo-Christian ethic.
In the sense that all that matches up with your statement, we are probably fairly in agreement. Where we are likely to part ways is in the supposition that the combination can be changed over time.
Today, the effective largest single voting block is the Secular Humanist rabble claiming to be nominal Christians but who have never crossed the door of a chapel or said a single prayer in their lives.
That is wholly incorrect. the largest single voting block is still the Conservative Right BY FAR, and it's largest single component by far is the Christian Right. They are 30m on a bad day, and if they are properly motivated, can swell to upwards of 60m without any other part of the Conservative Base. That is approaching 1/3 of the entire active electorate. Nobody beats those numbers.
This is the result of the State establishing a "religion" called Secular Humanism as the official "neutral" non-religion.
Secular Humanism is the invention of the liberal left, a direct product of Communism, and it is their replacement of the Christian values that once made this country great. It is not desired by the 65% Conservative population of the nation. Otherwise, they would allow school vouchers and people would be free to invest in what they believe.
However, this didn't work any more than any other attempt at finding a happy medium.
That is because there is no happy medium. As I said, "amorality", the great "moral-neutral" is as big a myth as the great "middle" that McCain't was supposed to pick up.
The challenge is to provide a faith welcoming environment without allowing a faith coercing environment to occur. And this answer has not been found.
Nor will it be. There is ONE God over this Nation. There is ONE faith at it's root. Cut the root and it will die. That is what is happening.
Just remember, it sounds neat to say Christian and see this as a great representative whole but just under the surface the sects are so wildly different as to press for relief from any other sect gaining control of the state's apparatus.
That is a bit silly. We have a template to go by. Prior to the 60's we did not have a secular nation. Neither did we have the theocracy y'all are so scared us Christians are imposing. The obvious fix is Reaganism.
The founders warned not to shut Faith out of the system, for this is the basis that all stands on. This is our error of recent years. But, reversing this error must be done carefully, in that the issues of Justice and Freedom can easily be lost in a rapid attempt to recapture God's place at the center. Yet recapture it we must. But this will not be done by law, but instead in the hearts of men. Where it always must be.
I cannot agree. Until the 10 Commandments return to their accustomed place in front of every courthouse, and upon every school wall, Until prayers to Jehovah grace the public square as they once did (and as they still do at every NASCAR event), until those prayers are dedicated in the Name of Christ as they once were, There will be *no* healing in this land. There will be no justice until we turn back to Him from Whom ALL justice flows. There will be no Mercy until we return to Him Whose very breath IS mercy.
Convention and norm are sufficient to provide for God's presence if a society wills it. And no law can provide a place for God that is not entirely not already existing before anyone considered setting this down.
Not according to God. And not according to our Declaration of Independence either. The whole premise of our nation's existence is in deference to the higher power of God's Courts. There is no room for secularism. There is no room for many gods. There is only room for ONE. THE Creator. In reverence, they didn't speak his Name, but the ONE they called to witness our formation was Jehovah. Without Him alone, according to our Declaration, we have no endowed rights at all- The whole premise of our limited government, designed to protect our God given rights is ceded to the courts of men, or worse, to the pantheon of false gods.
There is nothing for it but to put it back. That is the necessity of Reagan Conservatism. And the perfect balance that you are seeking will not be found anywhere else. It cannot, without destroying this country and rebuilding it differently as the Communists seek to do.
The balance must be found in friendly alliance between libertarianism and the Judeo-Christian ethic, as it once was, and as it is found in Reagan Conservatism. That forms the proper conscience and balance that must be the beginning (as it was in the beginning- The Constitution and the Christians). If those two are in balance the rest will come. Fiscal responsibility, honorable war, properly limited government, and properly limited religion too.
That is what Reagan set out to do. He rightly believed that each of the conservative factions conserved a piece of the American birthright. He also rightly gave the Christian Right a place at that table. For the first time in a very long time, all the pieces were together under one banner, ready to put America back together. Had it not been hijacked by the moderates it offered the best hope ever of resolution.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Word to the wise, David: When you’re ostensibly a libertarian columnist, and you write something that reads like Bill Press trying to write conservative, you’ve gone horribly, horribly wrong somewhere.
That is why it demands a Constitutional remedy- Never to be altered again by the audacity of idiots assuming to build law on false pretenses and the vacuous nodding assent of pompous black robed vampires.
It's just another endorsement and most endorsements mean very little. People think for themselves--unless you're a Democrat and then you do what the MSM tells you is the hip thing to do.
Speak for yourself. I am also a religious conservative and I will be voting Republican consistently as that is the ONLY way to advance my agenda. I am not going to take my ball and go home if my candidate does not win a primary.
I expect more from my church than my political party. My church deals with heavenly matters and my political party deals with earthly matters.
Do I wish everyone would see it my way and vote the way I want them to? Of course, but we have to deal with the imperfections we have on this earth or be relegated to irrelevancy.
I will always vote for the lesser of two evils. To not do that is to vote for the greater of two evils and I see no virtue in that. I do not want to lose.
Congratulations for taking such a common sense position.
Why do you want to be a whiny victim? You sound like a liberal.
I do not feel like anyone in the Republican party has told me to sit in the back of the bus. We all have equal access to become part of the process. The RNC for instance, is built from the ground up. If you're not happy with that, then perhaps you need to worry more about getting more of your people involved at the local level.
Trust me, they welcome all participants.
I was under the impression that it was fiscal conservatives who didn’t turn out for McCain. Social conservatives voted for him despite their misgivings.
You are becoming rare. I can’t think of a single Republican I know anymore. And that includes me. Eight years ago, everyone I know was a Republican... Republican roles are down by some 30%, and those aren’t mushie middlers either.
I will not be back until Republicans return to Reagan (fat chance of that). In the mean time, I will vote for Conservatives where I find them, Democrat, Republican, or otherwise, and will look for a more amenable party. No more pulling the lever for the big rhinestone R. That brings nothing different from the liberal left, whatsoever.
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