I think that America’s organized religions, if they ever intended to serve Americans, would support a clear wall of separation between religious and political life. The line between theology and political ideology in America has been progressively blurred in the 21st Century; this process began in the latter 20th Century, of course. The erosion of the separation of church and state has brought us to the present threat to freedom that we call Christian Nationalism.
This rise of Christian Nationalism has its own kind of theological irony. The very same voices that have decried Sharia Law, the imposition of Islamic religious tenants as law, seek to impose Christian religious tenants in their stead. What the fuck is that? Judaism finds no sin or violation of the law in abortion, but evangelical Christianity does. A third of Americans claim no religion; they are agnostics, atheists, and others unaligned with any organized religion.
Do we, unaffiliated with organized religion not matter? Is there no “filibuster” that requires that at least 60% of Americans agree to the decrees of a Christian majority? Is that not the essence of the very Christian majority’s “Tyranny of the Majority?”
I am not a Christian. I am a non-theist; I do not believe in a God. I live in a moral framework that has at its center what many religions would recognize as The Golden Rule. That framework does not require a God or an afterlife or reward or punishment. It simply requires an understanding that we are all here to be one another’s beneficiaries or victims. Pick one.
The Americans who call themselves Christians, as I see them, are members of an Old Testament cult. They want to the sinner at least punished if not stoned to death. They are the least Christ-like of people who claim to follow Christ. I care less about their hypocrisy than I care about the damage that they threaten to inflict on the poor, the hungry, the least fortunate and marginalized, the non-believers, and anyone who will not bow to their self-proclaimed dominion over the rest of us.
I do not trust in their God.
I am a Christian and I do believe in a God. My belief is mine. This has nothing to do with how a country should be governed. My religion should not dictate the laws of our country nor should any person’s personal faith or those with no faith or religious practice. Our country was founded on religious freedom. Which is why Abbot’s response to legislating anti abortion laws during the governor’s debate terrified me, once again. He’s position was that he was Catholic…yadayadayada… I don’t care what or if you have a religion, a women should have bodily autonomy as any other human walking this planet.
The end,
Ann
I’m with you, Ann. I recall a bit of wisdom from Viktor Frankel who wrote that, If Life has Meaning, then so too must Death. What that meaning is, no one can tell us. We must each discover its meaning for ourselves, and when we finally understand it, that meaning binds us to certain obligations.
To me, the most compelling part of that idea is the notion that no one can tell us the meanings of Death and Life. We must each find them for ourselves. At the moment that we let others tell us those meanings, we have lost ourselves.