By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Fresh off an attack on the legitimacy of public education and now surging in the polls, Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum couldn’t hold back the religious zeal. President Obama’s agenda is motivated by things not quite Christian the former senator from Pennsylvania charged in a recent campaign stop in Ohio.“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” he said. “But no less a theology.” My, my, what could the homeschooling Roman Catholic mean? Surely not the Big Lie that the President is a Muslim, an idea that served as the red meat of Tea Party attack dogs since Obama won the White House. No, perish the thought. The darling of the far right simply meant that the President was “imposing his values on the church, and I think that’s wrong.” Sure, just a philosophical and scholarly difference of opinion on health care policy and the First Amendment, coincidentally stuck smack down in the middle of a presidential campaign. Santorum even generously conceded that –wink, wink,– “if the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.”
Like a good limbo dance, one wonders how low Santorum can go in bending over backwards to appease the unappeasable right-wing fundamentalist base, and, in this year’s Republican race to the bottom campaign, that’s saying something. We thought “Idea Man” Newt Gingrich was the show stopper with his kids janitorial corps, but we then looked on wide-eyed as Constitutional scholar, Rick Perry, revealed to us that everything from public schools to Medicare is unconstitutional in his book. Couple that with his call for Texas Secession and we thought we’d seen everything. Not hardly, we now have Rick Santorum, whose presidential campaign is beginning to look like a papal conclave. All that’s missing is some shiny red satin beanies and the “smoke watch” parties around the Sistine Chapel’s chimney.
You would think that a guy with both an undergrad and law degree from Penn State could find a copy of the Constitution or maybe just a book on Thomas Jefferson. Apparently, they are as scarce around Happy Valley as babysitting jobs for former Penn State coach and accused child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Let me help out. Article IV, Paragraph three of the U.S. Constitution provides that:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state, who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it’s not a widespread term, but they’re certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with powerful right-wing interests, including corporate interests, and made tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power.
Hedges sees the effort as a Mass Movement and one he deems “the most
dangerous in American History.” The former New York Times war correspondent also sees an ominous endgame:
I mean, essentially, when you follow the logical conclusion of the ideology they preach, there really are only two options for people who do not submit to their authority. And it’s about submission, because these people claim to speak for God and not only understand the will of God, but be able to carry it out. Either you convert, or you’re exterminated. That’s what the obsession with the End Times with the Rapture, which, by the way, is not in the Bible, is about. It is about instilling — it’s, of course, a fear-based movement, and it’s about saying, ultimately, if you do not give up control to us, you will be physically eradicated by a vengeful God.
Hedges echoes the Founders in his concerns about the threat of take over of secular government by theocratic factions. No less an expert on religious factionalism than Thomas Jefferson warned us about elevating ecclesiastical law over democracy:
[If] the nature of … government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope. (Thomas Jefferson, to Pierrepont, Edwards, July 1801, quoted from Eyler Robert Coates, Sr., “Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Freedom of Religion”)
In a sense, Santorum’s comments may be spot on. Obama does come from a philosophical position far different that Santorum and his ilk. While Santorum bases his politics in Biblical revelation, Obama comes from the perspective of the rule of law and reason. As most political observers over the centuries have noted, this is a collision course with religiosity. It was James Madison who deduced the antagonism in the American context:
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
Amen, Brother Madison. Amen.
Can fundamentalist religion and secular democracy co-exist, or are they on an inevitable collision course? What do you think?
Source: New York Times
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Great clip Elaine! My feeling exactly whenever I read about Santorum!
OS:
“May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?”
~Voltaire (Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740)
Alan Watts once said that (people like Jim) worship the uncrucified Christ. They prefer to follow the man and not the teachings or example he set.
Another “no taker” to the challenge. Oh Jimmy, we hardly knew Ye?
mespo727272
looks like Jim’s last post:
Jim: How often does he pray? How often does he read his Bible? Does he tithe? Does he witness? Does he attend church regularly? Is his life dedicated to serving Christ?
is a tacit admission that Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and Reagan et al, were not Christians and that Jimmy Carter has been our only real Christian President in decades.
Speaking of exploding heads:
Good luck Mespo!
rafflaw:
I usually agree but I like to get these quotes out once in a while. I am anxious to see if Jim accepts my challenge. I’ve never had a taker yet.
Jim:
Now that the quote volleys are over, let’s talk rationally. Is there any proof you would accept that could convince you that the religion you adhere to is a false one? We know there are literally thousands of religions — even hundreds of Christian sects –each making claims of exclusive truth about the meaning and nature of the universe and man’s relationship to the Creator. Evidently most, if not all but one, must be wrong. The law of averages says yours is likely to be wrong as well.
What proof would it take to change your mind? I am happy to tell you my criteria for accepting your world view if you tell me yours for rejecting it.
I challenge you.
Mespo,
don’t confuse the true believers with the facts.
Jim:
I see it’s a battle of quotes– scores of years of welll-settled history be damned. Ok here’s a few to make JIm’s head explode:
Jefferson:
1.I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789
2.They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
3.History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813
4. The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
5. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
6. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
7. It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
Madison:
1.Nothwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov’ & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov’ of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together; [James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt]
2.An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against……Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance……..religion and government will exist in greater purity, without (rather) than with the aid of government. [James Madison in a letter to Livingston, 1822, from Leonard W. Levy- The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First Amendment,pg 124]
3.That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some; and to their eternal infamy, the clergy can furnish their quota of impas for such business…” [James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr., Jauary 1774]
4.It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all Sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal & entire freedom…. We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov. [James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt]
5.[I]t may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov’t from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others. [James Madison, in a letter to Rev Jasper Adams spring 1832, from James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited by Robert S. Alley, pp. 237-238]
6.Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects. [James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr., Jauary 1774]
7.What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. [Pres. James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
8.Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. [James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
9….Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. [James Madison, spoken at the Virginia convention on ratifying the Constitution, June 1778]
10.It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspiciously corroboates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho’ bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE. [James Madison, as quoted in Robert L. Maddox: Separation of Church and State; Guarantor of Religious Freeedom]
11.Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man:To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. [James Madison, according to Leonard W. Levy, Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy, New York: Schocken Books, 1981, p. xii.]
12.The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state. [James Madison, 1819, in Boston, Why The Religious Right is Wrong about the Separation of Church and State]
13.The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, posesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state. [James Madison in a letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819]
14.Strongly guarded… is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.
15.Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history [ttempts where religious bodies had already tried to encroach on the government]. [James Madison, Detached Memoranda, 1820]
16.Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?
17.(15) Because finally, the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consult the Declaration of Rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basic and foundation of government, it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis. [James Madison, Section 15 of A Memorial and Remonstrance, June 20, 1785, frequently misquoted to imply religion as the basis of gov’t]
18.We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion, or the duty which we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man: and that it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. [James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance to the Assemby of Virginia]
19….several of the first presidents, including Jefferson and Madison, generally refused to issue public prayers, despite importunings to do so. Under pressure, Madison relented in the War Of 1812, but held to his belief that chaplains shouldn’t be appointed to the military or be allowed to open Congress. [Richard Shenkman, I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode Or Not]
20.Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. [James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1,1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco:Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37]
21.No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet whenever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy. [James Madison in a letter to Thomas Jefferson Oct-Nov 1787]
22.To the Baptist Churches on Neal’s Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself [James Madison, Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811]
23.The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. [James Madison, 1803? Origin questionable]
24.The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity. [James Madison, Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821]
Not all but enough to establish Jefferson and Madison regarded folks like Jim as quite batty and a perversion of the simple teachings of Jesus that were perverted by organized Christianity. Also proof that this belief in superstition and unwarranted certainty in Christian teachings had no place in the government of the nation.
Too many draughts would leave him depthless … and in need of troll money for additional … wait for it …. drafts!
Maybe Jim has had too many “draughts.”
Gene,
A republican troll posing as a Christian … no principles at all in that mix.
Blouise,
He must be. There are several different drafts of the letter that are posthumously published, but the one I quoted was the only relevant one; the actual letter as sent.
Gene,
Was Jim relying on a draft or just daft?
And now for the anti-Obama riff … right on the heels of the anti-Muslim riff
Pish-posh … a Republican troll posing as a Christian … no wonder he didn’t make any sense.
Good times!
Jim,
I see that you like to sit in judgment of other people.
Matt. 7:1 “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
Jim,
I conveyed the Danbury letter in its entirety as it was sent.
http://www.jareddeangelis.com/letter-to-danbury-baptists.html
If you want to rely upon drafts not sent, that’s simply an indication of your dishonesty and willingness to rewrite history to suit your theocratic agenda.
I love Charlie Pierce!
*****
Young Ross Digs into the Santorum Pile
By Charles P. Pierce
2/22/12
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/ross-douthat-on-rick-santorum-6814010
Excerpt:
Ross Douthat, who, on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, regularly speaks for every woman’s uterus whether it wants him to or not, is fighting a rising mancrush on Rick Santorum, who recently has been roaming the landscape, talking like a nut, and have I mentioned recently what a dick he is? Santorum, not Douthat, although…. (This, of course, is not the first time that young Ross has brought his battle against temptation into the street for us all to go, “Really, dude, TMI,” and then walk off giggling.)
Anyway, as best as I can decipher from this new “Campaign Stop” of his, young Ross really, really wants to vote for Rick Santorum to be president. But he also knows somewhere in his Harvard-celibacy-sharpened intellect that America may not yet be ready to be ruled by someone who’ll try and take the name “Pius” on Inauguration Day. This has placed young Ross in something of a quandary. America is so ready for a revanchist Catholic religious fanatic who used to be Jack Abramoff’s senatorial cabana boy that America may well hand Barack Obama a sweeping mandate similar to the one America handed Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But, later, boy, that’s when the real reckoning will come!
Alas, we continue….
“If one were to invent a Republican politician whose background and beliefs were ideally suited to a general-election campaign against Barack Obama, that dream candidate would share a number of qualities with Rick Santorum.”
(And then one would examine the original plans for The Mechanism and discover that, somehow, a 600-year old Dominican flagellant had accidentally got caught in chamber and… the transformation is complete!)
“He would have a strong personal and biographical connection to blue-collar whites, a bloc of voters whose support President Obama has always had difficulty winning.”
(And who, the last time he ran for office, as an incumbent in his home state, threw him out of office by double-digits in favor of Bob Casey, Jr., the walking proof that tedium has a genetic basis.)
“His record would be conservative enough to excite the Republican Party’s base, but leavened with enough moderation and even populism on economic issues to reassure anxious middle-income voters that the Republican Party doesn’t just exist to serve Wall Street and the rich.”
(Actually, by any reasonable measure, his record is that of a crazed anti-choice fanatic, and meddler in the Schiavo case, and a man given to lectures about the evil influence of The Father Of Lies on the National Basketball Association: “The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.” This is a president? His record is what’s wrong with your party, Ross.)
(And can we please have a better definition of “populism” than the one embodied in Rick Santorum, which can be fairly summarized as, “Gulling the rubes so that I’m in a position to lower the corporate tax rate to zero and eliminate the estate tax, all the while maintaining my position as a ‘ho for what’s left of the K Street Project”? Thank you.)