By Eric Blauer
Faith and politics go together like a dog and fleas these day and there’s a whole lot of furious scratching going on, but it’s a sign of a really bad condition.
The more I hear politicians talk about their faith, the more I find myself cringing. I’m longing for a Thomas Jefferson type these days. I know It runs counter to every good evangelical pastor prompt I’ve been told to uphold, but my skin crawls when I hear faith being brought up from politician pulpits. I feel like it’s some form of quasi-religious jujitsu and they are using the weight of my own faith against me. I am tired of being associated with the narrow political straightjackets one gets if they claim to be somewhere in the conservative spectrum.
I think the fungus among us is the direct result of the rotting two party, one size must fit all political system we are forced to endure. We’ve been fermenting a polarizing, pandering, pontificating soundbite culture and now, we have to hold our noses and chew or bail on yet another election.
When I look at the front runners and all the character issues, scandals and stomach churning, noxious rhetoric, I can’t help but feel like the MTV & Big Brother generation is just reaping what they have sown. We’ve inoculated ourselves with decades of boneheaded banality and now it’s a circus and the clowns want the crown. What kind of world is unfolding where comedians are the best political commentators and presidential speeches and debates are hard to distinguish from Saturday Night Live sketches?
I feel like Alice and I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, everything is becoming grossly exaggerated, I can’t tell where we are and what time it is? The cultural table has been set by madmen and there’s a dank ganja haze being pumped out of the media outlets leaving people dazed and confused, sleepy and famished. We have maniacal leaders running around swinging swords and shouting “Off with their Heads!,” it’s craziness and yet, it’s our bizarre reality.
I want a candidate that has a moral compass but isn’t looking to replace the constitution with the Bible, Quran or Dawkins Journals. I want someone who understands the beautiful tensions of separation of church and state and yet isn’t working to scrub out the traditions and memories of the religiously pluralistic foundations of this country. We can be great without photoshopping out all our ancestors and editing out every mention of a non-secular world view. Deism was a wonderful balance that seemed to work just fine for drawing together this republic. Forgive me spin doctors if the New Coke/Crystal Pepsi crew doesn’t win my vote, it’s classic for a reason.
I love the tone and perspective in Jefferson’s Bill for Religious Freedom from the Virginia Legislature. Jefferson’s bill was passed as the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, Jan. 16, 1786, it said: “Almighty God hath created the mind free…All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments…tend only to begat habits of hypocrisy…and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in His Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.”
No Cathedral or Caliphate throne…just freedom, governed by reason, justice and law in the spirit of love, treating others as you would wish to be treated.
When I visited Washington D.C. my favorite site to see was the Jefferson memorial, the quotes on that memorial moved me and I think we need to reintroduce ourselves to them again these days:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.
“Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens…are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion…No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.”
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
When I look at all the bullish bravado and pathetic paternalism pushed on us these days, I find myself muttering Jefferson’s favorite quote as a political mantra: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
This is the America I believe in and yet, this election season it appears that I am a rebellious infidel.
If only we had more rebellious infidels!!
Takes one to know one 😉
Thank you for this. I think I understand better how Christianity can coexist with political Libertarianism now.
I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or sincerity?
I believe it’s sincere.
It was meant to be sincere, if that helps.