Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee in a cold Spring Sunday.
True believers.
Imagine a world where Christian communities and their religious leaders tried to impose their system of beliefs upon others. Wait… Just look out the window; you don’t have to imagine it. It’s happening right here. It’s called theocracy and it’s being espoused by many politicians. It hides in plain sight.
While the technocrats may be atheists, for the most part, they provide cover for the religious motivations of the fascist kleptocrats who are pushing the theocratic agenda. They are all wrapped into one, as long as their interests align, but the truth is the religious aspects of their agenda, although mingled with more mundane ones, are obvious. From abortion to gay marriage, from the women’s right to vote to denying transgender expression, they try to impose their views on others.
Western societies have found their way to secular living, relegating our predominant religion to the personal sphere but, like everything else prone to excesses, the separation of church and state needs constant scrutiny and checks to prevent the insidious return to a religion based political system, in which the law is subjected to the interpretation of “holy scripture”. In 1954 the words “under God” were added to the pledge of allegiance.
Although it may be argued that each individual may be thinking of their own God when saying it, the implication is the nation is united under one God, even if “one” is missing from the text. It was a small step destined to become a giant leap for Christianity in the United States. You can decline to end your swearing in a court of law by stating “so help me God” if you’re not religious, or affirm your oath of office on something other than a bible, but that’s an individual perk.
Collectively, we remain “one nation under (one) God”. Many of us say the pledge of allegiance in the morning and join a pro choice rally in the afternoon, oblivious to this fact. As if being a Christian is no longer a matter of faith or it allows for a selective approach to the dogmas upon which religion is founded. Millions of people in the West have become accustomed to calling themselves Christians because they attend mass on Sunday. Basically that’s what “under God” means to them.
This subconscious complicity in the acceptance of religion into the political fabric of Western societies not only undermines the separation of church and state but it allows the skewed perspective many have of what religion itself is and, by extension, projects that perspective onto all religions, aided and abetted by notions of tolerance that are as misguided as “under God on Sundays” is.
This explains not why so many have no problem taking to the streets in support of those whose religion has achieved political predominance, but it does explain why many others who don’t participate in such activities still accept them as protected speech. They often excuse those excesses as cultural features to be respected. Sure enough, 9 out of 10 times they do demonstrate against the excesses of “their religion”, against the God they live “under”, even if just on Sundays.
Not even considering the violence extreme Christian beliefs provokes, which is very small when compared to the one provoked by extreme Islamic beliefs, the fact many oppose a Christian take over of of our society at the exact same time they promote Sharia Law abiding systems is astounding. How many abortion clinics were bombed? How many doctors who provided abortion were murdered? The violent manifestation of Christian extremism is never excused by “cultural norms”.
The vast majority of Christians condemns those terrorist actions by people who share their religion because they think they can do that without sharing their beliefs. The Sunday church goers and the self flagellating fanatics are not the same and yet they’re all Christians. The misconception of what religion means and actually is makes us tolerate excessive manifestations that eventually lead to the bombing of abortion clinics or legislation meant to extinguish them.
The idea there is an Islamic counterpart to our Sunday morning Christianity is preposterous, but that is exactly what rests on the Western subconscious tolerance for the intolerable. We project our idea of religion onto others and when that becomes ridiculously impossible we turn to “cultural differences” as an excuse. As if we should tolerate a culture that kept the practice of human sacrifice for hundreds of years up to this day.
Our colonial guilt runs so deep that we see the defense of our highest moral values as perverse as that of our worst amoral ideals. This is why otherwise perfectly rational people can’t bring themselves to condemn the very same things in others they so clearly oppose in themselves. Unfortunately, this lack of moral courage and clarity affects some of the politicians who are at the forefront of the fight against the rise of fascism.
Knowing this and the stakes we are up against we, who see both, must find a way to work in this environment, together with them. Be that as it may, we cannot make excuses for them or pretend it’s not a dangerous path to take. We need to make clear, through our words and our deeds, that no extreme religious beliefs are acceptable and no mix between religion and politics can be tolerated. This includes faith based actions in a public context. Like praying.
These evangelical religious rituals we are witnessing in the White House are the exact same as those performed by rows of believers lined up on the street praying towards Mecca. They are both intolerable insertions of religion in the public sphere, meant to normalize and impose the practice of religious rituals in public as an integral part of society. The imposition of religious beliefs will follow. If you oppose some you must oppose all, especially if you only go to church on Sunday.
