An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
-- from "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" by Bob Dylan
TIME ran a recent article titled "My Problem with Christianism", which discusses how the religious right has assumed complete ownership, understanding, and dominance over the politics of faith.
From the article:
Faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will."
Andrew Sullivan, the author of the piece, advocates a new term: Christianism. Allow the term Christianity to belong to the people of faith who follow Christ, and allow the term Christianism to belong to the politics of faith and using Christ's teachings as a political crutch.
Personally, I don't think changing semantics will do much good - but Sullivan's larger point, about how not all group of any sort of faith belong to any sort of political party - is unquestionably true. As the Dylan song I quoted above points out, we can make it if we dodge the political and religious rhetoric games laid before us by preachers, teachers, and even the President of the United States.
How, then, do we combat the far-right rhetoric flung at people of faith? For one, we must expose those on the far-right for what they are: religious bigots who worship greed and power much more than they practice kindness and compassion.
And with that, I give you the Texas Freedom Network's latest report: The Anatomy of Power: Texas and the Religious Right in 2006. The comprehensive report details anything and everything you need to know about the political movements of the religious right here in Texas. Print it, read it, read it again, and send it out to everyone you know.
We took that bite from the tree, so it's in our nature to seek knowledge. This report gives you the knowledge you need to make sure future generations of Texans are allowed the same freedom of religion our founders gave us, and the same free will given to every person since the genesis of mankind. |
