One of the main reasons that I support a robust separation of church and state is that I do not want the Religious Right to be able wield the state’s instruments of force and fraud. The Religious Right is comprised of pitiable dupes led by Arminian and Darbyite heretics, and their version of Christianity bears as little resemblance to mine as the Aztec cult of Quetzalcoatl. I regard these heretics as one of the greatest threats to liberty in the world today.
Their heresy leads them to take a keen interest in the “culture” since some “cultures” are thought to be more conducive to the continual works that men must do to earn salvation. The proper “culture” will help to bring about a world without sin where no temptation will cause any of them to stumble and fall from grace. This heresy is convenient for power seekers, whereas Christianity predicated on grace is a predicate for human liberation.
But “culture” is an anthropological concept that encompasses the sum total of all norms, actions, values, transactions etc, that may be observed in a human population. Its inclusiveness and amorphousness have rendered it useless and outré in anthropology itself, but, like so many outdated social scientific concepts, it has filtered into lay usage. When the heretics say they are interested in culture and claim a legitimate role for government in regulating it, they are claiming interest in and authority over that sum total as enacted by individuals. This is also known as totalitarianism.
It is nothing less than a totalitarian state that will satisfy the heretics. As far as I am concerned, it is entirely prudent to resist them on every front and at any level, even the seemingly trivial.
It is the heretics who have declared a “Culture War”, and victory in it for them means total control over the “culture”. i.e. everything. It is one thing to prefer A to B and to let the “cultural marketplace” decide which will have a wider distribution. But the heretics do not want us to be able to choose lest we choose the “wrong” thing. They cannot abide marketplaces of any kind and will ultimately seek to direct every communication and transaction and private thought of everyone.
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6 comments:
From where I sit, the outrages and sins of the Religious Left are no less egregious.
John,
Maybe so, but as far as I can tell the religious left is not as influential politically and does not appear to have as much of an interest in running my life as their counterparts on the right.
Affirmative Action, Political Correctness/Censorship, and Judicial Activism affect us all, at least that's the way I see it.
John,
I don't see those coming out of church groups. In any event Political correctness is mainly private pressure and comes from all directions, and right wing judges are as activist as left wing judges, often more so. Affirmative action, hmmm. I have never given that one much thought but I suppose that someone of faith could advance the principle with a religious angle. I've just never seen it done.
Perhaps I'm wrong and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Rev. Al Sharpton did not speak as religious leaders who wished to influence politics and culture.
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