Tag Archives: fundamentalism

by

He Came, They Saw, Everybody Vomited

In case you hadn’t heard, most all of Ragin’ Ricky’s momentum has collapsed. He’s now mired in the muck of fundamentalist/right-wingery wackoism that envelopes his persona. People are not amused.

Rick seems rather blithely unaware of what all the fuss is about. He’s never changed. It’s just that never before have many people listened. Now they are, and folks are puzzled, dumbfounded, and scratchin’ their noggins. What in the world is this man talking about?

Now I’d be the first to admit that I haven’t looked at Rick’s  background that carefully, and frankly I don’t intend to, since he is but another flash in the pan, and I don’t expect him to garner the nomination, though it would be a hoot and three-quarters if he did.

But I know what he is and what he means, as well as I know how the GOP elites operate–and believe me, ALL of these fools are GOP elites, who are quite aware of who they are speaking to and what in reality they are saying, coded up as it is.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m reading Robert Altemeyer’s book The Authoritarians. This is largely about those who follow the demagogic types such as Santorum and Gingrich, and the ever irrelevant Ms. Sarah. Two things that go hand in glove is fundamentalism and being a high Right-Wing Authoritarian. (Remember to be a High RWA means you like authority and place being a good little soldier very high on your list. You tend to identify with your group, stick to your own kind, have a strong identification with authority, feel aggression towards “others” , have poor reasoning abilities, be self-righteous, and a strong tendency to be dogmatic, meaning you don’t care about facts, you are just right.)

Ricky is clearly a RWA. He has publicly stated that President Kennedy’s “faith speech” to Protestant church leaders “made him sick.” He does not believe in a separation of church and state. He claims that this means that only secularists can participate in government. This is clearly not the case, but this is what he would wish his followers to believe. What Kennedy and others meant and mean is that one doesn’t refer to the tenets of their faith in order to decide matters of public interest.

In other words, as a Catholic, I would not ban birth control because my church claims that it is sinful to use it.

Ricky claims he would not either, but here is where it gets sneaky. Ricky wants to do that, but figures he pretty much can’t, but he sure as heck can fund any number of faux studies which set out to prove that contraceptives present some medical and psychological dangers to women. He would do everything he could behind the scenes to drum up the “evidence”  that would allow him eventually to support appropriate legislation that would limit certain types of contraception and certain methods of dissemination. Getting rid of Planned Parenthood is a good example of that beginning.

One thing that is clear from studies done on those who score high on Authoritarian testing: they have difficulty in rational thinking. Let me explain. Let’s use the syllogism:

  • All fish live in water
  • Sharks live in water
  • Sharks are fish

Now, the RWA will tell you, to a much higher degree, that this syllogism is correct. It is not of course, and most people could quite quickly see that. But high RWA’s see that the result is correct, i.e., sharks are fish, and the means of getting there is irrelevant to them.

Knowing this fact makes the life of elite GOP folks ever so much easier. They simply connect what the believe the Tea Mob believes is true: (gas prices are too high) to any referent they wish (Obama is repressing oil production in this country (an utter falsehood, but this doesn’t matter). The TeaMOB® will faithfully repeat it ad nauseam and become increasingly belligerent while doing so.

Now Rick knows that fundamentalists (of which he is one ardently) tend to lose their fervor when they attend college. This is true, and is well documented. Their RWA scores drop a good 10% on average as well. Rick hates this, as do most of the Righty-tighties. And they BLAME the left. And so they BLAME the universities which they claim are chock full of left/radical/socialist/commies who are indoctrinating their children in secularist awfulness.

Thus Rick says that the President is a snob for wanting all kids to have the opportunity to go to college. Fact: kids who go to college aren’t as fundamentalist as when they went in. Referent: Radical leftist university indoctrination. The truth? The kids lose their fundamentalism not so much based on what professors teach them, or books offered them, but more from the bull sessions they engage in at night in the dorm with kids from other countries, other cultures, and other lifestyles. These are the new things they have never been subjected to. They were taught to avoid them, distrust them, and that they were bad. And they find, heck, they’re just regular folks!

Of course there is more than just pure desire on Rick’s part to “save the children”. Saving them means keeping them non-logical thinkers who follow the authority, and accept the false syllogisms. This is the base that the GOP now counts on.

Of course, the problem with this all, is that in order to placate the base, one has to feed them the red meat they desire, and in doing so, the vast middle goes, “wha? THE F**K” is he talking about?

And they sigh, drop their heads, turn, and walk away.

And another PO-10-shall savior of our Republic, bites the dust.

And the winner is:

Related articles
by

Read It and Weep, But Dammit, Read IT

Occasionally, I’ve been accused of being a bit, how shall we say, fanatical when it comes to the issue of fundamentalism. I would argue that fanatical is a bit too strong, let’s just say I have a basic understanding that this mindset is both in serious error and dangerous.

I’ve had occasion to share my views a number of times, and engaged in numerous frustrating conversations with atheists (who now portray most all Christians as such) and Tea Party adherents. The results are always the same. It’s talking to a brick wall.

I have always wondered why religious fundamentalists find such a ready home in the Republican party. I think I now know. In the end, all faith, fundamentalist or otherwise, comes down to faith–the belief in that which is not proven. It is believed. The difference between mainstream religious folks is that to some degree, faith is rational, based on a series of logical presuppositions, logically worked through and aligned with others in a mosaic which is called a theology which pretty much “hangs together” in a coherent, logical order.

The fundamentalist, while insisting that the Bible must be accepted as literally true in all its parts, selectively chooses some parts to the exclusion of others, and moreover, thinks that faith means denying the rational real world and its discoveries. It allows one, therefore, to deny evolution, deny the importance of man-made global warming, and advocate patriarchal systems as “bible based”.

Faith becomes a banner to be waved in the face of reason. The GOP, or parts of it, realized this, at least in some intuitive sense, and realized that such faith could be turned to their advantage. Thus today we have working class white folks screaming that we must reduce taxes on the rich, and remove each and every impediment to how business operates,  because “free markets” are the key to everyone’s success. This in the face of concrete and overwhelming evidence that it does not.

Faith in the truth of what is not truthful or believable is the hallmark of fundamentalism. It works as well in politics as it works in religion.

An article in AlterNet makes all this depressingly clear. Written by a former Republican Congressional staffer, it brings together three books that have pointed in this direction and laid out the roadmap. Two of the three books are available to you. One is, unbelievably, offered free online by its author, a Canadian psychology professor, Robert Altemeyer, who has done his research in the field of authoritarianism. You can download it as a PDF file.

The other, by Max Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, can be obtained through Amazon for $2.01 plus S&H.

The depressing part, is that uniformly, there is no chance of changing minds here. These are psychological disorders, and as such are hard to correct. No amount of logic, facts, or reasoning will affect those afflicted. (Other studies have shown that it is very hard to dislodge a mindset or world-ordering. People tend [and fundamentalists more so than most] to ignore evidence contrary to what they already believe)

Still, it is essential to understand it, so that it can be worked around in some fashion, and exposed at least for what it is. Some suggests that a full 40% of the GOP is now infected, and nationally fully 25% of all citizens are of this authoritarian mindset.

I am going to block quote a few rather shocking statements that hopefully will get it across how very seriously this whole thing must be taken. By the by, Altemeyer‘s work was largely unknown until John Dean went in search of explanations of what had and was happening to his party following the Nixon debacle. The third book in the article is largely unavailable and was written to explain the rise of Nazism in the 30′s.

From Blumenthal:

An observer of the right-wing phenomenon must explain the paradox of followers who would escape from freedom even as they incessantly invoke the word freedom as if it were a mantra. But freedom so defined does not mean ordinary civil liberties like the prohibition of illegal government search and seizure, the right of due process, or the right not to be tortured. The hard right has never protested the de facto abrogation of much of the Bill of Rights during the last decade. In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.

From Altemeyer:

They are highly submissive to established authority, aggressive in the name of that authority and conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide. They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of hostility in them that they readily direct toward various out-groups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason and rely instead on social support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times and are often hypocrites.

They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result…. And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

From Wilhelm Reich:

The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and sexual anxiety…. The result of this process is fear of freedom and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression aids political reaction not only through this process which makes the mass individual passive and unpolitical but also by creating in his structure an interest in actively supporting the authoritarian order. The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which then is an essential mass-psychological factor in imperialistic wars.

 Please read the article at least. The downloadable book is not long. The other is cheap. Frankly, we need to understand this if we are to have any hope of putting a stop to this insanity. No doubt, such movements have arisen in the past and died a natural death. However, they had not the benefit of instantaneous transmission through the Internet. I think than changes the game. I hope you agree.

Related articles
by

He Deserves to be in Hell, Just Not on the Same Floor as Hitler

I apologize to Jon Stewart, but his line last night was priceless. He was paraphrasing good old Pastor Jeffers who said of Romney’s faith something like this:

“He’s a good moral man, but Mormonism is a cult. That is what evangelicals believe.”

Mitty (I am so trying to be just your average Joe) Romney cannot catch a break. No matter what he does, his poll numbers don’t move one millimeter. Not one. The crazy Right flirts with candidate after candidate, boosting them upon their shoulders in some increasingly desperate attempt to infuse each one with some modicum of sense and electability, only to find each one gorging on every donut in town, and eventually weighing them down until they are squashed to the ground.

It seems that they have plumb run out of people willing to walk the plank. (Wait, I can mix a few more metaphors if you are patient!) So, now it’s either Cain, who is seriously just awful, or Mitt.

And Mitt will continue to be dragged through the swamp with pictures like the above, showing him glorying in his “corporate raider” glee, as he and his buddies do everything but roll naked in thousand dollar bills. This will not be playing well in the shredded landscape that is referred to as “Middle America”.

Mitt will continue to be plagued by the provable and “film at 11:00″ clips of saying the exact opposite thing on a whole host of subjects. Can it be made any more clear that Mitt is the malleable Ken doll who can be programmed in repeat the latest poll results as “his belief.”

What is his belief? I can see only one. He believes that he should be President. Beyond that, he has no principles on anything. A week ago he considered the OWS people as “dangerous” and “promoting class warfare.” Now of course, he “understand their frustration”.  You see, it didn’t play well to be backing up the 1% against the 99%.

As the OWS phenomenon has grown and prospered, the GOP tune in general has had to change. Oh not with the diehards such as Glenn (is anybody out there?) Beck and Blush Limpaw, and Sean (I still get mail!) Hannity. They continue their demented sewage even though only the rabid wrecks of rusting trailer park renters still tune in. But the silly Cantors and McConnells and Orange slushies, well, they have sought to tame the rhetoric.

I think it’s starting to sink in. There are no more bible-clutching “white” knights on the horizon. The GOPers are stuck with Herm (I love the Koch brothers and they love me) Cain, Ricky (if I could only run a campaign without speaking) Perry, or the ever-morphing Mitty (I can catch the nomination) Romney.

And that is some very lousy reality to live with I bet.

I think backing Obama is starting to be a very comfortable place to be.

♦

 Herm is having more than enough trouble with his stunningly silly 9-9-9 plan. And so he figures it’s a good thing to introduce more stupid remarks. His latest is to suggest that we build a big old fence across the lower border and electrify it, with signs warning that death may attend any attempt to climb over.

Now Herm says that was a joke. Sort of. I’m sure Latinos across the country are splitting their sides in roars of laughter.

And he suggests that immigration should be a state’s right thing. In other words, each state should make up its own immigration rules and enforce them. Does Herm have any clue? Next he will be in favor of each state having its own DOD.

I’m seriously thinking that running a pizza empire must be a pretty brain-lite job.

But simple plays well to the simple-minded.

♦

This banner was flown over a golf course where Speaker of Orange was playing in California. Cute ain’t it?

Thanks to Joe.My.God

♦

Meanwhile, Newt (send my dinner bill to one of my donors) Gingrich, continues to amaze the world with his brand of “I can say something more stupid than you” antics.

Only this is not an antic. It’s deadly serious and is but one example of what happens when grifters get into the game of politics and turn serious legislation aside in pursuit of “points” on the campaign trail.

Read this please, and know what a thoroughly wretched individual Newt Gingrich really is. It is called Newt’s Personal Hypocrisy on “Death Panels“. And just so ya know, my “own” Chucky Grassley took the same approach.

♦

Proof that too much pizza addles the brain:

Herm is only a conservative because the big guy, as in J E S U S, was one. Yep.

Now, I’ve read a boatload of books about Jesus Christ. I’ve read many of the most respected theologians and biblical experts on the subject. A few make a reasonable case that our Lord was a radical zealot, but very few. Most see him as someone apart from the “political” field, even though his teachings certainly impacted on both political and social mores.

But I don’t know a single one who would argue that he was a conservative. That is, unless you define conservatism in exactly the opposite fashion than it has traditionally been defined. And I don’t know a single one who would argue that the Roman Empire nor the Sanhedrin were the ”liberal” forces who destroyed him.

But Herm does.

The liberal court found Him guilty of false offenses and sentenced Him to death, all because He changed the hearts and minds of men with an army of 12…..Never before and not since has there ever been such a perfect conservative.……For over 2,000 years the world has tried hard to erase the memory of the perfect conservative, and His principles of compassion, caring and common sense.

And Herm has more to tell you about Jesus. How he was unemployed but never asked for an unemployment check, and how he healed the sick without any government health care plan, and how he answered his detractors without benefit of being “Mirandized.”

Go read it. This stuff is priceless, and Herm is crazy as the perverbial loon.

See, you’re not selfish, your just a good Christian. Yeah right.

 

Related articles
by

Back to Disgusting Politics

Ya see, it’s fairly insidious. You start out quite innocently going to read one blog, and they turn ya on to another. So you think, okay, one more in the old reader won’t hurt.

So then you go to capture a picture and in the background of the picture you see the website it came from, and you think, “hey that looks interesting, and so you go and take a look and then say, “okay, I guess I can add another.

That’s how you end up with 259 damn blogs in your reader folks. Remember that, and beware!

Figured I’d give you the full size of this gem since the fine print is funny too.

Anyway, I was over at “we are respectable negroes” and that led to this site called Random Walks, and he, (being John) had a well done piece on the TeaNutz® and the use of the Gadsden Flag. And while you are at it, stop by 3CHICSPOLITICO and see if you like the offerings there.

♦

Most of you know that I have little truck with the New Atheism. I rather like the old frankly. There is an amazingly good article in the Guardian about the subject and why the New Atheist is pretty much just as fundamentally literalistic as the fundamentalist Christian. Here’s a nice quote that might whet you appetite:

This from a former but still believing parish priest:

 ”It is impossible to be a serious Christian and believe in heaven and hell.” When I, who as raised in a strongly and conventionally religious home, expressed surprise and suggested that once one stops believing in heaven one might as well stop believing in God, he said, more vehemently: “It’s exactly the opposite: not believing in heaven and hell is a prerequisite for serious Christian belief.”

As James Woods points out, the New Atheists have no argument to make against this group of Christians. Nor with other mainstream Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims either.

♦

Meanwhile, back at the Casbah, Michele “Who’s your crazy now?” Bachmann is all up in arms. Isn’t it perfectly clear that GOD has spoken in the guise of earthquake and hurricane? I mean isn’t this down right obvious? And Michele of course has his ear, and purports to speak for his Supreme Being.

You see, GOD Almighty wishes to be heard, and he wishes politicians, and most particularly one Barrack Hussein Obama would listen to the PEOPLE. So she says.

Except, that the INSANE minority that Michele wishes to represent, ain’t exactly the definition of “the people” as we see it. The people would seem to suggest some sort of BARE FREAKIN’ MAJORITY doncha think there doll?

Anyways, I got not nearly the satirical game as Juanita Jean’s take on the Bachmann thing, so go read her biting commentary.

♦

Me is much likin’ the great double down of Ricky “aw shucks” Perry. He’s gonna drive that Ponzi scheme Social Security argument right into the La Brea Tar Pits. I’d love to be around in a few million when they dig up his bones and put him on display in the Natural History Museum as a “TeaNutz® relic” known only to a very few political scientists who like really really obscure subject matter.

SmartyPants says it all with this great cartoon:

♦

And then SmartyPants led me here to this which I must say, says it all too.

That which I cannot study empirically I do not understand.  If there is nothing for me to have observed and I have either not sought or not been persuaded with evidence, then my answer is I do not know.

My peace is not in knowing; it is in wanting to know.  And my bliss is not in knowing; it is in trying to know.

This makes me a liberal.  Evidence is not something I fight against, and answers are not something I require.

That which one cannot study empirically the conservative claims to understand anyway.  Even when there is nothing to observe and the conservative has neither sought nor been presented with evidence, the conservative’s answer is I know.

The conservative finds peace only in knowing the answers to questions that she has not even asked.  And once she knows, she will not be persuaded by evidence; hers is to defend her truth, not to find nature’s.

And this of course means that Beeryblog must also go into my reader.

♦

And humorously speaking, if they weren’t so darn sick in the head, here is what the Blaze nincompoops which you to know today:

The Blaze’s Jonathon Seidel, a pretence of a journalist, wants you to know that Bernice King, daughter of MLK just might be a racist, or perhaps she just made an honest mistake. More fun to think the former though rich Jonathon? The Blaze racists don’t know the definition of racism of course.

And Jon stumps for the nearly forgotten Glenny *I’m gettiin’ out of my straight-jacket soon” Beck, and urges you to watch his “rousing human rights speech” at some church in Texas.

Meanwhile, a “possible” and “maybe illegal” uncle of President Obama’s “might” have been arrested in Massachusetts last week for DUI.

Have a good one!

Related articles
by

Who is Christian? (repost from WITS)

Following the horrific events in Oslo, Norway, and the ensuing rhetoric about it, this question came to me. Who indeed is Christian?

As you will recall, long before much in the way of facts were uncovered, a shocking number of pundits and “journalists” speculated freely that Al Qaeda had struck innocents once again. Once the alleged perpetrator began to talk, all this changed, and we learned that the actor was a self-proclaimed Christian and fundamentalist. His written screed backed this up, with illusions to the Crusades.

As we have now come to expect, the Right was furious. How dare this madman do his evil deeds in the name of Christianity? In fact, some of these misguided folks claimed that they were the “true victims” since the Left now would use this crime to attack the far-right cause. Indeed the terrorist named several anti-Muslim activists in this country as being an inspiration to him. So the extreme right had reason to be concerned.

Other’s unbelievably, still wanting to put a Muslim face on this tragedy, said that the actor “had a point” in suggesting that multiculturalism was a disaster for Europe, and by inference for America as well. This tactic was rather soundly condemned: how can you uphold anything that comes from a crazed killer?

But perhaps the most profound result was people like Bill O’Reilly, pundit for Fox “News” who proclaimed that the Norwegian killer was “no Christian”. He claimed that one was not entitled to that title merely by saying it, especially when one’s actions belied any real understanding of the teachings of Jesus.

Of course, Mr. O’Reilly has never had any problem with calling Middle Eastern terrorists, “Islamic Terrorists” simply because they were of the Muslim faith or claimed to be. One begins to smell a lack a rat here.

But the question remains. What constitutes a Christian? The question of course can equally be asked of Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and any other faith tradition.

Who gets to decide when one is acting or talking or thinking within the acceptable parameters of one’s tradition?

I, for instance, would argue that The Westboro “Christians” aren’t Christians at all, or one’s whose understanding of Christianity is deeply flawed. I and many others sometimes refer to fundamentalist Christians as Christianists, to signify that they use and distort biblical passages in order to serve their personal views of the way the world “ought to be.”

Other’s argue that Mormons are not “true” Christians. And the list goes on and on.

The point is, that the majority of Muslims throughout the world might well argue that those who engage in terrorism are misguided and self-serving in their interpretation of the Qur’an, and are not “true” Muslims. Perhaps that is said by some portions of the Jewish community. There are Buddhists who engage or have engaged in violence. Are there Buddhists who would argue that they are not “true” Buddhists?

So the question remains, who decides?

There is no human answer here of course. The ultimately satisfying answer can only be, that God will and does determine this issue, if it is of any importance at all. We, individually or in community cannot know the mind and spirit of any other person. We cannot judge what faith means to them, or how they interpret it.

Is the man who killed Dr. Tiller a Christian? He would certainly, and does claim that he acted to defend God’s word. Were the Inquisitionists Christians? Were the Crusaders? The KKK? White Militias? All have killed in the name of God.

Again, we mere mortals do best to leave that alone. Nothing is served by trying to “protect” one’s sect of Christianity by claiming that this or that one “doesn’t belong to us.” The truth is that fundamentalism is not a Christian thing, nor a Muslim thing, nor even necessarily a religious thing. It is a state of being, in which the believer thinks that he/she has the answers to whatever issues matter to them. They have interpreted correctly and those that disagree must be defeated. The manner of their defeat can be many things, but for a fringe it can and will include violence.

It is this that is opposed, and not the thinking itself. I am well able to accept your self-serving interpretations as long as they remain yours and not ones you seek to impose upon me by force.

If the Norway shooter believes he is Christian, then he is entitled to do so. He’s not my vision of one, but I am not the decider. And neither is anybody else.

Amen.

by

In the Name of All That is Holy

In order to protect my last shred of sanity, we are going to chat about just about anything OTHER than the debt ceiling and the children who claim to be governing us. Indeed the foxes are in charge of the hen-house.

So take a moment, relax, grab a cuppa joe and let’s see if we can find any remnant of a world we can still hang on to.

There is a really good post (most all of them are) over at we are respectable negroes about the backlash the right is giving to the notion that a Christian fundamentalist reeked the horror in Norway. From Beck’s claiming that the children murdered were attending a Hitler Youth-like camp to O’Reilly’s silly claim that he can be “defined” out of being Christian by his unChristian acts, we see a desperation on the part of the right not to be associated with terrorist acts. Chauncey DeVega weighs in.

♦

I was looking at a neat little recipe site the other day, and was reminded of a simple way to make “pizza” when you don’t have much time or are feeling lazy. While not as good as “real” pizza, it’s a nice substitute and heck, it’s down right perfect for those lazy football afternoons coming soon. It’s as simple as using flour tortillas as the “crust” and then adding your favorite toppings. Take a look at the recipe at JustaPinch and take it from there. The cook there calls her simple version, Pizzatillas.

♦

Joe “Hey Chris” Walsh, the blowheart that takes to YouTube to lecture the President and call him a liar, is a bit of a douche. Well a lot of a douche. The man who dares to claim he has all the answers of fiscal responsibility, and who is a loud-mouth TeaNutz® idiot, is a dead-beat dad. In Illinois, Joey owes his kids something over $117 THOUSAND bucks. Didn’t stop him from loaning his own campaign $35,000, but hey, that was important. Taking care of the kids? Not so much.

♦

Political Irony has a delicious piece entitled “To be a Republican You Need to Believe.” It is true, and funny, and sick, and ironic and well, it’s what a GOPer is, nuttier than a fruitcake. Don’t miss it.

♦

Like to make homemade ice cream? Not many people bother, mostly because left over ice cream becomes hard as a rock. This recipe is quick and promises that that will not happen. All you need is an inexpensive ice cream maker (usually under $40). It’s a rich recipe but only takes about 15 minutes to prepare + the machine time. I’m sure gonna try it.

♦

Just because it was cute!

♦

And because it’s true:

(h/t to Political Irony)

♦

Well, frankly there ain’t a lot going on in the blog world except debt ceiling blah blah blah, and so that’s it today!

by

Self-Serving Interpretations

I haven’t posted much here lately of a religious nature. And I usually describe this blog as part political commentary and part religious commentary.

Yet, I’ve been sensitive (probably too much so) to the fact that a good many of my readers are either agnostics or atheists and have little or no interest in things spiritual.

But, of late, I’ve been thinking hard about David Barton and his awful pretense of “historical” revising. We all know of course, his proclivity to proclaim that America was “founded on Christian principles.” While we agree that most of the Founding Fathers were Christian in some form or another, it is equally clear that the dangers of a religious-political union were well-known from history and there was a deliberate determination to not allow that unholy alliance to be the government of the new nation.

Barton, who has a BA from Oral Roberts University (which tells you a lot in and of itself) in religious education, has the temerity to hold himself out as “expert on historical and constitutional issues.” What he actually does, is cherry pick statements from historical documents and the bible and create a web of arguments that favor his view–that America is meant to be a nation ruled by Christian principles (supposedly as defined by him and others who agree with his fundamentalist notions).

Ironically, the Founding Fathers were steeped in exactly the opposite philosophy. The long history of the Roman Church and its marriage with the kings of Europe served an object lesson in how not to govern. Moreover, the FF were men of the Enlightenment, and any high school student in the US knows that they were deeply influenced by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, both Enlightenment thinkers, who posited that man was more than capable of learning the secrets of nature and governing himself. One’s personal belief in a deity, was just that, personal.

One of the dangers of people like Barton is that they use their “talents” to create a history that favors their agenda and that of the party they affiliate with. In this case, Barton provides the “philosophical” underpinnings to the Republican notions of free market economies unfettered from regulation of any kind. In other words, toss out all the anti-trust, anti-child labor, minimum wage, safe working conditions legislation. This is God’s will.

Of particular interest to me as of late is the continuing claim that “Jesus opposed the minimum wage.” Setting aside for a moment the obvious idiocy of this, since there is no reference to “minimum wage” in the bible, let us examine the crux of the argument.

Most often cited in this discussion is Matthew 20: 1-16. In this parable, a wealthy vineyard owner seeks day workers for his fields. In the morning he finds some and agrees to a wage, and sends them out. At noon, some more are found, and they too are sent to the fields. Late in the work day, a few more are found and sent for a hour’s work.

As the men line up for payment, those who worked a full day are chagrined to see that the owner is paying those who worked only an hour the same wage as those who worked a full day. They complain. The vineyard owner points out that they agreed to their wage before they began working. What is it to them how he deals with others? And here is the phrase that the Christianists hang their hat on:

“Have I no right to do what I like with my own?”

To the so-called Christian who wants to protect his/her own wallet, more lovely words were never spoken. Why God says that a business owner has the right to do with his money as he wishes! The government has no right to order them to pay people any set sum of money!

Such greedy and selfish people virtually ignore the obvious point Jesus makes, and see nothing but that one sentence; that along with various verses strewn throughout the psalms and scriptures which talk about not placing undue emphasis on wealth. (Except the wealthy I guess did place a lot of emphasis on money in order to become so.)

This is then married to the “Jesus never said that Rome should care for the poor” and “it’s the job of charitable works to take care of the poor” (the poor being those people we conclude are deserving). There you have it. A perfectly constructed argument that allows “Christians” to keep their money in their pockets and the government out of social safety-nets. (An amazingly high percentage of these fools do take their Social Security and Medicare when they reach retirement. Shocking isn’t it?)

Actually the clear import of the parable is this: The vineowner was a good man. He recognized that all those who worked for him that day had to eat and probably had families they had to feed. He had no idea what may have prevented the later arrivals from getting to the town square earlier. Who knows how far they traveled to seek work?

He provided a decent wage to all who worked because they had themselves and their families to support. He recognized the need to make sure that all were cared for. If you struck an agreed-upon bargain, what was it to you if the owner struck more favorable bargains with others? The implication is, that the long-day workers were the greedy ones! They wanted more if the owner was paying the latest workers a “living” wage.

This is the kind of thing that fundamentalists do with scripture, twisting and dishonoring it in order to serve their personal desires. And of course, in doing so, they dishonor God, the Bible, and other Christians.

And sad to say, Barton continues to be the darling of the likes of Bachmann, Huckabee and Gingrich and others who play to the fears and greed of the “religious right.” 

Related articles