There is much consternation, if not outright (outleft?) hysteria in the MSM of late regarding America’s imminent theocracy. Indeed, in reading Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman or the rendering unto seizure that took place on the cover of Harper’s it appears that the only uncertainty is whether or not theocracy is about to take over or if it already has.
All I can say is that if that rapturous moment has occurred I must have missed it … and you might imagine my disappointment.
And if their vision of theocracy were truly upon us I don’t think you’d see such open assaults where people of faith are compared to either the Taliban or the Nazis, which is interesting bit of name calling projection. Last I looked, it wasn’t Christians who were going around trying to tear down religious monuments in front of City Hall, or acting like Brown Shirts intimidating others by throwing pies and trying to shout down opposing points of view. In fact the vilification – or demonization, if you will – through outrageous and even libelous hate speech of a particular group of people because of their religious beliefs just sounds so, oh, 1934, don’t you think?
Yet for all their cries of oppression where they see religion crossing the line into areas they think should remain secular, the Secularists have no qualms about trying to enforce the secular on what others see as sacred. They will brook no criticism of their own ideals and insist they are being persecuted while simultaneously criticizing and undermining religious leaders (e.g., deriding the Pope as being too conservative, encouraging the Rainbow Sash escapades, trying to redefine marriage). Funny – Hitler persecuted and/or arrested German theologians who opposed him on spiritual grounds such as Niemoller, Bonhoeffer, and Barth and reconstituted the German church with officials willing to replace the Father with the Fuehrer. I read somewhere that that didn’t turn out so well.
Here’s the deal: this is really an old conflict – even older than WWII. (Public service announcement: Warning – scripture reference coming. Avert your eyes if sensitive to this type of material). Romans 12:2 tells believers not be be conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is the conflict of the outside world (which touches our flesh) and the inner man or woman (which is touched by the spirit). The secular world is all about forcing people to conform to their vision; the spiritual instinct is to see people transformed by God. And if they happen to change the way they vote as a result of that transformation, well, that’s part and parcel of free will.
Secularists want the government to run things, which is why they get so concerned about who runs the government. (Even though what they really want is to be a law unto themselves). In their quest they want to run everything – schools, public square, social institutions and come against any who say they are not beholden to these or recognize a higher authority. That’s because those who obey an authority higher than the government are more likely to cherish their individual right to their own conscience – and the renewed mind resists the old and does indeed become a law unto itself.
And frankly, I don’t think that that is such a scary concept to most people, as I described here a couple of weeks ago. It certainly wasn’t a scary thought to the founding fathers, as former New York Times reporter John McCandlish Phillips noted so well in the Washington Post (When Columnists Cry “Jihad!” – HT Michelle Malkin):
The fact is that our founders did not give us a nation frightened by the apparition of the Deity lurking about in our most central places. On Sept. 25, 1789, the text of what was later adopted as the First Amendment was passed by both houses of Congress, and subsequently sent to the states for ratification. On that same day, the gentlemen in the House who had acted to give us that invaluable text took another action: They passed a resolution asking President George Washington to declare a national day of thanksgiving to no less a perceived eminence than almighty God.
That’s president , that’s national, that’s official and, alas, my doubting hearties, it’s God; all wrapped up in a federal action by those who knew what they meant by the non-establishment clause and saw their request as standing at not the slightest variance from it. It’s a pity our phalanx of columnists cannot crawl into a time machine to go back and reinstruct them.
Related posts from other sources:
Flown to the Roll: A Glittering Jewel of Ignorance.
Bogus Gold: “Dispelling the Theocracy Myth and Its Defenders” and “Sullivan, Goldberg and Theocrats, Oh My!”
Fox News: Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech
