A case for theology - Granite Grok

A case for theology

In the NRO Online forum, Kathryn Jean Lopez made this observation:

Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor earlier today: “There is a group of people in America of deep faith. I respect that faith. I’ve been in enough inner city black churches, working-class Catholic parishes, rural Methodist houses of worship, small Jewish synagogues to understand that faith is a gift. The trouble with this group, which I call the theocrats, is they want their faith to dictate what the government does. That, in a word, Mr. President, is un-American. This exactly what the founding fathers put down their plows and took up muskets to fight.”

As usual, the liberal Sr. Senator (D-NY) is wrong.  Isn’t it just lovely how he insults people of faith that he first says have a gift, and then turns around and calls them un-American?  And he’s wrong as to the founding fathers as well. 

Regardless of what his definitions are, a theocrat (a ruler of a theocracy) can only exist where there is a theocracy which is either (1: a political unit governed by a deity (or by officials thought to be divinely guided) 2: the belief in government by divine guidance – Wikipedia).  In fact, the Founding Fathers all pretty much thanked God for what they were about to do and thanked Him for the strength to do so.  As far as I am concerned, this is another case of another person trying to make political points by redefining words and mangling history.  Yet Senator Schumer prattles along, knowing that no on is going to challenge him on his grasp (or lack thereof) of American history.  After all, who are we to correct him?
 

As always, I really wish people would get their facts straight before attempting to make a rational argument.  Which does beg the question"Skip, you really think that politics is rational??".  Yeah, yeah, I know.

Again, where Senator Schumer is wrong again is that this country was colonized (oops, can I even use that word any more – it is so un-PC!) by those looking to worship freely.  God played a major role in their lives, and Biblical teachings were the norm in establishing a moral code of ethics. However, please note that not even then were the religious leaders the political leaders (e.g., the leader of the Pilgrims was "Governor" and not "Pastor" or "Reverend"). 

So now it is un-American to be of faith?

It is pure politics to state that those of a deep religious faith wish to turn the US into a theocracy.  No one is calling for the replacement of the Constitution with any one of a number of sacred texts.  No one is calling for the removal of elected politicians (well, maybe a couple – wink!) and replace them with priests, pastors, rabbis, imans, and the like.  Want real examples of theocracies?  Try Afganistan under the Taliban, and present day Iran.  Many Islamic countries are not, as conventional wisdom would hold, technically theocracies even though normal day to day life is controlled by religious rules (e.g., Saudi Arabia is a monarchy but pretty much governed by Islamic Shar’ia law).

In my opinion, the reason for Senator Schumer and those that think like them wish to denigrate those of faith is simple – creeping human secularism – a philosophy that wishes to remove religion from the public square and legal institutions.  It’s premise is that human reasoning should be at the forefront of decision making, relying solely on factual evidence and not on any one particular moral or religious code.  In practical terms, this movement wishes to remove all vestiges of religious dogma from public morality, behaviour and outlook.

The dirty little secret is that we legislate morality all the time – they are called laws.  People, when they create laws, use their innate sense of morality, of right and wrong, based on whatever moral code they use.
Effectively, the Senator is trying to eliminate those that have their moral codes rooted in absolutes rather than what can be a transitory idea of what is "right".  After all, if there is no bedrock to support a moral code, it can be a moving target, right?  Thus, without absolutes, there can be no judgementalism, for there is only a right or wrong at this moment. 

My question is what happens to society when morality (legislated or not) is based solely on what is acceptable today rather than what was acceptable yesterday and no idea of what it will be tomorrow?     We can all agree that public mores change over time – do we really want to be that wishy-washy about laws that have consequences (intended and not)? To say that those of faith have no right to be at the table during this process are bigoted themselves, even as they call us intolerant and bigoted. 

From my standpoint, while utterances like Senator Schumer may be trying to keep religious values from dominating discussion, it is really attempting to deprive those of faith from even joining the discussion by holding that those of faith comtemptable. What those that hurl the pejoratives of theocrat and Christianist wish is for all laws to be based on secular values.  While the intent may be to remove conflicting religious dogma and values from our laws such that they would not favor one or the other, I see it the case that moral codes, hewn over the centuries and from God, are being tossed under the bus. They are trading the viewpoint of traditional religions for one that stands for no religion at all (which, in itself, has become the new religion).

My problem is this: by removing the notion of absolutes, it is too easy and too flexible to redefine that which is good and that which is bad.  Society will not last long under that notion.
 

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