Paul Wilczynski's Observations

The Theocratic Right and the Democratic Republic

Case Wagenvoord writes in The Village Gate an article beginning ...

Christianity is a religion of the highest ideals. One of life’s crueler paradoxes is that the higher the ideal, the more slime it produces. The slime begins to ooze when the ego breaks wind and the soul thinks the breath of the Spirit is upon it.

Yet, when Christianity works it is a thing of beauty. When the soul is able to shatter the fetters of the ego it soars. Slavery is abolished, prisons are reformed and Jim Crow is sent packing.

Slime and the Spirit are at opposite ends of the Christian spectrum. Slime expresses Christian love in a spray of angry spittle; the Spirit expresses it in acts of tender mercy. Slime destroys; the Spirit heals. Slime screams; the Spirit is silent. Consequently, slime gets most of the airtime.

It is tempting to view the Religious Right as a monolithic block and to see it as a vast conspiracy determined to return us to the 19th Century. It is more complex than that. The Religious Right is made up of many components: some of them extreme and some of them quite moderate. Understanding the Religious Right is made difficult by a media that is only interested in covering wedge issues that generate conflict. A shot of a protester holding up a sign that reads, “God hates Fags” does more for ratings than a shot of a church-sponsored soup kitchen feeding the hungry.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 11:11 AM