Conservative Christians take a look at the current crop of Republican presidential contenders and they feel unrepresented. James Dobson says that Fred Thompson is not a Christian. Obviously, Mitt Romney is not a Christian. And Rudolph Guiliani is pro-choice. This leads conservative Christians to say things like this:
“I understand the frustration we all feel, but for me the two nightmares are a Giuliani-versus-Hillary race, and Hillary taking the oath of office,” said Mr. [Gary] Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. “We should be very careful not to slice up candidates we may turn to and ask our voter to get behind.”
Bauer is upset that Dobson is saying Fred Thompson is not a Christian. The thing is, Fred Thompson doesn’t go to church and only plays at being a Christian when he is running for office. Dobson is correct. But the other point that Bauer makes is more interesting. Is it really a nightmare for conservative Christians if Rudy Guiliani wins the nomination and then loses the general election?
I think they have it backwards. The GOP has almost no chance of winning the White House in 2008. In the cyclical tide of America’s two-party electoral system, the GOP is clearly in ebb. If we posit that the Republicans are going to lose, what better outcome for conservative Christians could there be than one in which a pro-choice candidate takes the drubbing?
Maybe this will be clearer if we imagine what a Guiliani victory would look like. As we survey the national landscape, we will notice that Chris Shays (CT-04) is the only remaining Republican congressperson in New England. Republicans are losing seats from the mid-Atlantic to the upper Midwest, to the plains state of Kansas. A closer look will reveal that the GOP has lost its grip on the suburbs (for example, surrounding Philadelphia). These voters remain hostile to high taxes and government handouts, but they are sick to death of people like Gary Bauer. If Guiliani wins, he will win by carrying these suburbs.
Guiliani’s roadmap to 270 electoral votes includes states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If he succeeds he will do so by going beyond the southern strategy. A Guiliani presidency, filled with his Brooklyn goons, is not going to have much use for people like Gary Bauer.
But if Guiliani loses, the conservative Christians can put all the blame on Rudy’s lack of morality. They can argue that the GOP tried to run a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate and they lost.
It seems to me that the best thing for the conservative Christian movement, short of a Sam Brownback upset win, would be a Guiliani loss.
It seems to me that the best thing for the conservative Christian movement, short of a Sam Brownback upset win, would be a Guiliani loss.
I think the worst thing that could ever happen to the religious right is to have a genuine, certified Dominionist in the oval office. These guys have managed to fly under the public radar so far, and in the cases where they have made the mistake of coming out in local controversies, they have been rejected as the psychopaths that they are. A Dominionist president would unavoidably serve to awaken the general public to the authoritarian conspiracy that has been growing in the hinterlands.
As long as they stay relatively quiet and in opposition, they can continue to operate unimpeded. Put them in the global limelight, and things will become much, much more difficult for them.
probably true, but at least in the short term they would like to have that power.
Most Mormons today think of themselves as Christians….although biblical Christians don’t agree.
good point.
“Biblical Christian” is a pleonasm, like “Koranic Muslim” or “canine dog”. Where on earth did you get such a barbaric phrase from?
Of course Mormons are going to say they’re Christians, for the same reason that people like Bush and Cheney say they’re conservatives, whereas they’re really neo-Jacobins. Conservatives don’t destroy the established order, and Christians do not accept any “revelation” after Christ’s death and resurrection.
Joseph Smith was an excellent example of a false prophet. That is why people with any understanding of Christianity realize that the idea that Mormonism is a variety of Christianity is absurd and nothing but a mendacious attempt at insinuating this cult into mainstream society.
Who was it that said the definition of “cult” is “someone else’s religion”?
Some idiot. I am an atheist, so I have no religion.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, to name a few, are religions; Mormonism is a cult.
that’s not an argument. That’s begging the question.
It might be begging the question, but it did provide a counterexample to Second Nature’s point. But fair enough. After that post, I did some thinking about makes up the difference between a cult and a religion.
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, European society became sufficiently advanced for it to be understood that all religions have been made up by people. The concept of God itself is something that people made up to solve certain problems, but now we have better ways of solving those problems.
So all religions are false and fabrications. Nevertheless, established, already existing religions are tolerated and indeed respected as traditions. Furthermore, a “rational content” can be extracted from many if not all religions, such as the Christian idea that thou should love thy neighbor as thyself, and this content should be embraced, even if one does not accept the religion on its own terms.
Now, that one tolerates established religions even though one understands that they are social constructs does not mean that one should tolerate religious cults that have emerged since society became enlightened as to the true nature of religion. And, in general, such cults are not tolerated, even with the separation of church and state, although there not being an established church in the US as there is in many European countries makes it much easier for cults to emerge here than in Europe.
Historically, Mormonism has been treated as a cult by the US government. This “religion” was founded by Joseph Smith so that it would be socially acceptable for him to be able to screw more than one woman at the same time. Because bigamy is illegal in the US, the US government made it clear to the Mormon “church” that it would get shut down. Smith then got a new “revelation” that Mormons should after all not practice bigamy, at which point the US government left the Mormon “church” alone. But since Mormons can no longer practice bigamy, Mormonism has lost its raison d’être, which is another reason why Mormons are now inclined to call themselves Christians. (I don’t think they had the gall to call themselves Christians when they still practiced bigamy.)
The bigger question is: why does it matter how you classify Mormonism?
If you grow up in a Mormon household I don’t think there is anything substantively different than if you grow up in a Methodist household. You go to church, attend Sunday school, learn the tenets of the faith, and transmit those values to your children. It’s functionally the same thing as Christianity.
So, why is it a cult? Or, more properly, why isn’t Methodism a cult? It can’t be that the answer lies in the solidity of their respective theologies. It must be something else.
Why are we even discussing this?
Why are we even discussing this?
I find the history of religion a fascinating subject. And I think that progressives need to have some familiarity with the history of Christian fundamentalism, simply in order to get some understanding of our right wing.
Pursuing theological questions tends to be unpopular among people raised in American mainstream churches, because such pursuits came to be avoided in the nineteenth century by evangelicals since they tended to get in the way of people from different sects getting together to fight for social causes.
As for your other questions, I won’t say much since you indicate you’re not really interested in discussing this.
I think I’ve already answered those questions. As a consequence of the Enlightenment, we now understand that all religions were at one time cults. We respect the religions that became established simply because they did become established, and because their traditions are part of what makes us who we are. But this does not mean that we should encourage people to try to create new religions, since the way forward is through reason, not through making things up.
One reason I tend not to like Mormons is that they proselytize. A Methodist isn’t going to proselytize me. (I was raised Russian Orthodox, and if I were to belong to a church today, it would be Lutheran.)
If you grow up in a Mormon household I don’t think there is anything substantively different than if you grow up in a Methodist household.
Wrong. Mormons are not allowed to drink alcohol. I happen to be of the view that, to paraphrase Kingsley Amis, drinking is one of the things that make us human. I have major problems with any religion that prohibits drinking.
While true, your distinction is exaggerated. Methodists are so hostile to alcohol that they use non-alcoholic wine.
Episcopalians would never tolerate this and serious theologians will tell you that transubstantiation cannot occur without at least an 8% alcohol by volume product.
Wow. I was wondering if Methodists might be conservative that way. (I know that many church-going American Protestants tend to avoid alcohol, but I don’t know many Methodists.)
That does support the view that there isn’t a black-and-white difference between Mormonism and mainline Christian denominations.
Only in America will you have a sect that does Holy Communion with alcohol-free wine!
If you ban alcohol in the church, why allow it in parishioners’ homes? Sounds like a clear case of compromising on what they think is a moral issue in order to preserve market share, which is what religion in America is largely about. (A church that gets funded by public tax revenues doesn’t have to worry about market share.)
After I looked at the Web page you linked to, this seems less weird. Also, I forgot about the temperance movement. Alcohol dependency is a real problem, and it is reasonable for a church to take it very seriously. Expressing on a symbolic level that alcohol is evil by not allowing it in Communion can be considered to be a reasonable thing to do: it all depends on what a church’s priorities are.
Still, I am glad that they don’t preach abstinence, but instead urge you to “make a personal commitment either to total abstinence or to responsible drinking”. Requiring total abstinence would be to leave the realm of Christianity entirely, since it would remove choice, thus taking you into something like Mormonism or Islam.
In order to maintain BoomanTrib’s well known high theological standards, I thought I should clarify why banning alcohol would leave the bounds of Christianity. This is because Christ said, “I am the Law.” Creating a religious law like, “You must not drink alcohol” would thus deny Christ, in effect creating an idol. The Methodist Church must understand this.
For the same reason, Christians, as opposed to Muslims, do not get circumcised, and most Christian denominations no longer take dietary laws seriously.
dude, what world are you living in? Not America:
That bit was meant as a provocation. Routine circumcision is another one of my pet peeves. I live in eastern Pennsylvania. (How bad American beer is used to be a third pet peeve of mine, but I recently discovered that Pennsylvania has several good microbreweries, my favorite of which is Victory Brewery, located in Downington. 🙂 )
The rate of circumcision in the US seems to have gone down somewhat recently.
The last bit shouldn’t be surprising, since the country has been going backward in every other way during the last few years. Anyway, in 1994 the circumcision rate was 62.7%, and in 2004 it was 57.4%. But even with a rate of around 60%, it’s not like practically all male infants are getting circumcised nowadays. Compare that with Britain, which had the highest rate of circumcision of European countries I believe when it was covered by the NHS, which now has a rate of only 3.8%, now that it is no longer covered. 3.8% is close to 0%. 60% is close to 50%.
Anyway, since most Christians are not American, my statement is accurate as it stands. Americans do not get circumcised because they are Christian, but for the reasons given in that Salon article, which I don’t want to go into.
I meant to say western Pennsylvania.
What an interesting conversation….Mormonism to cults to circumcision. I agree, not that anyone cares, that the altered penis looks bereft. When my first son was born I think the circ rate was more than 85% and I received so much crap about not doing it….times 3 now that I have three sons. Now there are men trying to regrow their foreskins. Let’s see a diary on that. 😉
that’s a perfectly valid definition, actually.
Religion is ultimately undefinable. But a cult is something definable as, roughly, an easily discerned mass delusion. For example, the cult of the Virgin Mary on a milk carton. Or, anyone that takes Joe Smith seriously.
The big, old religions are different in several ways. The Koran and the Old Testament are as much manuals for the order of society as they are holy texts. And, while Paul of Tarsus was snakeoil salesman, the original evangelical movement was a kind of alternative living, progressive reform, health care movement.
If you look closely at the major religions, you’ll see literalism as cult-like (even in Buddhism). But most people are not literalists. Lots of people believe lots of silly stuff. But many people feel comfortable in their own faith traditions while easily recognizing that a lot of it is hooey.
In other words, a cult is someone else’s religion…or what you call people that believe in your own religion too fervently, or literally.
a plague on all their houses!
Now- off subject. What happened. The blog world played a great role in the SCHIP vote! Yet- now that we are half way there- Where the hell are the bloggers A-Thanking the folks for their efforts and B- Why the hell aren’t they full steaming the job needed to get this through the house?
a plague on all their houses!
Now- off subject. What happened. The blog world played a great role in the SCHIP vote! Yet- now that we are half way there- Where the hell are the bloggers A-Thanking the folks for their efforts and B- Why the hell aren’t they full steaming the job needed to get this through the house?
Did I get this wrong? But didn’t Hillary say she will take them? Bill, you bastard. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for cause of careerism?