There are understandably serious questions about Amy Coney Barrett--Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the vacant position in the U.S. Supreme Court--and the role her Roman Catholic religious dogma plays into her decision-making, particularly since the Constitution expressly forbids the interference of religious dogma in matters of state. I don’t have anything against Catholics; after all, I spent eight years in a Catholic school, and was more or less a practicing Catholic until I joined the Army. Even though I never went to a chapel during my seven years in the service, I still had “Roman Catholic” as my religious preference on my dog tags, Nevertheless, I am rather disturbed by many Catholics who seem to forget that part of the creed that states that you don’t get a free pass to heaven or “paradise” on faith alone, like Protestant religions and Islam; you have to do “good” works--and that isn’t just for family and friends, but “strangers” as well.
One does get the impression these days that most religious types are “conservative” and to the right politically. Evangelicals in particular seem immune to the moral and ethical hypocrisy of many Republicans, and Donald Trump in particular, and for those who think about, it is a reason why many “Christians” have only a little more “credibility” than as Muslim suicide bomber who thinks he or she is going to “paradise” if lots of innocent children are among the kill.
Still there are those religious types who are concerned about the way the world is going from the political perspective. I happened upon some copies of a magazine I was unfamiliar with called Liberty, which naturally concerned issues of religious liberty, that happened to be in the process of being tossed. Given that all the copies I saw were still in their plastic wraps, I took it that no one bothered to read them. The magazine claimed to be “a 200,000 circulation religious liberty journal which is distributed to political leaders, judiciary, lawyers and other thought leaders in North America,” which explained why it showed up on the floor of the offices of a corporate law firm.
This magazine is a publication of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. An investigation of this denomination’s dogma reveals why it is concerned about religious freedom, although it is no more “crackpot” than, say, the Mormon faith--in fact arguably less so. And if the articles in this issue of the magazine is any evidence, it’s views of Trumpworld during this time of the COVID-19 are far from “crackpot” as well. It starts off with an editorial by Lincoln Steed, who after expressing some concerns about how the COVID-19 has been effecting civilization, notes that some people have been less helpful than others:
On the one hand, there was a strange comfort in the Trump administration assertions of the importance of religious freedom. On the other a bizarre claim to Roman Catholic leaders made recently that there never in history was a better friend to the church. I am old enough to remember the fears that a President Kennedy would lay claim to that role. As it was, he reassured in a speech that he would never allow pope or prelate to dictate policy or compromise the separation of church and state that had long undergirded the healthy state of religious freedom in a civil governance that derived from a Reformation Protestant sensibility.
Nothing in the midst of COVID has startled me more than an odd scene out in front of the White House, played out on TV using the prop of a smallish crowd of manifestly nonviolent protestors at that point. It was surreal to see the sudden use of flashbang grenades, tear gas, and aggressive actions by security forces that included quite direct physical attacks even on an Australian television crew. The president, accompanied by the attorney general and a uniformed military general, then walked through the pacified area, across Lafayette Square, and on to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible for a photo op. I don’t need to cite the chief executive as knowingly complicit in such a travesty of religion and state power. I can give him the best of intentions consistent with his regular statements of support for religious freedom. But there is no escaping the larger dynamic that reveals how late in the day it is for liberal democracy and the values once so clearly espoused by a people and the government they empowered.
Steed implied that it was Trump’s failure to advance a national policy to stem the tide of the COVID-19--puting it all in the states’ court while hypocritically undermining those efforts--that led to the so-called “chaos” in the streets:
From the beginning of the COVID panic it was obvious that ad hoc attempts to cope were actually revealing much about the amnesiac state of our freedom psyche. With little forethought that I can discern, authorities closed down churches as nonessential, and just as unthinkingly parishioners went home to their video games and TV religion. With morality asleep or revealed to be somnolent, it should not surprise anyone at some of the denizens of chaos then discovered on the streets. And with charity chained, it should not surprise anyone how quickly things devolved.
The first article in the magazine, written by Ron Capshaw, discusses Roger Williams, who “was part of the ‘second wave’ of Puritans who left England to create a ‘purified’ religious community in the New World.” But he was of a different breed of religious “libertarian”; he was a strong advocate for the “wall of separation” between church and state. He was considered “seditious” because
Williams asserted, couched in religious terms that the government should not be involved in religious manners. Citing the religious wars of the Old World, which he said resulted in “oceans of blood,” he stated that when a government favored one denomination over another, this was “forced worship,” which “stinks in God’s nostrils.” He also wrote that “God is too large to be housed under one roof” and that there is“no regularly constituted church of Christ on, nor any person qualified to administer church ordinances.” For a government to oversee the individual’s relationship to God was for Williams a “rape of the soul.”
Williams also had little patience for the racial bigotry of English colonists: “Equally threatening to the Boston authorities was Williams’ view toward neighboring Indian tribes.Almost alone about Indian relations in the seventeenth century, he didn’t regard them as ‘savages’ but the equal of Whites.” Williams comments on the matter included “Boast not, proud English, of thy birth and blood. Thy brother Indian is by birth as Good. Of one blood God had made Him, and Thee and All, As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal.” Williams also asserted that there was no “legal” right to claim “all discovered land where the Indians lived.”
Politically, Williams could be said to be rather “liberal”:
As such, the Providence government could not punish those who violated the religious principles contained in the Ten Commandments, such as “idolatry, Sabbathbreaking, false worship, and blasphemy.” Of these “violations” Williams wrote:
“But who is to decide who truly fears the Lord? The magistrate has no power to enforce religious demands. The laws of the First Table of the Ten Commandments are not regulations for civil society or a political order.They belong to the realm of religion, not politics.”
Williams was also relatively liberal (for the 17th Century) in his opposition to slavery and to “a closed community of European Christians.” He also opposed John Winthrop’s belief “that God determined who was rich and who was poor, and for the poor to rebel against the rich was a violation of God’s will: ‘the poore, and dispised’ should not ‘rise vpp against their superiors, and shake off their yoake.’” One wonders how Williams would thus view the current “unrest” in the streets; probably with some understanding of the underlying issues.
Mira Gibson is also concerned about the politicization of religion:
Most people agree that there should be religious freedom for all in America. “This is a free country” is part of the American lexicon, after all, and we don’t often hesitate to remind people of that. But the statement is intrinsically defensive. “I will do what I want to do; therefore, don’t you dare tread on me” is the sentiment, and we have culturally accepted—and even celebrated—this sentiment. It’s only when a religious ritual, act, or custom is downright criminal that the government takes proactive measures to stop it legally, and Americans rarely object to bureaucratic intervention in those cases. Right versus wrong, good versus evil, choosing a verdict to solidify a new policy, is far easier to determine when a group is touting obviously lawless practices. The conversation becomes exponentially complicated, however, when the particular values and beliefs of differing religions simply clash with one another.
Clashing moral viewpoints amount to murky waters. Murky moral waters incite fierce disputes online—this new court is one of public opinion. There is virtue signaling here. There is preaching to the choir. And there are also three little words that never fail to wage war. Civil rights violation: accusing another group of such a charge—violating your civil rights with their belief-laden laws—is an effective, albeit virtual, call to arms. This call to arms is a call to action, as well. Lawmakers can’t and won’t ignore it when a minority group, religious or otherwise, makes this claim. Instead, politicians vow to correct the presumed injustices, especially those that have been voiced the loudest in the social media arena. When exercising your religious freedom, the governmental response seems to be that you must not assume entitlement to the detriment—and oppression—of another group.
Gibson writes that in 2020, there is a “frenzy” of concern by many for their “freedoms,” religious or otherwise, and this has led to questions about whether this has been used as a cover (particularly by the right) to deny equality and human rights to “non-believers” of another’s particular religious views: “You see, when the government tries to project moral authority, after having been influenced by religious groups, it almost automatically demonizes the beliefs and practices of minorities who do not hold the same views.” For those “don’t tread on me” types, Gibson writes “When will the snake stop eating its own tail and finally start moving forward?”
Elie Mikhael Nasrallah follows with a defense of the “Nones,” described as “the religiously unaffiliated,” representing “a compromise between being an atheist or agnostic, and holding on to pure faith and traditional organized religion. “ Nones “are independent in their thinking, spiritual but not dogmatic, and they challenge organized religion on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, separation of church and state, women’s right to join the priesthood, science’s place in society, evolution, and climate change, to name a few.” Nones are not necessarily anti-religion, and a Pew Research Center survey claims that 68 percent say they believe in God.
Still, most of them assert that “religion is losing its influence on American life, and 67 percent say churches/religious organizations are too involved with politics. It is obvious that the abuses of religion by the various religious establishments in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and all over the globe are driving the Nones away from religion.”
Because they are “the modern-day explorers in the spiritual realm,” Nones “are rejecting religious orthodoxy, abuse of power, corrupt religious authority, privileges, and, above all, religion’s interference in the political arena. For instance, we find the entanglement of the Evangelical churches in the U.S. and various religious organizations in the political field all too visible. Also we find the Russian Orthodox Church has been playing a leading role as the cheerleader for Russian Vladimir Putin’s regime. In the Middle East, for example, the mixture of politics and religion is complete, present, and inseparable. These are the type of scenarios and examples that drive the Nones away from organized religion.” Furthermore
The Nones have no ideology as such. They are not religious fanatics or extreme atheists. Only a small portion, about 13 percent, call themselves atheists. However, they do, more than the majority of the general public, believe in evolution, science, rationality, and fact-based inquiry. They distrust organized religion, but they are not replacing it with another of their own. Christopher Hitchens put it best when he wrote: “Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”
Nasrallah also defends “Nones” against charges that they are “anarchists”: “Moreover, they are soft rebels having issues with organized religions’ obsession with power, money, politics, tax-free status, unfair treatment of women, and earthly decadence. They are the invisible reformers, the quiet type at the back of the bus. Anarchy is not their motto or practice. Nihilism is an alien concept to them; it is not their raison d’être. They are what they are: thinking outside the box, and real thinking in one of man›s most difficult tasks. To be a free-minded person is the first prerequisite for living well, and living well is the best revenge!”
It seems to me that the “Nones” are indeed a “danger” to the far-right political-religious orthodoxy and the hypocrisy of Trumpworld. Many politicians are forced to tell voters that they belong to one Christian sect or the other, but it is far more important to keep religion as a way to conduct ones own personal life than to judge another’s belief, as long it follows a moral and ethical code that is not antithetical to civilized norms. The danger of attempting to insert religious ideology into civilian law was made in the film A Man For All Seasons, in which Thomas More, after being told by the religious zealot Roper that he would cut down all the laws of the land to bring the Devil to justice, tells him
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast- man's laws, not God's- and if you cut them down-and you're just the man to do it-do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Michael Peabody follows with a warning that those who insist on “in-person” church services should weigh the risks of “inadvertently spreading the virus to others. Until the risks of COVID-19 are sufficiently mitigated, it may be best to observe the rules and encourage members to stay home even if, as is the case in Wisconsin, all stay-at-home orders are invalidated. Constitutionality does not mitigate against the health or legal risks, and houses of worship leaders should consult with health professionals, attorneys, insurance companies, and administrative structures familiar with their local laws and health risks before opening.”
The last article, by Reuel S. Amdur, is critical of the Quebec National Assembly’s adoption of a bill that allegedly “promotes the religious neutrality of the state. In reality it impinges on religious minority rights by limiting what members of minorities can wear in certain kinds of employment. The law forbids the wearing of religious symbols by teachers, police, judges, and correctional officers and certain others during their work. The clear target of the law is the hijab and the niqab; coverings worn by some Muslim women.” Amdur correctly observes that “The need to show one’s face when receiving a service is in reality a red herring, made even a little more ridiculous by the face-mask conventions of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
I have to say that at least in this particular issue of this magazine, there was a wealth of viewpoints that ran counter to the idea that most religious perspectives are “reactionary.” Some religious types are no doubt embarrassed by the hit to the credibility of being “Christian” has taken in Trumpworld, and what I read here tells us that yes there are Christians who are not fanatical Trump supporters, and are one of those who try to hide behind the facade of “faith” to disguise their moral and ethical hypocrisies. It is too bad that the hypocrites are more “media-savvy” and have the support of politicians who are equally hypocritical.
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