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Ever since the primaries, president-elect Obama’s spiritual life has been foder for heated debates between various groups in our country. And once again, Obama’s relationship with his maker has come into the spotlight again.
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and Purpose Driven Life fame has been selected to give an invocation at Obama’s inauguration. Warren’s selection is absolutely unsatisfactory to a number of folks. The GLBT crowd is up in arms because of Warren’s support of Proposition 8 in California. Women are upset because women are given a subservient role in the church. Women are barred from leadership roles, and when a woman does come into a high-ranking position, she must have a man act as her supervisor. Progresives are flipping out because Warren is very, very conservative. And atheists, agnostics, and others think there shouldn’t be an invocation at all.
All of these objections are valid and deserve to be discussed in detail. However, I’m not going to do that. There are plenty of other blogs that will address those issues far more competently than I could. So what’s my issue with Warren? Well, if you read the first post of this blog, you can probably guess where I’m going.
Warren’s ministry promotes a program he calls Global P.E.A.C.E. The aim of this ministry is to bring peace to the world by faith in Christ, evangelization, and service to those in need. And by placing the faithful into positions of power. And of course once these faithful are in power, I’m sure they’ll just leave civil codes alone and rule the people.
Global P.E.A.C.E. is a thinly-veiled, feel-good dominionist movement.
In light of his dominionist leanings, Warren’s presence at the presidential inauguration is inappropriate and insulting to the American people. If you are concerned about this, visit change.gov and register your complaint under “Your Story”. Let your voice be heard.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough to move you to action, Warren awarded his first annual Medal of P.E.A.C.E to President Bush presumably for his efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. It may seem ironic to award a “peace” medal to someone who has precided over two particularly brutal wars, but then again Bush also precided over the erosion of the wall between church and state. Maybe his getting the medal is more appropriate than we realize.
Followers of the news will recall the sign atheists hung at the Washington State capitol under the auspices of the first amendment. If you’re like me, you were hoping this issue would just go away, and we could all get on panicking about the economy.
Of course, I never seem to get my way.
Fred Phelps and the his “Westboro Baptist Church” has declared its intention to hang a sign informing all that Santa Claus is a false idol and will lead people to hell. The sign will read as follows:
You’d better watch out, get ready to cry,
You’d better go hide, I’m telling you why
‘cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell.
He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet,
but when you stand before your God
He won’t help you take the heat.
So get this fact straight: you’re feeling God’s hate,
Santa’s to blame for the economy’s fate,
Santa Claus will take you to hell.
No, I’m not kidding. I’m not smart enough to come up with that, although I have to give them credit for the cleverness of their sign. It’s an improvement over their usual fare.
Many of you probably remember Phelps from his long-lived “God hates fags” campaign, claiming homosexuality caused 9/11, his thwarted attempts to picket military funerals, and his celebrations of various disasters to hit the world. They’re really a classy bunch.
A Phelps' supporter celebrating the deaths of innocent men. Stay classy, guys!
So what are they doing in Washington State? Well, as previously stated, Phelps likes to use any disaster (natural or man-made) to promote his perverted message. In this case it’s the crumbing economy. And somehow Santa is to blame for this. Of course, this makes me wonder why God didn’t send us any warnings of His being angry with the former bishop and why He didn’t strike sooner? But who am I to queston God’s ways?
Phelps belongs here because he is, in essence, a dominionist. He doesn’t openly preach the overthrow of the American government; however, it is clear from his teachings that if he had his way, the Constitution would be replaced with some form of Mosaic Law. I’m tempted to ask him myself, but I’m afraid he’d lynch me for being Catholic.
(The next part of the blog might help if you envision me in Traditionalist priestly garb) Without batting an eye, I accuse Phelps and the members of the “Westboro Baptist Church” of heresy. Heresy is a harsh word, and I don’t like to use it often, but in this case it is warranted. Phelps claims to be a follower of Christ, but he seems more interested in pushing his corrupted interpretation of Mosaic Law than the Golden Rule. He has shown no interest in peacefully discussing this matter with anyone and openly attacks anyone who disagrees with him.
Unfortunately, I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot from Phelps and his ilk in the coming weeks and their unChristian practices and behaviors. If we’re lucky, they’ll be content with picketing and try not to escalate their actions.
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Welcome to Theocracy R Us, your one-stop-shop on current activities of religious zealots of all variety in the United States.
You probably have noticed that I already have another blog: Antisocial Press. So why start a second one? Well, for two reasons. First, Antisocial Press is dedicated to politics and economics. And, yes, sometimes religion does come into play there (eg Palin Watch), but there’s really so much going on particularly in the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian movements, that it would be awkward to try to throw them into the mix there without losing focus. My second reason requires a little biographical information.
I admit up front that I am a believing and practicing Catholic. I have my differences with the hierarchy, but I deal with them on a case-by-case basis. I am also very interested in politics. However, I like to keep my church and state as far apart as possible. Does that mean that my religious convictions don’t influence how I behave politically? No, of course not. What it does mean is that I will not advocate or support any attempt to force my beliefs on another person via the establishment of a theocracy.
Unfortunately, I don’t think many of my Christian brothers agree with me on that point. You might even recall a previous post on Antisocial Press about the dangers of Dominionism, a far-right Christian movement that seeks to replace the Constitution with Mosaic Law. Whenever you hear someone say “America is a Christian nation” on the radio or TV, odds are the speaker is pushing a soft form of Dominionism.
History has demonstrated time and again whenever a religion gets entwined with a government, both become invariably perverted and corrupt. Religion then no longer becomes a framework by which to understand the world or to ennoble the individual, but becomes a cudgel with which the ruling classes beat people into supression. As a Roman Catholic and as an American citizen, I will not stand for that.
So check in on Fridays for a review of dominionist activities and Sunday for commentary on faith and Scripture from my own perspective. Oh, and welcome.
Theocracy R Us 