“[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  Article VI of the United States Constitution

The text of the constitution does not help with the realities of Republican Party politics today, as Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne found out.  In a desperate kowtow to the faithful and to stop attacks by his opponents, Mr. Byrne clarified the following “heretical” quote: “”I believe there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not.”

Also submitting to the wrath of the faithful was grocery chain Piggly Wiggly, which felt the backlash from anonymous Internet posters like the following quote in the article linked above: “”Just got a call from a person at my Church letting me know about this.  My family will not be shopping at Ragland Piggly Wiggly stores anymore or anything else they own…. I don’t shop at places that think it is OK to stand next to people who don’t believe the Bible is all true.”

As noted earlier, this is another example of the just how far the theocrats control the conservative movement and the Republican Party.  This does not happen merely in Alabama.  For all the complaints about the assault on Christianity by people like Britt Hume, can you even imagine the furore if a President today emulated John Quincy Adams and took his oath of office on a book of American laws?

The theology is suspect too.  See previous post on the three kings of the nativity here as an example.

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Britt Hume reacted to criticism for his pompous proselytizing on Fox News (see previous blog post here) by playing the victim card and making the tiresome accusation that this is part of the war against Christianity.  Most of this stems from a grouse that the law and the Constitution require equal treatment of Christianity with other faiths (Oh the horror!!!) with little grounding in fact.  Ask Congressman Keith Ellson who was savaged by parts of the right for having the temerity to take his oath of office on the book of his faith – the Quran.

I will outsource the  further exposure of Britt Hume’s ridiculousness to the satirist most often linked on this blog:

From January 4, 2010:

Follow up from From January 5, 2010:

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Britt Hume of Fox News insults the faith of about five hundred million people by suggesting that Tiger Wood’s Buddhist faith will not be up to the job of his redemption and he needs to convert to Christianity.  The video of the Fox News anchor turning his media position into a sectarian bully pulpit is below:

The relevant quote from the video above:

“The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith,” Hume said. “He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

The pomposity of a TV anchor (who ignores the recent rash of C Street conservatives (John Ensign, Chip Pickering and Mark Sanford) whose overt religiosity did not prevent their inclinations to adultery) is one matter.

But this is yet another example of how the right wing cannot resist injecting religion into debate.  Hume is hardly alone on Fox News.  Bill O’Reilly is on record bemoaning attempts to weaken the “White, Christian, male power structure” in this country.  Fox News regularly features Ann Coulter who infamously in the aftermath of 9/11 said we should “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”  Shortly before Christmas the otherwise highly regarded Indiana governor Mitch Daniels went off on an amazingly ignorant screed about the evils of secularism.

This is not new.  But coupled with the attacks on Barack Obama allegedly being a Muslim (not helped by Obama’s politically calculated response to treat the accusation as if it were a slur – previous blog here) they seem to be rising to a crescendo. Read the rest of this entry »

Looks like Italians are outraged about a European court ruling that crucifixes in classrooms of state run secular schools violate the principles of secular education.  Its an extension of the battle not uncommon in the United States, and a symptom of how modern Europe still struggles to integrate immigrants (this claim was brought by a Finnish woman with Italian citizenship).  However, for all the concerns about the assault on cultural heritage only about 23 percent of Italians regularly attend church.  What meaningful purpose the crucifix serves in classrooms is not very clear.

However, this amusing bumper sticker I have seen brings home the futility of any attempt to eliminate prayer from schools:  ”So long as there are exams, there will always be prayers in schools.”

One of the fascinating (and disturbing) after effects of 9/11 has been the willingness in the West to present Islam as a faith inherently violent and antithetical to peaceful co-existence with other religions. This ignores the bloody history and bouts of intolerance of the other Abrahamic faiths. The deeper irony is that the ones preaching the evils of Islam in the West, particularly in America, are often the ones who fail to recognize or appreciate why America and Europe are not theocracies in the Iranian mold. Early American colonies were founded for the religious freedom of only its founders. The Puritans did not extend the same courtesy to others.

It wasn’t until the Enlightenment and the separation of church and state (something hated by Christian fundamentalists today) that many of the freedoms we take for granted in the West occurred.

The history of any religion is amazingly consistent in its patterns – whether there is an Episcopal hierarchy like the Catholic Church or whether it does not have a formal organization or structure like Hinduism. The priestly class tries to stick itself at the top of the hierarchy, the secular class pushes back. Translating the holy books into the language of the common man causes concerns – from legitimate ones regarding the quality of the translation to the more cynical power grab deeming it blasphemy. Even if Rulers do not want priests dictating to them they are more than willing to use it as a matter of state policy.

It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that states of Western Europe and America would stop seeing to “make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts.”   The reduction of religion’s role in political life (something the right wing is furiously trying to overturn) has been a big part of why Christianity and Judaism seem more tolerant today. It is also unfortunate that the Hindutva brigade in India instead of embracing the ecumenical tradition of its faith is intent of emulating the worst bigotry of the monotheistic faiths they despise.

In addition to the secularism encouraged by the Enlightenment there is the social revolution in the West in the aftermath of World War II when women entered the professional workforce in droves (in spite of the attempt turn the clock back in the 50s) followed by the sexual revolution of the 60s. That social transformation caused immense cultural dislocation in the West. It is hardly surprising that the Islamic world which was not subject to the same social transformation time table and hade more traditionalist societies to begin with has not kept up.

Ironically it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that may ultimately convince the Islamic world of the benefits of separating church and state. It is the living example of the axiom that combining religion and politics tarnishes both. Even though the Green Revolution this summer was crushed by what was essentially a coup d’état it is unclear whether the regime is sustainable. By all accounts the power hungry mullahs are widely despised by a populace mostly born after the fall of the Shah. The Chinese regime survived by quietly morphing into fascists and providing double digit growth in exchange for freedom. The Iranian economy teeters on the brink of collapse.

Unlike the Baathist regime in Syria and previously in Iraq the mullahcracy does not appear to have a similar iron grip and has not yet displayed a willingness to mete out a Hama or a Halabja.

If the regime does fall, a relatively secularized Iran will be a far more appealing and enduring symbol of secularism in the Middle East than the to-down variety imposed by Ataturk in Turkey. For every Ataturk, there are many King Amanullahs.

While the Obama administration has had its missteps, it is refreshing to see leadership in Washington that understands that it should not step in when its enemy is doing a good job hanging itself. Given the debacle of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, the shortage of troops and the absence of any staging sites to launch an invasion, it hard to understand what the bomb Iran crowd expects its belligerence and desire for machismo will achieve.