The New Republic

Amen. We need more journalistic nitpicking like this. I would like to submit the Violent Femmes to this discussion. They wrote straightforward Christian tunes ("Jesus Walking on the Water"), to which even Jerry Falwell would have rythmically slapped his rotund thigh, in addition to songs about murder and masturbation and borrowing dad's car so you can have sex with your date, etc. The Christian soul is a complex one.

- macphail

March 27, 2012 at 5:49pm

I watched a wonderful Mel Brooks interview (2010) last night, and what stands out is his ability to laugh, at not only himself but his people the Jews. His critics might say that he makes jokes about Jews so that Jews don't seem threatening. Maybe. Of course, Jews are so small in numbers (and not being very prolific) they could hardly be threatening. The burden of Christians is being in the majority, for which they are blamed for whatever calamities are visited upon us. It's a heavy burden, and there is no humor in it. I am a cradle Episcopalean, on the border of The Church and the apostates, and I have no doubt that if all Jews had converted to Christianity, as my ancestors did 200 years ago (we are a deliberate clan), they would be Episcopaleans, and Mel Brooks would be our Presiding Bishop.

- rayward

March 27, 2012 at 5:54pm

I have no problem with the term "Christian conservatives" just so long as it isn't confused with "conservative Christians."

- timteeter

March 27, 2012 at 5:56pm

Christianity mystifies me. Well, then Judaism mystifies me (and supposedly I am a "Jew" [self-hating, narcissistic, secular, or whatever). Islam mystifies me. Hinduism mystifies me. Well, let's get right down to it -- religion mystifies me. I am pretty sure I exist. [Pinching self.] I am pretty sure the universe exists. I suspect you exist, though now we are getting on less certain ground. I am pretty sure the being called God does not exist. [If He/It/She existed, It might accurately be described as the worst monster imaginable, whose prophet was H.P. Lovecraft.] However, if you believe in some God or other, I suggest that you treat my nihilism with respect and I will treat your God with equal respect, even though I have not done so up to now in this comment. But we have to start somewhere. Maybe we should make a movie. Timothy can run it through his "language cop" filter before we release it -- fine with me. I'm easy.

- skahn

March 27, 2012 at 6:03pm

Actually, the human soul is a complex one, Christian or otherwise. This is one of your best posts ever, Timothy. It is extremely thoughtful and it is very well-written. Bravo.

- liberalref

March 27, 2012 at 6:25pm

I think this is spot on. For those of you who follow sports, we witnessed this same phenomenon surrounding Tim Tebow's career -- as if his Christian religion were some unique thing in college and the NFL. Of course, his religion is a niche, unique thing, because he belongs to a splinter of a splinter of a splinter group of Christianity with a particularly bloody eschatology and offensive rejection of modern Christian ecumenism, but naturally the sporting (and regular) press would never bring up something so complicated and unflattering in a white athlete. The media is, for the most part, entirely willing to take the extreme right-wing of Christianity at its word regarding its status as the "true" Christian religion (no matter that these sects are the products of 19th- and 20th-century thinking and revisionism). This is true of Tebow Ministries or Tim Lahaye (the author of those awful "Left Behind" novels that turned millions of mainline American Protestants onto a brand of ridiculous 19th-century dispensationalism) or Rick Perry or whoever. Is this because of an overly-generous devotion to objective journalism? Is it because of unfamiliarity with the beliefs of Catholics, Mainline Protestants, or the Orthodox churches and how those beliefs differ from "fundamentalists"? I suspect both are to blame, but the result is an ever-rightward swing in the Christian religion, because most Christians get their views the way most everyone gets it -- through the secular media. And if even the secular media doesn't challenge the right wing's claims to be the "true" Christianity, then the result is what we see now.

- zuludown

March 27, 2012 at 6:25pm

Timothy, I'm definitely in agreement with your BFF, lib, on his assessment. I heard the same thing in the drive to work and had a similar, albeit fleeting and not as insightful, thought as well. As this was one of your first thoughts of the day, you should have blogged it earlier, leaving you time to write 2 more posts for the day, as do your friends at the Stump and Mr. Cohn consistently do. I don't think I'm alone in wishing you'd step up the volume of your insight. It's truly a complimentary compliant.

- RJSampson1

March 27, 2012 at 6:45pm

Conservative Christians don't like the terms "Christian right" and "Christian conservative" because they suggest that there are such things as the “Christian left” and “Christian liberals.” It is essential to the Christian conservative worldview that their conception of Christianity is the only authentic expression of the faith and that liberal Christianity is heretical, perverse, and "un-Christian." Conservative Christians have every right to believe that if they want, but it is shameful and ignorant of the press to play along with them.

- lpowens3

March 27, 2012 at 7:26pm

Beautiful piece, thank you!

- Sophia

March 27, 2012 at 7:32pm

I assume that you are kidding with your use of BFF, though I have learned that my sense of irony has led me astray concerning any number of commenters out here. In case you are serious, I will only say that though I greatly admire Timothy's intelligence and his writings, I have major disagreements with him. He is definitely to the left of me. He likes Occupy Wall Street and I don't, he is much more optimistic about the government's ability to redress income inequality than I am, and he is much more hopeful that government regulation can achieve its objectives than am I. In general, he is what I refer to as an Enlightenment rationalist, i.e, someone who believes that rational grids can be superimposed on reality and that policies x,y,z, etc. can be implemented and said reality tweaked in the desired directions. So how about BFAOF?

- liberalref

March 27, 2012 at 7:42pm

Andrew Sullivan has been thinking aloud about this for a while. I think what you are looking for is "Christianist". Christianity is just a religion. It doesn't dictate that we lower taxes on people or organize the state such that all the laws accord with orthodox Christian doctrine. Christianism, like Islamism, is an explicitly political version of Christianity and given the way that Christianist forces have arrayed in the US, it is a conservative doctrine that aligns with the socially conservative dictates of particular Christian leaders, cross-pollinated with their political bedfellows, the economic conservatives who prefer that we organize our society to benefit the rich, disorganize and expropriate the poor, and dull the middle class in a complacent stupor. Christianism is quite antithetical to democratic, rationalist societies that recognize freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. America moved away from Christianism in the 19th century as it democratized further, embraced scientific rationalism, and began to uphold those freedoms more extensively in the 20th. This is a step back and a perversion of Christianity as it attempts to read out other biblical interpretations and other Christian churches. Of course, if past Christianist movements were as aggressive (relative to American society), our current Christianist leaders probably would not have emerged and their churches would likely not exist.

- chaitless

March 27, 2012 at 7:54pm

Hollywood is not liberal at all. It’s conservative in the extreme. The liberal aspects come to light when George Clooney makes a speech or some famous actress adopts an international array of children or something, but that’s a cursory glance at the real Hollywood. -How many movies tell a Christ allegory? How many of the highest-grossing movies of all time (superhero movies) are Christ allegories? -Practically every American movie ever made affirms that heterosexual, monogamous love is the sole key to happiness. -Hollywood is extremely capitalistic. It cares about nothing but making money, and this ethos even bleeds into the art. Virtually every movie the past 25 years involves conspicuous consumption by the characters. -Virtually every American war film ever made is blatantly pro-America, even pro-American militarism. DoD authorizes most films’ military depictions, guiding the filming process in accordance with the wishes of Big Military. -Premarital sex in films is fairly common, but it is also the origin of brutal, humiliating punishment for many many female characters (see: the entire horror genre; dramas relying on pregnancy complications; romances about a woman rearranging her life or suppressing her inner-whore or denying her career ambitions in order to find the right man to “complete” her; etc.). Have we ever seen a female movie character with an active sex drive who is not denigrated for it? -And have we ever seen a movie in which abortion is depicted as a difficult choice, but ultimately the right decision for a young woman? The idea that Hollywood is liberal is massively incorrect. Conservatives, or liberals or anyone in between, who advance this ridiculous meme are guilty of failing to think critically about the nonsense they spew.

- Konstantin

March 27, 2012 at 8:14pm

And when was the last time you saw a gay movie character who wasn't comic relief, the sassy gay best friend, or a source of contrived tension in the plot? When was the last time you saw an honest movie depiction of an interracial relationship, unless the movie was explicitly about the problems with that relationship? (Scott Pilgrim? Hey, I thought of one.) Have interracial relationships ever been dealt with casually in movies? Yeah, "liberal" Hollywood, right. Sure. The American cinemascape more closely resembles the ideals of a Bob Jones University campus dweller than anything that could be called "liberal."

- Konstantin

March 27, 2012 at 8:20pm

"Broadly speaking, of course, nearly all of contemporary western culture is rooted in Christianity and the Bible one way or the other, if you trace it back far enough. " Not true. Our system of law, for example, descends from English Common Law, which descends from Germanic law and custom. Huge portions of our culture come from non-biblical Germanic and Latinate sources, just to name two obvious sources.

- Curran1

March 27, 2012 at 8:26pm

I would trace "contemporary western culture" back much longer in time and further in geographic scope, longer than even Curran suggests. I don't feel like getting into it all now, but if you've read Sir James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough" or studied ancient mythologies, you know that, for example, the Christian concept of Easter & resurrections and such goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to early pagan or pre-Christian notions of resurrection via the onset of spring, sacrifice, and the growth of crops and new life. The Old Testament's great flood story is also a borrowed, er, adapted tale from pre-Christian beliefs & tales. Sorry, Christians. Your god ain't that original. Or infallible. Now kindly please stay out of my movie entertainments.

- Konstantin

March 27, 2012 at 8:31pm

Great post.

- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM

March 27, 2012 at 8:35pm

Thank you for speaking much-needed truth.

- cspencef

March 27, 2012 at 8:49pm

I am gonna call them Kkkhristian from now on just to get under their skins. And if they object I will ask them in what manner have they carried the cross for Christ today, exactly how have they suffered for the least of mankind.

- blackton

March 27, 2012 at 9:13pm

Curran -- Excellent point and dead-on. Tim, your assertion is much too hard to evaluate: "Broadly speaking, of course, nearly all of contemporary western culture is rooted in Christianity and the Bible one way or the other, if you trace it back far enough. " Certainly A LOT of western culture is rooted in Christianity. It's implausible to say that NEARLY ALL OF contemporary western culture is based in the Bible because of the influence of so many other powerful social forces; furthermore, I take it as a safe bet that you aren't relying on any thorough study--you're just making an assumption! Then again: When it comes down to it, you didn't come up with this truism (which is in very broad circulation these days)...but then again, you aren't holding yourself back much! That's part of your charm, I suppose...

- mcmahon.an

March 27, 2012 at 10:52pm

"It's a cartoonish misconception that the Christian right has managed to sell to a largely secular news media that's too sensitive to accusations of anti-religious bias." Yes. And it's clear that the news media is rightly terrified of making whatever missteps with regard to religion that could alienate audiences. It's also a considerable disservice to an entirely different strain of Christianity." Well, yes. But this is America. If are a "christianist" and you want to make money by accessing your target market AND thumb your nose to some competing strains of Christianity, you can just go ahead.

- mcmahon.an

March 27, 2012 at 11:06pm

No one has ever explained to me what is the difference between "good" religion and "bad" religion. I call myself an ethical nihilist because I am too lazy, timid, and incompetent to rape and pillage, but if I were a better predator, my fangs might be ripping through your flesh this very moment.

- skahn

March 28, 2012 at 12:12am

Ow! Careful!

- ironyroad

March 28, 2012 at 12:43am

Very good, Timothy. And very good, lpowens3. You nailed it. I wish liberal Christians would speak up more in the media and defend Christ's real message. The Christian Right, as I call them, are warlike. I don't think the Prince of Peace was. "The Christian Wrong" would be more accurate. lpowens3's comment is worth repeating below. "Conservative Christians don't like the terms "Christian right" and "Christian conservative" because they suggest that there are such things as the “Christian left” and “Christian liberals.” It is essential to the Christian conservative worldview that their conception of Christianity is the only authentic expression of the faith and that liberal Christianity is heretical, perverse, and "un-Christian." Conservative Christians have every right to believe that if they want, but it is shameful and ignorant of the press to play along with them."

- magboy47.

March 28, 2012 at 2:43am

A few years ago I visited the ruins of Aphrodisias in Turkey. Imagine a city sacred to Aphrodite. The mind reels in delight. We lost something when we let the old gods and goddesses die.

- paskunac

March 28, 2012 at 7:00am

FWIW, paskunac, Aphrodisias was also the site of a large synagogue with clear signs of major support from non-Jews. I don't mind being identified as a Christian liberal, even if I'm not a liberal Christian. I take the former as indicating a Christian whose Christianity affects his liberalism, and the latter as indicating someone whose liberalism determines the content of his Christianity. The same should hold true of Christian conservatives. Of course, trying to maintain such distinctions in public discourse is probably impossible.

- timteeter

March 28, 2012 at 9:35am

There is a simple solution and it is right in the title of this piece. If we want to afford this group the customary respect of calling them by the name they choose, and also note that by choosing "Christian", they are pointedly excluding many, many others who would also self-describe with that term, then simply always use quotes around the term to indicate that they are using a definition that is not our standard one. When speaking, one can insert "so-called" to avoid making air quotes. I'm sure that would not offend anyone. Would it?

- aduncanson

March 28, 2012 at 10:24am

Christianists are people who read the Sermon on the Mount and somehow come away with the impression that Jesus is praising hypocrites rather than criticizing them. Or maybe they haven't read the Sermon on the Mount at all - it's not nearly as gripping as good old Leviticus.

- GeoffG

March 28, 2012 at 10:58am

Great post and fantastic comments by all (especially my dear friend Skahn). As Chaitless says, Andrew Sullivan has made the discussion of christianism - as opposed to Christianity - a regular feature on his blog. As I've done a few times in the past on these boards, humor me once again by allowing me to apologize on behalf of those who claim to be christian but who display attitudes and prejudices that are in fact diametrically opposed to everything Christ taught and everything He died for. No, God does not hate gays and no, gay people are not, simply by virtue of being who they are, spending an eternity in hell (that "eternity in hell" is not, in my opinion, an actual real thing is a topic for another conversation entirely). No, there is nothing - zero, zip, nada, nothing - that says Jews or HIndus or Buddhists or atheists or whoever don'[t get to go to heaven if, by the tiume they die, they don't embrace Jesus as their lord and savior. And yes, we are commanded to help the poor and the destitute REGARDLESS of how they got that way. I wonder what Jesus would think - err, THINKS - of all these self important peacocks, strutting around in their very best sartorial finery, laughing over martinis and talking about how awful it is that if the President rolls back the Bush tax cuts they may have to pony up an extra few thousand $$s. How terrible for them. I mean this literally... how terrible for these people who claim to be christian, yet who have become so backward in their value system that they willingly forget everything they were ever taught about what matters. After Cain killed Abel, he asks, "Am I my brother's keeper?" This is the first (known) question posed to God by man. God doesn't answer. As a rabbi once told me, God doesn't answer because the Bible and everything connected to it - the Torah and Talmud, Old and New Testamants, rabbinical and monastic theology - IS the answer to that question. If "Am I my brother's keeper?" is the first question posed to God, then everything written about God and His word, about the history of His peolple and the God inspired teachings, everything put on paper has been the detailed answer to that question, an answer spanning 5 thousand years that touches the lives of every human who has ever lived. Boiled down to its simplest, thye answer is a resounding yes. How sad for some that, regardless of whatever religious belief (or lack thereof) they espouse, they willfully reject this simple yet critical meaning in all of our lives. The pastor at my (Lutheran) chirch recently had a sermon entitled "Relationship vs Religion". One of my favorite passages was central to the sermon: Peter is talking with Jesus, and when Jesus asks him "So, who do people say I am?", Peter tells him "Well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, yadda yadda." "Yeah, ok" Jesus says, "Whatever... anyway Pete, who do YOU say that I am?" The sermon, one of the best I've heard, goes on to talk about how a person's faith is and should be an extraordinarily personal affair, a deeply life-altering relationship you have with your God. As opposed to having "A Religion", which all too often is simply a membership in a club, a club that tells you "it isn't enough to beleive in God, or accept Jesus, but you also have to recite the following passage every day", or "You must adhere to the following dietary restrictions, and when you have sins to confess make sure you confess them to a priest. NO skipping the middle man!" But this isn't a relationship, and a relationship with you, directly and deeply personally, is what God wants. It is, after all, what He died for. And it is open to all, unreservedly. How unfortunate that it is those who most loudly proclaim their "faith" seem to be the most likely to put aside everything the bible says about helping those less fortunate. How very very sad.

- Tristan

March 28, 2012 at 11:08am

I think Tristan brings it home. Very nice.

- GSpinks

March 28, 2012 at 11:41am

You are quite right, Tristan - God does not hate gays because there is no God. Or at least, the evidence is overwhelming that there isn't. But the deity in the Old Testament doesn't seem too happy with them; cf. Leviticus 18:22. And recall that even though Christ proclaimed a new law, according to Matthew 5:18, he also said that not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away until all is fulfilled. It is all rather amusing to me; conservative Christians will often defend barbaric passages in the Bible and liberal Christians will attempt to explain them away. Liberal Christianity owes huge debts to the likes of John Locke and Spinoza and Voltaire, et al. Jesus really wasn't an Enlightenment figure. The great scholar of the New Testament, Bart Ehrman, whom I got a lovely email reply from a few short months ago, makes a fabulous case that Jesus was an apocalyptic rabbi. And further, "Jesus" is a construct of the Gospel writers and the redactors. As Ehrman points out, there are more than five thousand copies of the New Testament in whole or in part. It is certainly true that the right distorts the figure of Christ. He was not a militarist and he was not a capitalist. But the left distorts Christ, too, all of the time. Of course they don't want to talk about this (it is harder to distort if you acknowledge doing so). The late philosopher Walter Kaufmann made sport of those who counterpose the "peaceful" New Testament with the warlike Old Testament. In Matthew 5:22, Christ is quoted as calling down hellfire on those who say "You fool." That means a lot of commenters out here are in a hell of a lot of trouble. And then there is Revelation, but never mind this book, for now. When I saw that you wrote about excellent comments, Tris, I thought that isn't the way remember it from yesterday, so I went back and read through them all, plus the new ones that hadn't been posted when I last looked at this page yesterday evening. Sure enough, the comments are mostly pretty bad. The bar is often set very low when it comes to assessing the quality of comments at TNR, though. Lastly, the term "ethical nihilist" makes no sense, unless it is meant as a joke. It doesn't make you an ethical nihilist merely because you oppose the regnant moral paradigms in the West. This is a point that many very bright philosophers have not grasped, from Friedrich Nietzsche, to the existentialists, such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, and beyond.

- liberalref

March 28, 2012 at 12:16pm

Lib - I would be happy to engage in a little debate about the "evidence that there is no God" thing, but it may be more appropriate to have that be a more private conversation. Let me know, I'd be happy to engage in a discussion with you. To respond to a couple points though: When Jesus spoke of "not one jot ot tittle of the law", the law he was speaking of was the moral law handed down directly from God; that is, the 10 commandments, which themselves Jesus boiled down to "Love God with all your heart... and love your neighbor as yourself". This is the part - the holy moral law - that will not pass away, even though the world itself might. The other 2 types of law, ceremonial and judicial, were understood to be evolving and changing as the needs of society changed. When God brought the Hebews into the wilderness post-Egyptian slavery, he gave them a very simple moral law. In keeping with human nature, we screwed it up and proceeded to add an entire canon of religious regulations; they may have had the original intent of helping to keep the people mindful of their faith, but in practice had the effect of turning something very simple into something complicated, restrictive, and punitive. Then Jesus came and said, among other things, "Knock it off. You don't need all these little restrictions you've put on yourselves, and you certainly don't need all the punishments that go along with them. You only need God, and faith. And be nice to each other, for heaven's sake" I find it a cross between sad and hilarious that 5 minutes after He died the early Christians were busy at it again, coming up with a slew of new laws to go along with their new faith. Acts of the Apostles and various letters go to great lengths to explain what's allowed and what's not, despite none of these things having anything to do with the teachings of Jesus. Anyway, the bushels of laws the Hebrews say fit to put in place... restrictions against wearing different types of fabric, laws against homosexuality, dietary restrictions... were, by Jesus's own command, temporary things which would - and did - pass away from our concern; yet the higher moral law (one that was quite simple, really) was that which would remain forever in place. Nor did Christ "call down hellfire" on those who called their brother/sister a fool... but again, this is probably a conversation more fit for private rather than public consumption. As for the commentary by others not being so excellent... well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.

- Tristan

March 28, 2012 at 1:03pm

As I read the last line of your basically excellent article I thought I should remind you again that evangelicals are not always the same as fundamentalists or members of the Christian right. There are plenty of politically liberal evangelicals, tired as they are of defending themselves against everybody thinking they must be wingnuts. (Yes, this includes me.)

- Erik_S

March 28, 2012 at 2:06pm

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but "god" said this that and other thing several thousand years ago, via the mouths and pens of people who are still trying to figure things out. I wish people would stop laying all this on the heads of the folks who wrote Leviticus. And also, claiming that Jews are only about rules. That's absurd.

- Sophia

March 28, 2012 at 2:23pm

Anyway, Jews as a group are not afraid to question, challenge, try to interpret the old books. Women can now be rabbis. Israel is open and safe for gay people. Christians though and not just American "Christianists" try to proclaim their faith is superior because supposedly Jesus mocked the law, as if this can even be proven. Meanwhile the Rabbi Hillel stated simply that Torah was essentially about doing unto others, etc, at around the same time as Jesus was supposedly killed by the Jews because he was such a rebel. here's a huge amount of revisionist history being sold as historical fact via the Christian interpretation of events, up to and including obscuring the fact that Rome crucified untold thousands upon thousands of Jews, had occupied and finally waged war on Israel and scattered her people. THEN Christianity became its state religion...forgive me my anger. But enough gets to be enough. Well Jews of all stripes argue with god all the time and struggle with the inner meanings of the law. That's the opposite of fundamentalist, whether you are a believer in Ha Shem or not; it's always been a fluid system full of intellectual challenge yet people insist that Christianity is better because, blah blah blah. Enough already. Please. Oh how I wish people would just openly and publicly confront this. But we can't because to be honest, Christianity is STILL the state religion of Rome. And who is now Rome? Along those lines, thinking about Hollywood, in the wake of these disgusting performances by Santorum, the attacks on contraception and women in general, one is reminded of the vilification of certain Kings who stood up to Rome, the supposed saintliness of Becket and More; now I'm starting to look at it another way. I always did have a soft spot for the lions too. So sue me. But the fact is Christianity morphed into the state religion of a mighty and supremely materialistic Empire and at that point its spiritual message was 100% wedded to the power of the state, and other religions got pretty much wiped out - temples burned, pagans and Jews murdered, forcibly converted, expelled and vilified, and finally terrible wars broke out among competing Christian sects. And all would be well in the afterlife, all one needed (needs) is FAITH; and no matter how good a Jew is he is going to burn. I'm kind of tired of the whole thing myself but then I'm Jewish, one of those atheist Jews who argues with God all the time and doesn't believe in Her either. Regardless the sheer temporal power of Christians is something people have forgotten or try not to look at, except Marx; and we know how Marxism came to be seen in America - better DEAD right? So trying to make out that it's all warm and fuzzy, this religion, all about love and Easter bunnies (PAGAN) and so on. It isn't. It's used ideas about love and the afterlife to enforce economic and state and temporal power for over 1500 years throughout the West. Christianity as an institution has been about raw power, the most minute control of peoples' lives and also, about money, getting money to run these supposedly sacred, spiritual institutions, and also interfering to the nth degree with people who don't believe, Native Americans for example; Jews for another; Pagans for a third; communists, atheists, scientists...we mock the people in Saudi Arabia who issue fatwas against the earth rotating around the sun. Well, what happened to Galileo? Who is trying to impose "creationism" on public schools? Christianism is nothing new. Indeed it's difficult to see where "Christianity" and "Christianism" are different in history and in fact. Apologies if people are offended. I understand all the sweet and lovely aspects of love, so forth and the supposed universalism of Christ's love except of course that the rest of us are going to hell and are outside the political system and have frequently been attacked, forcibly converted and abused, even exterminated. So, state power and Christianity are deeply linked in the political history of the West and this explains, to my mind, why both left and right are frequently prone to antisemitism and also the many wars with Islam, another religion closely linked to temporal power. And it says very little about the supposed supremacy of Christian doctrine as opposed to Jewish ideas too; meanwhile though Jews are maybe only 14 million people, Israel is supposedly Ground Zero for The Rapture, Muslims (more billions, though not as many billions as Christians yet) continue to be vilified and to vilify - Christians and Muslims still consider each other "the infidel." Can you imagine anybody actually saying this on CNN? No you can't. Instead, it's become vital that a President be a Christian and loudly declare his affiliation to Christ, when in fact the US was founded to escape religious tyranny.

- Sophia

March 28, 2012 at 2:51pm

"And also, claiming that Jews are only about rules. That's absurd" Soph: not sure if that was in response to what I wrote, but if it was, I humbly suggest you replace in my post "Jews" with "human beings". The predilection towards creating complicated rules out of something that should be simple is a human trait, one shared by all people in all societies. It is, in fact, one of the hallmarks of human society in general. It was by no means a judgement on a single group of people, and if that's how it was taken, my apologies.

- Tristan

March 28, 2012 at 2:51pm

Thank you thank you for this. I have long been astounded and offended by how the use of the word "Christian" by the political Right and commercial religious media has overwhelmed any concept of the breadth, depth and diversity of christian belief and practice, and, intentionally, attempted to deny legitimacy to any thought or practice except those embraced, and, even more important, PROMOTED by these political and commercial "Christians." I don't remember this usage in my own childhood in the 50s and 60s. Back then, people identified themselves, if asked, as Catholics and Lutheran and Baptists and Assembly of God, etc., etc. But, it was considered poor form -- an invitation to conflict -- in a country of such diverse religious practice to bring up the topic of religion in polite company. For the same reason, the political separation of church and state was considered very important. One of the reasons for the promotion of "Christian" as a catchall phrase, by those using religion to gain political power and/or commercial wealth, is to intentionally negate these distinctions, deny religious diversity, and claim that whatever policies or action suit their, political and commercial, needs and desires, at the moment, is representative of the beliefs and values of all of Christianity. The other reason it this; the rise in the last several decades of huge, highly commercialized "non-denominational" religious communities that, in order to appeal to as wide an audience of potential consumers as possible, emphasize the social and tribal aspects of religious community over theology, rigorous practice, responsibility for others, etc. In their hands, "Christian" has become a word that refers to anything they want it to be, and, to nothing at all.

- esmense

March 28, 2012 at 3:00pm

A good case can be made that you cannot be Republican Christian-- its an oxymoron.

- drofnats1

March 28, 2012 at 3:33pm

Sophia, maybe Tristan is positioning himself to join Andrew Sullivan at The Dish. And T., what would be the evidence for a God? The Holocaust?

- liberalref

March 28, 2012 at 5:23pm

Tristan, thank you for your kind comments. [The check is in the mail.] In case anybody is tempted to blame T, the phrase "ethical nihilist" is mine, and if you use it without permission, you owe me royalties. Arnon and Noga are also on my payroll. I think my detractors should get equal billing. If there were a kindly God, this would account for today's synchronization. As usual, I was volunteering for the local gentle evangelical unitarianistic Lutherans. I interrupted their musings about how to provide health care to say, "Just so you know, I am not likely to be 'assimilated' into your church, and not likely to attend your services." After which point, they spent at least half an hour explaining why everyone is welcome to their services, even atheists. As my neighbor drove me home, he explained how the pastor even delivers services at the funerals of atheists. I said, "If my daughter wants to hold a service for me, it's up to her. I'm not going to be worrying about it." [If health regulations permitted it, I would be fine with being tossed into our woods for the crows to pick apart.] As far as I can tell, whatever we call them, the world now has two religions. I'll run it by our chickens; they consider us Gods; maybe there will be a clue in their clucks to what it all means.

- skahn

March 28, 2012 at 6:24pm

Wanted to give a quick comment, sorry if i'm too lazy to read all the postings. A simple explanation, from someone who grew up fundamentalist: Hard core fundamentalists have always believed that they are the only true "Christians". You "become" a Christian when you make a definitive personal decision for Christ. It wasn't until I left to go to college that I met "Christians"who were Presbyterians and (even more mystifying) Roman Catholics. This was a long and difficult adjustment. Now that this community has come out of the closet (so to speak), this usage is exposed to the population as a whole. Thus, the question, "is Obama a Christian?", or even "is America a Christian nation?" while absurd to the general population, gets a resounding No! to hard core fundamentalists. As the community becomes more powerful politically, (as well as more strident and less compromising), their beliefs are spotlighted by society as a whole, including by the substantial amount of "Christians" who are excluded from their definition.

- harryrohde

March 29, 2012 at 1:34pm

I would have thought that the second question, "Is America a Christian nation?" would get a resounding Yes! It seems to be part of the standard argumentation whenever the notion of religious pluralism or the theory of church-state separation comes up.

- ironyroad

March 29, 2012 at 2:12pm

Lots of comments for us all to ignore. So here's my ignorant theory. Christ probably existed (though, not for sure) and probably was crucified, and probably preached peace and love. Paul created one of the first “social networks.” Later people wrote and edited stories about Christ with the born of virgin and rose from the dead hooey. Christianity was a “virtuous swindle” in a time when “fact checking” was not what it is (still feebly) today. For some reason (that mystifies me – but I am “tone deaf” as far as “spirituality” goes) Christianity hit a sweet spot in human “denial of death – unfair mundane life will be balanced out by a perfect impartial judge in Heaven" needs. I suspect that Jung's idea of the “archtype” – some idea that resonates with our species – ties into why Christianity has grabbed such a potent hold on humankind. Unfortunately, once Christianity moved from persecuted few to powerful many, the usual trip of power corrupting did its number on the religion, but it keeps trying to heal itself, I guess.

- skahn

March 30, 2012 at 12:05am

I haven't carefully read all of the comments either, but I do want to say that some of my Christian friends point out that what Jesus said about selling all you have and giving it to the poor isn't about tax policy, and that they take seriously their personal and spiritual obligation to help people in need. Some of them do this at considerable sacrifice to themselves. Of course I have nonreligious friends who do the same.

- s.trabka@frontier.com-old

March 30, 2012 at 8:43am

Sasanqua, your comment is correct and apt. However, as pure and selfless as many Christians consider their efforts to help people in need (and, for all I know, may be literally true for some), everyone should keep in mind those almost immortal words of another spiritual leader, "Can't Buy Me Love."

- skahn

March 31, 2012 at 4:58pm