Posted by Craig
Maybe I am? I voted for George Bush. Does that make me a member of the religious right? I believe evil exists in the world. Does that belief place me in the religious right? I know there is a wrong and right. I have faith in a being greater than myself. I know there are values, ethics, and morals that everyone should abide by. Does all this make me a member of the religious right?
Wikipedia defines the religious right “as a broad label applied to a number of political and religious movements with particularly conservative and right wing views.” By this definition, I would have to say yes. Theocracy Watch claims that the “The Theocratic Right [aka the religious right] is not a conservative movement. It is striving to radically change the status quo.” The website continues to claim “This movement values guns and the death penalty. It values the rich at the expense of the poor. It favors corporations at the expense of individuals. It seeks to eliminate virtually all regulations that protect the environment, worker safety, and public health.” After reading those statements, my views of belonging to the religious right quickly left.
I grew up a pious individual, attending services not only on Sunday morning, but Sunday night as well. My family attended a variety of teaching; Christian Science, Christian, Southern Baptist, General Baptist, and I also attended Pentecostal and American Baptist later in life. I took religions seriously, as well as the teachings that are synonymous throughout all the religions. There exists evil in the world, there are right and wrong choices, there are values and moral to live life by, and there does exist a greater power than I can really comprehend. I believe not only does my Christian background teach those same lessons, but so do Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu religions. I haven’t attended church in three years, but those lessons I learned at an early age linger still with me.
The liberal media chooses to blame the religious right for the victory of George W. Bush. I even say a skit on Saturday Night Live poking fun at this faction. The left cannot come to grips with the fact they ran a man with as much excitement as Ben Stein’s voice. They seek to blame, accuse and find excuse to the loss. Well the religious right did not propel Bush to victory; they were his base to begin with. What made Bush the winner in November, is the majority of Americans that wanted a moral choice in the White House. They wanted a party that understands the nature of the world. They wanted a party that sees the Americas moral clarity being flushed. A recent study done at University of Connecticut discovered that teens are more conservative than their parents, at least in regards to the First Amendment. “More than 100,000 students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools were asked questions pertaining to the First Amendment.” When students were read the exact test of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it went “too far” in the right it guarantees. Half of those same students felt that newspapers were given too much freedom in the stories that they are allowed to publish.
What does that mean to me? The pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. The sixties and seventies brought radical changes to not only the counter-culture, but eventually the entire culture all together. Now the children, and even grand-children, have rebelled against the rebellion. The world needs order. The world needs direction. The world needs values. Do I think Bush holds all the answers? No. Do I think the radical religious right holds all the answers? No. But somewhere in those ideas, lay a truth that none can deny. The religious right did not make George W. Bush win, religious values, of all religious backgrounds, had a hand in it. I am not a member of the religious right, I have religious tendencies, and I lean to the right.
February 07, 2005
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During the Presidents state of the union address Republican Congressman showed solidarity with Iraqi voters by dipping their index fingers in purple ink. Interestingly, 50% of those congressman showed solidarity by having purple noses.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been nice for 100% of congressman and women to join together in their sign of solidaity with Iraq. If there were purple on the Republican noses, it matched the red on the Democrats faces. Not only because of the embarrasment of being on the wrong side of history in respect to the Iraq elections, but also anger, that their false rhetoric did not alter this joyous event.
ReplyDeleteYour comments on religion are interesting, but somewhat simplistic. I, too, am deeply religious, AND currently practicing my faith. The religious right, or Mr. Bush's base, are NOT Christian men and women who seek help and direction from God, but are, instead, men and women who rigidly define morals according to their largely Old Testament mindset, which, as every practicing Christian should know, was replaced by the new order as ushered in by Jesus Christ. These are men and women who use Scripture as a weapon, to judge and exclude. In addition, they seem to have forgotten that Christ came to minister to sinners - the prostitues, tax collectors, and flawed were his companions. He did not shamelessly pursue the rich and outwardly pious-he went to the people that needed him. Remember, Christ gave us only two commandments - love your God and love each other. He certainly did not subscribe to the exclusionary fascist ideals as practiced by a large portion of the fundamentalist right.
ReplyDeletecraig,
ReplyDeleteI think what your getting at is the fact that Democratic jabbing at the religious right is code for condescendsion toward any conservative-leaning religious person. In fact, in reading a lot of blogs, I noticed a lot of atheists were equally offended by the presumption that moral issues are something that only a narrow-minded group of religious nuts cares about.
That's why Kerry lost, and that is why I will never consider myself a liberal, even though I find myself agreeing with liberals on occasion.
As a small-c Christian (!) and a conservative, I take issue with the simple-minded comment that the New Testament replaced the Old Testament. This is true in a sense, but I believe the Old Testament is still scripture and still there for a purpose.
In fact, if I were to sit down with Anonymous, we might have a lot in common since I don't believe every moral requires running to Caesar to render a law against it. But since people like Anonymous feel the need to condescend toward right-wing religious people, so he would reject me on that basis anyway.
Here's my Old Testament mindset: 1 Samuel 8:10-18. Rather libertarian, I would say (again small-L; I'm not sure large L libertarians are crazy about religious people either).