Who Owns Jesus?
A fundamentalist, better to say Reconstructionist, Christian put this on the web a week or so ago: The well-known skeptic and author Mark Twain once said of Christians: “It will be conceded that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man. If Christians would vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease. If the Christians of America could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country.” (Colliers magazine, September 2, 1904)
The model of fundamentalist Christian politicians at the time being… William Jennings Bryan. The man who so enthralled the Democratic Party that they nominated him thrice. The Populist. “Cross of Gold”. When it became politically expedient (the rules of the political game are that the politician defines him/herself against the opposing party — which leads to some tricky political shifts), the anti-imperialist. Which, for the most part, pretty well slid into Mark Twain’s political ideology. (He was fervently anti-imperialist)
Oh, and Bryan was the defender of Evolution at the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Which brings us over to the post comparing the electoral map for 1896 with that of 2000. Flip Flop (September 10).
These thoughts popped into my mind when I saw this post. The “New Labor” electoral strategy that made Tony Blair a Bill Clinton clone (rubbing off from “New Democrat” of 1992) [just as assuredly as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were joined at the hips, and less impressively, John Major and George Bush I. The irony of the John Major situation being, Major won a close re-election in 1992, seemingly due to the fact that the British election was held before the American election… at any rate, his election briefly gave the Bush campaign renewed hope that they could pull it ott], while the devout faith (with general pomposity) factor now fuses Tony Blair with George W Bush.
Does that mean that the “Center — Left Party” of Britain, albeit a “Center – Left” Party that which has been partly co-opted by the Ruppert Murdoch Empire, is holding Jesus right now? I don’t know, and it might be moot since the rank and file Labor members are somewhat miffed at Blair at the moment.
Keep that in mind the next time you read something like this, from Salon:
Bush has no idea at all of — well, of anything. Both [Blair and Bush] try to cover their moral vacuity with religious language that further relieves them of responsibility — God is responsible.
No political party can hold on to God for ever. The American religious tradition is vital and tumultuous. In part because it is an evangelical, and not primarily a birthright, tradition its connection to conservatism is contingent, not necessary. Some liberals have trouble grasping the emotional depth of religious commitment in others, or consider it freakish and scary. I am not one.
The “liberal” churches have drawn attention to the moral failings of preventative war, capital punishment and regressive taxation. Their challenge is just, and their message has entered the ongoing, bottom-up religious conversation. One day — and perhaps sooner than we now can hope — Bush and the hard right will lose the church.
Jimmy Carter was, in 1976, the choice of the Born-Again Christians that now serve as a vital part of George W.’s base. He lost out on that vote four years later to Ronald Reagan… it’s pretty clear now where the fissures of the change were a’moving — the Equal Rights Amendment is part of the Vast Dyke Conspiracy, dontchaknow — and that Carter’s victory was a cosmetic fluke all the way around.
I don’t know what we’re seeing today. Everything is muddled; ‘Strange things are afoot at the Circle K!’
Stay Tuned, I guess.