Faith: Another Word Hijacked

It was bad enough when the extreme conservatives gave Christianity a bad name (see my first blog), but now they threaten to discredit all religious persuasions. According to a report in The New York Times, the Family Research Council has put out a flier advertising a meeting to be held at a Kentucky megachurch that reads, "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

Any person who already holds a dim view of organized religion could read that statement and conclude that all, or maybe most, people of faith want the Democrats in the United States Senate to be deprived of the historic power of the minority to protect the country from the tyranny of the temporary majority. People of faith appear to be those who have been duped into demanding a judiciary that would add to the wealth of the corporate elite, the Texas billionaires, and the Wall Street insiders.

The thoughtful citizens of the United States are perfectly aware that the big money people care little or northing about abortion, gay rights, or end of life issues. The big money people give lip service to such issues because there will never be enough of them to control the democratic process. They figured out a long time ago that they needed to forge an alliance with some other sector of society to gain and keep power. They chose the extreme conservatives among the Christians. The federal judges the big money people want to put on the bench are ideologically disposed to supporting the agenda of the extreme conservative Christians, but they would also support the big money agenda.

To enhance their political clout, the big money people have decided to claim that the only faith that matters is fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity. Anyone who does not agree with their social agenda is by definition not a person of faith. Like most other adherents to a religious tradition, I object. First, they hijacked the word "Christian" and made it unusable without a qualifying adjective, and now they seem bent on seizing and twisting the term "faith" in a similar fashion. I wonder, will faith become a term that liberals and progressives will have to abandon in fear of being misunderstood? Or can we add a modifier to separate ourselves from the ranks of Christians with whom we have serious disagreements and identify ourselves as "people of progressive faith"?

Whatever we do, I think we must object to the use of religious language that in the long run will undermine any hope of institutional religion being a respectable and constructive component of a democratic society.

Comments

[Chuck Watts]

The Rockridge Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit, think tank focused on the reframing of progressive ideas & values. Their staff is made up of cognitive scientists and linguists. It seems to me that progressive Christians and progressive scientists would do well to get together. When I go to the Rockridge website, their menu of items include a whole list of subjects, except, oddly enough, religion. Their website is http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org. Check it out.

[sA]

Rev. Daniel Schultz has started The 'Affirmation Project' so religious liberals, progressives, and democrats can express their faith and religious devotion to God so as to contradict the republican claims of our ‘godlessness.’ Please, see http://www.faithforward.blogspot.com/ to see the gathering of affirmations or to leave an affirmation of your own.

[Neng]

Ahhhhhhhhh, Art. I'm irked constantly by the greanel public's inability to value any art post-1945 or mention any female artists other than the big three: Cassatt, Kahlo, and O'Keeffe. If I see one more Starry Night, I just might loose my lunch. But, I have to remember that I daily, hourly, minutely engage art and absolutely love weird art like Jill Foley's creatures and caves and Tom Friedman's hair-based sculptures. And as an art educator, I have to remember most folks won't grow past a 10 year-old's dawning realism art development. So where does that leave me?Well, I indoctrinate all my 1403 students to reach out and enjoy awkward, weird art. Even gross art. Instead of running from depictions of zombies or poop-mobiles, we talk about why the artist (the kiddos in this case) chose to draw what they did. And if they can defend it, by all means, let the poop-mobile ride!! In learning about art, we can't ignore the Western tradition of beautiful art (or Gardner's list of Who's Who in the art world), but we can add to that list non-Western art, post War art, feminist art, and shock of all shocks, artists that are currently making work, i.e. the contemporaries.I always think of Asher's mother (of Potok's My Name is Asher Lev ) constantly asking, pleading for Asher to make pretty art, beautiful art. But in always wanting art to be beautiful, peaceful, or in the background, you're really asking art to not really say anything. Don't challenge me. Don't make me uncomfortable. Don't ask me to think. Christians for SURE need to be educated in contemporary art, because how can we have a legitimate push back against art like Serrano's Piss Christ or other not-friendly-to-Christianity works when we have no words, no context, no insight into art? Or no artists that can create Christian art that doesn't actually include representational imagery of Christ? Without knowledge of the nuances of conceptual art or artists outside of Thomas Kinkade, we become irrelevant in the dialogue and closed off from a whole population of people needing to be engaged by the body of Christ.

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