Nate Knows Nada

…apparently.  It’s the political and social beliefs of the people that are, according to Extreme Right spokesperson Rick Santorum. 
A number of people are quite unhappy that he is, in a fashion, blaming
the victims (and their culture) rather than their perpetrators in the
clergy sex abuse scandal.

This man is a hypocrite.  In one breath, he says that individuals
are responsible for their actions, making their own choices.  In
the next, he says that society’s to blame.  Which is it?

The sniping and idiocy continued today, as Santorum noted the
atmosphere of sexual permissiveness that pervades Boston (really, has
he been here? I haven’t seen this…).  Of course, if this were
the cause of the clergy scandal, then San Francisco, New York, and LA
would have been where it was all centered.  And yet, it happened
all over the country, and we’re beginning to see evidence of it through
the world.

Then the good gentleman blamed Harvard and MIT, because of their liberal attitudes.

More commentary available here.

Specifically, here’s what Santorum wrote about the church pedophile
scandal on a religious website called Catholic Online. ”When the
culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no
excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of
academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the
center of the storm.”

So thank you, senator, for setting us
straight about the problems with the clergy. Thank you for letting us
know that all those pedophilic priests and the church leaders who
covered up their crimes are the fault of every Bostonian.

Who
knew that the president of Harvard, the people at the Museum of
Science, and Mayor Thomas M. Menino were to blame for Cardinal Bernard
F. Law’s decision to move predatory priests from one parish to another?
Here’s who knew: Senator Rick Santorum.

I remind you of the alternative meaning of “santorum.”  Go to Google, type in “santorum” and hit “I’m feeling lucky.” 

It’s very interesting how the hard right has taken to the advocacy of
crushing evil.  Any position that does not accord with theirs
derives from a culture or a fact of evil.  So liberals are not
just wrong or misguided.  They are actually evil, or deceived by
evil.  And thus, disagreement itself ceases to be value-neutral
and becomes evil.  “Do not think, do not speak, do not do
anything, or you will be marked as a captive and agent of Evil,” they
imply and even say quietly.

I don’t often agree with Christianity Today.  The crux of the
disagreement revolves around the place of GLBT… people in the life of
society and the church.  I find them far too close to the “please
stuff yourselves back in the closet” camp.  And actually, I
discussed this here with one of their editors a couple of years ago.

But this last week, they took many of the “leaders” of the conservative evangelical camp to tack in one of their editorials:

George W. Bush is not Lord. The Declaration
of Independence is not an infallible guide to Christian faith and
practice. Nor is the U.S. Constitution, nor the U.N. Universal
Declaration on Human Rights. “Original intent” of America’s founders is
not the hermeneutical key that will guarantee national righteousness.
The American flag is not the Cross. The Pledge of Allegiance is not the
Creed. “God Bless America” is not the Doxology.

Sometimes one needs to state the obvious—especially at times when it’s less and less obvious.

…Let us be clear: The Christian citizen of every
nation has a moral obligation to engage at some level in that nation’s
political life. We do not recommend withdrawal from the political
arena. We admire especially those whose calling falls in this
area—mayors, councilmen, senators, representatives, presidents. Theirs
is as noble a calling as that of a plumber or pastor.

But Christians who enter that calling, and those who
pray for and work with them, must not forget one thing: where hope for
this nation, and the world, really lies, and where that hope is most
manifest Sunday by Sunday.

Yes.  Now I think they could have been more strenuous
about calling their fellow conservatives to task.  Who better that
CT to identify the idolatry of worldview that, although prevalent on
all points on the continuum, they are most familiar and engaged
with?  Who better than CT to use the word “idolatry”?Who better than CT to make a real difference here?