{"id":1170,"date":"2005-04-15T09:49:46","date_gmt":"2005-04-15T13:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2005\/04\/15\/war-against-christianists\/"},"modified":"2005-04-15T09:49:46","modified_gmt":"2005-04-15T13:49:46","slug":"war-against-christianists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2005\/04\/15\/war-against-christianists\/","title":{"rendered":"War against Christian(ist)s!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, that’s apparently what’s going on in the fight over federal court nominees.  Religious groups have mobilized to head off “the filibuster against people of faith.”<\/a><\/p>\n

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing
\njudicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has
\nagreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a
\ntelecast portraying Democrats as “against people of faith” for blocking
\nPresident Bush’s nominees.<\/p>\n

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council
\nand scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of
\nApril 24, call the day “Justice Sunday” and depict a young man holding
\na Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name
\nparticipants, but under the heading “the filibuster against people of
\nfaith,” it reads: “The filibuster was once abused to protect racial
\nbias, and it is now being used against people of faith.”…\n <\/p>\n

The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule
\nchange by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as
\nthe climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of
\nlegal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and
\nmarriage. <\/p>\n

“As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been
\nrepudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the
\nlast great bastion for liberalism,” Tony Perkins, president of the
\nFamily Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a
\nmessage on the group’s Web site. “For years activist courts, aided by
\nliberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working
\nunder the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us
\nof our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is ridiculous.  Where do these people get off
\nspeaking for “Christians”?  I certainly didn’t elect them to speak
\nfor me, but I did elect my senators, all of whom happen to be Democrats
\nopposing the nominees, I might add.  I’m not going to get into the
\ndetails here, but these particular nominees not only hold views so far
\nout of the mainstream as to be out of touch probably with the majority
\nof the American people but also with the constituents of the churches
\nwe’re talking about here.  Especially once you get outside of
\nissues like abortion or gay marriage.<\/p>\n

First, let’s just call these people what they are: Christianists. 
\nThey have an extraordinarily narrow view of the world that they seek to
\nimpose on the rest of us in the style of a theocracy.  They want
\nus to teach only ideas approved by their (strict, antihistorical, and
\nhistorically unknown) view of a particular religious scripture (the NIV
\nversion of the Christian Bible).  For example, evolution shouldn’t
\nbe taught, because it goes against the Bible (so they say).  They
\nwant to sanction no art except what they deem as acceptable by their
\nreligious precepts.  They argue that only one socio-economic
\nsystem accord with the revealed truth of their scripture (and that
\nhappens to be the system that would benefit them the most,
\nincidentally).  They move to institute their own version of a sharia<\/span>. 
\nThey are intent on setting up Ayatollah Dobson and Mullah Omar-Perkins
\nas the supreme leaders, to pass judgement on all that is good and right
\nand all that is evil and deviant.  Because all things are just so.<\/p>\n

These Christianists even twist their own sacred scritpures to the
\nadvantage of their pursuit of power.  Above, Perkins says,
\n“…activist courts…have been quietly working
\nunder the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night<\/span>,
\nto rob us
\nof our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.”  The phrase
\n“thief in the night comes from I Thessalonians 5.2, which reads, “For
\nyou yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a
\nthief in the night.”  Evil is not coming like a thief in the
\nnight; God is coming like a thief in the night.  If the phrase,
\nfor example, were used in accord with the meaning of the original text
\n(and I know that a Christianist would never want to add, subtract,
\ninterpet, or change the meaning of an original text), it would imply
\nthat all acts of judicial “activism” were part of the coming of the day
\nof the Lord.  Christianist Perkins changes the meaning of his scripture.<\/p>\n

These people are liars and hypocrites, and I’d like to note what the
\nChristianist Scripture (the NIV Bible) says about both sets of
\npeople.  (Don’t piss off an ex-evangelical–I quote as many
\nBible verses as you can, and just as righteously, too.)<\/p>\n

\n“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your
\nfather’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to
\nthe truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his
\nnative language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8.44).”  <\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Matthew 23 (a good chapter in this case, and one I recommend in full<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut
\nthe kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor
\nwill you let those enter who are trying to.<\/p>\n

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You
\ntravel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes
\none, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are….<\/p>\n

Woe
\nto you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give
\na tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected
\nthe more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness.
\nYou should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
\nYou blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel….<\/p>\n

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are
\nlike whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the
\ninside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same
\nway, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside
\nyou are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, that’s apparently what’s going on in the fight over federal court nominees.  Religious groups have mobilized to head off “the filibuster against people of faith.” As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-iS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}