The law is a cumbersome beast - necessary but crude and slow to respond as compared to the rate at which human tactical approaches can be adapted and modified.

The ultimate safeguard, one in danger of crumbling now, is this : a widespread cultural belief that the separation principle is a valid one.

On those grounds - and on others too -  the theocratic movement is winning, and it is winning by virtue of brute force advertising and grassroots organizing tactics, by ceaseless repetition, by hollow and obtuse intellectual sophistry....

Once majority perceptions have been shifted sufficiently, to the belief that the government of the United States was founded as a Christian rather than a secular entity, the game is lost.

But that grim end is not yet here - and though I'm tempted to flourish - in grand rhetorical style - about the need for magical solutions, great imagined battles to stem this tide - Gettysburgs, Stalingrads, or a Thermoplaes..... but, no :

Turn to Face The Feared, the Strange :

At the cultural level this struggle can be reduced, at least in part, to efforts that are mundane, practical, even tasteless  - to cheap "evolution comics" to counter Jack Chick tracts, to media saturation techniques - in television, radio, and advertising - to potboiler novels that sell on a level to rival the Lahaye franchise......the Christian right has flooded mass culture with product bearing theocratic overtones, undertones, memes, shadings.....  and, where is the left's response - not academic responses but ones with maximum lowbrow appeal ?

And - yes - the struggle is for a re-engagement of the religious traditions of the left. Did the religious right enter the fray ? Of course. Was that fair ? Well yes and no depending on the specific methods in question. But the religious left certainly also, to considerable degree, ceded the territory. Where is its nobler animating ideals to impart purpose and conviction, spirited evangelical zeal for the promotion of global human rights, of human liberties celebrated and yet tempered by communal repsonsibility ? Or the acceptance of non Christian and even - dare I say it - ostentatiously atheistic or simply agnostic beliefs ?

Well, those ideals are around and - even - vibrant among parts of  the religious left, but we need more of that, and quick.  

I think, for my part, I'll sense the game is truly afoot when a certain little Unitarian Church I know, in sleepy New England, awakes to realize it is beset, under atttack from many quarters, holds off its weakness for bemoaning and then simply forgetting the latest scary thing or presidential outrage, and rolls up its sleeves to hold bake sales, raffles, and dances - dances, yes, because theocracy in its purest forms tends to loath dance.

The game will truly be afoot when the churches, schools, teachers associations, dwindling unions, the environmentalists and Greens, the members of AARP, the trial lawyers and librarians, the MD's and medical profession, the scientific community....

When all of these interest groups, institutions, factions - all such groupings which have shared social, political, or financial cohesion begin to notice the theocratic movement, then turn about to look long and hard, to assess and not to turn away in despair or retire to television and the many distractions of life......

When these atomized forces stare this thing they've long dreaded in the eye to suss it up as a worthy opponent, in study of its nature, its musculature, it tactics and strategies and - finding that alone, as a solitary combatant, sufficient strength is acking, look to others engaged in that very same strategic and tactical appraisal...

When those forces turn towards each other - to find common ground, build allegiance, craft strategies.......

Then, the game will be afoot.  I believe I'll see the day - and I believe in the power of that belief : faith, if you will.

by Bruce Wilson on Tue Nov 29, 2005 at 05:47:43 PM EST

Is there any legal standing for bringing suit on such a thing?

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Beware of the everyday brutality of the averted gaze.
by mataliandy on Tue Nov 29, 2005 at 02:00:56 PM EST

It was an important moment, as you observe, when John Kennedy went before a group of protestant ministers to declare that he was a strong supporter of separation of church and state, and that even as a faithful Catholic, he would not, as president, be taking orders from the Vatican.

When we elect people to public office, they certainly bring their faith with them, and no one is asking them not to. But we do ask people to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution.  As Susan Jacoby details in her essay, the only thing in the constitution, prior to the First Amendment, that deals with the question of religion is Article 6 -- which states that there shall be no religious test for public office. This meant, of course, that we were establishing religious equality in the United States. Our religious views, would be irrelevant to our status as citizens, and we would be free to believe as we will without interference from the government, or any religious institution.

Jeffersonson once said, if I recall the quote correctly, regarding churches, that 'we should be as free go go out as we are to go in.'

You are right that it is an afront to our constitution that the president and his advisors are resorting to a religious test for nominees to the Supreme Court, and other offices.

I hope your book will receive a wide readership and help jump-start the kind of broad public discussion we need to have on these important issues.

by Frederick Clarkson on Tue Nov 29, 2005 at 02:01:39 PM EST

I think it's important to highlight Republican malfeasance and to focus on pieces of anti-Christian legislation that they have passed (ie the bankruptcy bill). Sooner or later I would guess that the fundamentalists would realize that the GOP is just using them.

by moses freeman on Tue Nov 29, 2005 at 03:39:19 PM EST