Crazed Fundie Evangelist tries to Convert the Toad with Poorly Thought-Out Polemic
I received this email in response to my post about herd reactions to political arguments and, at times, facts themselves. It was thoughtful and well-written so I thought it deserved elevating to post status. The other reason is that for all I am very anti-religious myself, I have plenty of religious friends who I like and respect, and I’m always slightly fearful when I lurch into one of my rants that I might be mortally offending them, or at least taking great liberties with both our respect and friendship. So it’s a relief to hear a complete stranger not just react with something along the lines of ‘fuck you, you Jesus-hater’ or something else equally angry.
So I apologise for the just everso slightly facetious picture and leave you in the hands of the lovely LS:
Okay, so first of all I should say that I’m one of those Christian types. I know, I know, venomous antipathy coming at me from the house of Toad, but I also love Broken Records (amazing Toad session btw) and am currently about 47% gin so don’t judge me too harshly just yet. The reason I wanted to comment on your post is, as you seemed to be suggesting, the idea that Christianity and conservative capitalist politics are cut from the same cloth is clearly misguided, their incompatibility should be completely self evident. But obviously this isn’t the case, in the States at least.
A cursory googling of Christianity+Socialism brings up a huge number of anti-liberal diatribes by rattled Republicans, clearly feeling the need to remind their readership that any left-leaning ‘Christians’ out there are clearly in the thrall of their Satanic overlords (some are truly terrifying, viz. ’60 Hard Truths about “Liberals”‘ http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/Articles/Liberals.htm).
The ‘vote for me because I’m a Christian’ campaign tactics of so many Republican candidates is genuinely repugnant, appealing to just that kind of tribal, herd mentality that you’re talking about, perpetuating a Them and Us way of thinking. What they’re really saying is you’re not a Christian if you don’t vote for me. In fact you’re not an American either, or a human being at all – off to Guantanomo you terrorist-loving, child-murdering, communism-causing, mp3-downloading scum. And then there’s the “family values” mantra, a term that means precisely whatever the user wants it to. Jesus was a single man rejected by his own family, without property, who made his home among prostitutes and tax collectors – the most despised elements of society.
Most evangelical Christians I know in the UK would probably lean more to the left, and I’m tempted to suggest that the emergence of the evangelical right in the States is much more of a cultural phenomena. The American emphasis on the unassailable constitutional rights of the individual is so often twisted out of shape into a dogmatic, self-righteous advocacy of personal responsibility – to the point where the Right seem to believe that people either choose or deserve to be poor, or exploited, or made redundant or whatever; that if they just tried a bit harder to be proper Americans then they could have nice big houses in the suburbs too. Whereas a left-leaning perspective acknowledges that there are systems and structures that entrench and perpetuate poverty, and that social reform is the responsibility of those who have power in society. Those who selectively choose parts of the bible to support a particular political position ignore the simple fact that the bible advocates both personal responsibility and social responsibility, to ‘love my neighbour as myself’. The capitalist model of social Darwinism that promotes avarice and exploits the weak couldn’t be further from the biblical emphasis on the importance of community, of economic justice and responsible stewardship of the environment. It teaches us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon.
As much as I agree with your opinion that much electoral activity is determined by a mentality in which the individual seeks to align themselves with the group in which they feel most comfortable, I also think that the way politics is reduced to black and white one-issue campaigns is equally significant. Voting for someone simply because of their stance on Iraq, or abortion, or wind farms is just lazy, the voter picking what issues affect them personally and ignoring the wider implications of what a candidate represents. The idea that if you disagree with a party on one issue you thereby must support the opposition by default is patently ludicrous. Surely no one can wholeheartedly subscribe to every single issue or policy that any political party espouses? Parties constantly shift stance on issues, and change can be effected from within. Obviously some issues are more important or personally relevant than others, but voters need to look beyond individual policies at what lies behind a party’s decision-making, even if that means choosing, as it were, the lesser of two evils.
Yikes. Did I really write all that? I know, get myself a blog already. I think I win hands-down in the portentous pomposity stakes, and I’m sure I will hugely regret sending this in the morning! I blame the gin.
Hoping that the next Toad post won’t be something along the lines of ‘Crazed Fundie Evangelist tries to Convert the Toad with Poorly Thought-Out Polemic’. [snigger - Toad]
You’d probably better go off and listen to something loud and blasphemous right away.
All best,
LS
I think, actually, that I can oblige there:
The Thermals – Pillar of Salt
And there’s more good stuff where that came from too:
The Thermals – Here’s your Future
The Thermals – How We Know
