Progressives who think warnings about "theocracy" are an exaggeration should take a closer look at "Justice Sunday: Filibustering People of Faith," the Christian Right telethon headlined by Senate Majority Leader William Frist. Envision the carefully designed image that the far-right Family Research Council, the main organizer of the April 24 event, beamed into conservative churches across the country: a political rally from a large, comfortable mega-church in Louisville, with a middle-class audience listening with rapt attention to political operatives who self-identify as religious leaders-and at the bottom of the screen, streaming video with the photos, names and phone numbers of targeted U.S. senators. The visual message was clear: the church is dominant over the state and senators should toe the line on eliminating the filibuster and confirming Bush judges or pay the price.
The Christian Right's posture in the showdown over the "nuclear option" has been a stark lesson in how religious language and imagery are inappropriately seeping into government and politics. First, of course, religion is defined as a particular religion and then defined further as a particular brand of that religion so as to exclude all other views and versions as irreligious, immoral, or wrong. Moreover, in this worldview, Christianity and Country are inseparable. One of the "Justice Sunday" speakers, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it in terms as chilling to religious liberty and diversity as any I've ever heard. Like other fundamentalists, Mohler believes there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible-his-and he equated the inerrancy of his interpretation of the Bible with the inerrancy of the Constitution, based on his biblical beliefs. In bringing the Bible and the Constitution together, fundamentalists like Mohler are moving toward mainstreaming their biblically based interpretation of the Constitution. Judges would be held to the standard of biblical teachings, as interpreted by fundamentalists. I don't doubt the sincerity of Mohler and other fundamentalist ministers who share this view that the Bible is literally true and they alone know what it means, but they are on dangerous ground when they then suggest that they alone also know what the Constitution means-and that anyone who thinks differently is anti-Christian. Christians have strong differences of opinion on the meaning of scriptures and most of us don't want to see a particular brand of Christianity held up as the only real Christianity. We certainly don't want a particular brand of Christianity enacted as the law of the land.
The theocracy envisioned by the Christian Right centers around their interpretation of "family" and "values," with the U.S. Supreme Court portrayed as the font of the anti-religious moral decay that is destroying America. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, another "Justice Sunday" speaker, railed against the Supreme Court as "arrogant and imperious and determined to redesign the culture according to their own biases and values," holding up the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision for special scorn. Roe v. Wade, abortion rights, and women's rights generally are among the favored code words for the America that the Christian Right loves to attack-an America of women and families where equality is possible. Reproductive justice is an issue on which they hope to divide and conquer progressives.
"Justice Sunday" gave progressives an opportunity to watch the Christian Right at work, stoking fears about change and inciting religious divisiveness. We have also seen, in the past few weeks, other religious and social justice leaders speak out about this divisiveness, including leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the National Council of Churches USA, Presbyterian Church (USA), African Methodist Episcopal Church, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and The Interfaith Alliance. Millions of mainstream, moderate people of faith, and people who profess no faith, are concerned about more than the filibuster and confirming a handful of judges-they are concerned about the direction of their country and the future of a vibrant, inclusive democracy. Decades of progress for minorities, women, religious freedom, the environment, workers' rights, and other issues and groups that had been relatively powerless cannot be lost. Let "Justice Sunday" be a wake-up call; unless we are unified on all of these issues, we are vulnerable.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=667491
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