Armband religion is practiced by people who wear “faith” on their sleeve, for the world to see, and not in their hearts.
The Washington Post quotes Republican pundit Kathleen Parker about this prostitution of religion earlier this week:
Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that….
Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle….
Parker observes:
Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can’t have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.
The GOP isn’t the only victim of armband religion, of course.
Since 1998, the ex-gay movement — led by Exodus International and funded by religious-right mammon-churches — has embarrassed the Christian faith by wearing religion on its sleeve instead of taking Christ-like values to heart.
Exodus demands that the human rights, equal opportunity, and daily welfare of sexual minorities be sacrificed to make life easier, softer, lazier for insecure ex-gays who wish to be free from need to face people who are sexually and spiritually honest.
Would Jesus crucify someone else to make his own life easier?
As they enter the second decade of their open political campaign for “freedom” from the freedom and honesty of others, the armband “Christians” of Exodus threaten not just the GOP, and not just Christian values, but freedom itself.
Hat tip: AmericaBlog
Tags: Christian, ex-gay, politics, sacrifice2 Comments »
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The Terri Schiavo case, where a dead woman’s lungs were kept going on a ventilator for ages, against the wishes of the husband, was when people started waking up to how dangerous and interefering the GOP had become. (What exactly does the GOP have to do for the Log Cabins not to endorse them? Or are they big time masochists?).
In any case, the good news is in the statistics: younger people are dumping religion in their droves. The GOP should consider that America is just a generation or so behind Europe, and that in a very short time, non-questions like “what would ‘Jesus’ do” (which the author above shoots himself in the foot by asking) will be a minority obsession, among the Central Time electorate.
Comment by Adrian T. — November 21, 2008 @ 10:54 am
Adrian, I once felt greater respect for the Log Cabin Republicans, but it now seems that they will endorse any big-government deficit-spending religious-rightist who calls himself “Republican,” especially if the candidate promises to start more wars in countries located far from the real hotbeds of terrorism.
Unfortunately, I fear that the LCR’s gay Democratic counterparts may similarly endorse Democrats too easily, without sufficient guarantees of fiscally responsible, sustainable, pro-equality policy.
The WWJD question is, of course, of no interest to agnostics, Jews, and persons of other religious affiliations. But the question directly addresses the hypocrisy of ex-gay activists and other religious rightists who dishonestly claim to defend “Christian” values.
As for whether the U.S. will be more like Europe in a generation: Europe is becoming increasingly antigay, and the United States is becoming overrun by the politics (and religion) of fear and defamation. I think you’re being optimistic.
Comment by Michael Airhart — November 21, 2008 @ 12:44 pm