As a political junkie, I must say this Republican Primary season has delivered the goods in a way Hollywood should envy. With a host of rapidly rising stars, and just as quickly falling meteors, this whole bit of political theater could never have been scripted in a way that story editor would find believable.
Scarcely months ago, Michelle Bachmann (I can never feel quite comfortable with the consonant content in that woman’s name, but this is a blog, so let’s go with it) won the Ames straw poll and I think, was riding high on some national polls. Then, some stuff about converting gays to straight, and the American Revolution starting in New Hampshire, and she was gone. And then it was Cain, and Perry, and whoever, up until now when we are down to two. Mitt Romney, the perennial, “oh all right, if I really have to” candidate, and Rick Santorum, by far the most interesting character in the play.
I don’t live in the Bible Belt. I’ve visited there several times, but never for any extended period, so maybe my view of this is colored by the Liberalism I’ve been living in here in New England, but the most fascinating thing about the rise of Rick Santorum, is the unbelievably paranoid view among commentators and the Facebook and Twitter feeds I’ve been reading about establishing a “Theocracy” in America. Granted, being in the “Arts,” my social network friends are on the Liberal side to say the least (no judgment here, I am on that side too, ask my Dad) I’m not surprised to see anti-Rick stuff, he’s way conservative (or at least plays one in a Primary season, I think he’s a much more slick political player than he tries to portray himself now) but what is kind of weird is the fear, which seems to be genuine, that somebody like Santorum could, if elected President, sway this country into some sort of Theocratic state.
Now, all propaganda preys on fears, so I imagine much of this is meant to arouse passionate opposition to Santorum, and why not, that’s what political messaging is all about, but how real is this threat of a theocracy? To my mind, its a farce. Much easier to believe that President Obama is a double agent of the Comintern than Santorum is the ringleader of a merging of Church and State designed to bring a new Inquisition to Keyboard Atheists and Libertarians.
There is no doubt that the lines between Church and State have long been in dispute, especially since the Civil War inspired amendments changed all the rules about Government and Federal enforcement of civil rights and all that legal stuff I can’t go into here. But here’s the question I have. And I have in my travels met some pretty fundamentalist Christian folks. Does anyone really believe in a State governed by the priestly class? Here in America?
This would be a true theocracy, where the civil leaders were also the religious leaders. And I have never, ever, ever come across anyone advocating this. There is a huge difference between trying to align the civil laws to be in agreement with religious laws. This is not only normal, but happens all the time. Much as folks want to advocate for a purely atheistic government, the reality is that an atheistic society does not exist, and frankly cannot exist without probably centuries of purging religious values from a population on the earth. If the Soviet Union was the experiment in atheist government, it did a very poor job in its seventy some year existence of accomplishing that.
And there’s no doubt of the presence of a religious Right wing seeking power in municipal and to a lesser extent State governments, particularly on school board driven primarily by a desire to get Darwinism thrown out, and ramp up the abstinence education. But on the national level, it seems to me the religious right is far more concerned with creating an environment friendlier to these local folks than they do looking to impose Federal standards.
Much of the passion of the religious Right is inflamed by the abortion issue. It is probably one of the only unifying issues between Christian religious sects. And this sectarian nature of Christianity in America is why I find the whole idea of Santorum as Grand Poobah of a Christian Theocracy so damned laughable. Protestants on the whole, still don’t like Catholics. The evangelical ones, even now, again, the one’s I’ve encountered, pretty darn fundamentalist, still look at the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon, and the Pope as a kind of Anti-Christ. So a Catholic President would be as unlikely a darling of the evangelical right as would say, a Mormon President.
So of the four Republican candidates left, the only one of the Protestant persuasion is Ron Paul. Hardly a darling of the religious right, oh with his Libertarianism and all.
The truth is, American Christianity is about as far as you can get from the kind of political force that would desire a centralized theocracy. They compete for believers in the most capitalistic way possible. Ministries are basically corporations selling different brands of Jesus to attract the followers. There is very little unity of theology, even less unity of hierarchical structures, and a fierce independent streak born of centuries of schisms and re-schisms, making a kind of National religious unity not only preposterous, but frankly insane.
And the fear from the left is exactly that, insane. It is another tool of propaganda, to simplify and sinisterize (awful word, i know) the other side, in the same way the GOP has tried to make the Left appear Godless, Socialist, and Whacko-environmental. Not a new game certainly, but how far this “theocratic” plot is from reality is really beyond the pale.
The ideals of American freedom have done a great deal to change the very face of Christianity itself in this country. If there was an authority capable of instituting a theocracy anywhere under Christian rule, it would be Catholicism. They are the only ones with a political structure capable of the reach necessary for a theocracy. And over the last decade, they have taken quite a beating.
Protestants value their local control, and creating small enclaves of believers far more than they would ever trust a national theocrat. If there is something to be feared from the religious in politics, it is very much at the local level. In the very town I live in, a prayer is said before every council meeting. It makes me a little uncomfortable, and the ACLU could probably come in and make a stink about it, but these councilmembers (GOP controlled), if I know them as well as I think I do, would not be in the least bit inclined to take orders from a national religious leader.
Frankly, I think a Zombie Apocalypse is more likely than a theocracy in the next couple of hundred years at least.
I hope the rhetoric of this dies down, no matter who wins the Republican nomination and ultimately who wins the Presidency in November. What is ultimately very scary, is a fractured nation who buys into the propaganda that their political rival is actually their mortal enemy. The last twenty years feel like this is becoming the new reality. Which is preposterous on its face, but if enough believe in the preposterous, the preposterous can become a reality. Nobody wants a theocracy people, just like nobody wants Soviet style communism. Let’s build a better America together shall we?
A Little Voice in a Vast Universe 