American theocracy – A humble proposal
Evangelicals have finally convinced me that our founding fathers never really intended a strict separation of church and state. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the United States would be much better off if it were a theocracy. If nothing else, we could end interfaith rivalries that have contributed to the divisiveness that’s been tearing our country apart for the last decade. The problem, of course, is choosing which religion should be given the responsibility of sharing power with the federal government.
The Catholic Church must be considered first, since it is the largest single denomination in the United States. It does have experience in theocratic rule from the days of the Holy Roman Empire. It has considerable military experience dating all the way back to the Crusades. Even when not part of a theocracy, the Catholic Church has been used to wielding considerable power far beyond the rolls of its membership. The Catholic Church also has a great deal of wealth it brings to the table, as well as a widespread and influential membership. Unfortunately, it must be rejected, since the highest authority, the Pope, is not a U.S. citizen, nor even located within the country. Add to that all the sex scandals involving priests and the church’s long history of antipathy toward other religions, and it becomes patently clear that an American Catholic theocracy would be neither viable nor desirable.
A mainstream Protestant church would seem like a good choice, but Protestants are split down the middle between ecumenical and evangelical Christians. Even if they weren’t, the power struggles among Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and various offshoots like Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses would disqualify them. They’re just too fractured to be a coherent national governing force.
Eastern and New Age religions, while attractive, are simply too unfamiliar to most Americans. They lack the large membership and financial support to be a true partner in governing the country. The moral codes they embrace are not well defined, and often incompatibly diverse. And while Islam has its merits, it would simply be impossible to overcome anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S.
So if we want to have a theocracy, we need a well-established religion, preferably Christian in doctrine, with a stable membership, financial resources, and ideally one with theocratic experience. Fortunately, there is such a church in our country, and a uniquely American church at that – the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, better known to most people as the Mormons. Let me state immediately that I am not now nor have I ever been a member of this church. I’ve investigated this issue from an objective and practical perspective and truly believe that it would be in the best interests of the United States for the government and the Mormon Church to work together in ruling our country. Before rejecting this proposal, I hope the reader will allow me to present the case point by point.
The Mormons have a great reputation for being fiscally responsible. At the individual and family levels, they consistently have higher income levels than members of other churches. The church itself has a considerable amount of property and other forms of wealth. They already have a flat tax system of 10%, something quite a few U.S. citizens have wanted for quite some time. Since the church itself is fiscally conservative, I have no doubt they'd apply the same reasonable controls on the government.
The Mormon Church also has military experience, having formed its own militias when their church controlled the Utah territory. They were so well organized and armed, they were ready, willing, and able to take on the U.S. Army, if it became necessary. They have the Mountain Meadows Massacre to prove they're perfectly comfortable with the concept of pre-emptive strike. They have admitted it was a mistake and have accepted responsibility for it, which is something our secular government could mimic. In terms of homeland security, their screening process for prospective members could also serve to identify potential threats. Another interesting requirement they have is to keep a one-year food supply in case of emergency or Armaggedon or similar disastrous breakdowns of society. This could also be used in a recession, thus reducing the demand on social welfare systems.
They have a great welfare system. First, every member (so in a theocracy, every citizen) must fast 2 meals a month on the first Sunday of every month. The money that would have been spent on those meals is instead given to the Bishop's Storehouse. When someone's down on their luck, they can get food and other necessities, and sometimes even cash for rent and other bills, with the understanding that they will pay it back when they can or they can farm on the church kibbutz or perform other acts of community service. So the welfare system is actually more like workfare. The church also has training centers and employment centers where members can take seminars for writing a resume, dressing for success, and find jobs. In other words, they believe in teaching people how to fish for a lifetime, instead of giving them fish for a day.
LDS also has a great deal of international experience through their mission work. They boast some of the best linguists in the country. So any young Mormon who has finished his or her missionary work can just stay in the foreign country and transfer to the State Department. Since so many of them have been to and lived in foreign countries, their awareness of other cultures and customs could only enhance our image abroad.
I'm sure some of you will say you don't agree with some of the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. But that's fine - the Mormons, who have a long and terrible history of being discriminated against themselves, are one of the most tolerant religions in the country. Citizens should feel free to practice any faith they feel comfortable with. Of course, as with any theocracy, members of the official religion would have certain advantages. That's only fair.
I willingly admit that there's still a certain amount of sexism in the church, and even some repressed racism, but that's a perfect reflection of our society anyway. They're certainly no worse in that respect than the population at large.
I just can't see any flaws in this proposal. How about this for the new name of our country - The United States of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Has a nice ring to it.
Showing posts with label evangelicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evangelicals. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Religious Backlash
According to a recent survey by the Program of Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christian has dropped from 86% in 1990 to 76% in 2008. Mainline Protestant percentages have dropped from 17% to 12.9%. People who say they have no religion have risen in number from 8.2% to 15%.
I've been predicting this since George W. Bush "won" his first term in office, courtesy of the Supreme Court. The neocons used Evangelical support to put Bush in office, drumming up anti-liberal religious fervor. The Evangelicals hoped to use the resultant connections to power to bring about the downfall of separation of church and state in order to impose some of their religious beliefs on the rest of the country. The Catholic Church jumped on the bandwagon, supporting Bush with anit-liberal messages of its own. The antireligious backlash was predictable because now both religious groups have identified themselves with and connected themselves to a failed political movement. This is as it should be. It is my belief that nothing in the Bible and none of Christ's words justify turning His church into a political action committee.
The good news is that, in some cases, members of these religious organizations are beginning to re-examine their faith in God as it relates to their values and moral beliefs. I've certainly been involved in a spiritual quest to define myself and my relationship to God for most of my adult life, a span of just under 50 years.
I left organized religion almost 20 years ago, because every church I went to violated beliefs that I'd developed over the years. I refused to sit in a service that offended me and my beliefs. So now it's time to express my objections to established religion.
First, the Catholic Church has, in my opinion, too many untenable positions. The adherence to the belief in the infallibility of the Pope would be comical if it weren't so destructive. The recent visit to Africa by the current Pope, where he stated that condoms, rather than slowing the spread of AIDS, would make AIDS worse, makes Catholics choose between simple, straightforward facts or the word of the Pope. This is not an earthshaking revelation - most American Catholics quit believing in the infallibility of the Pope decades ago.
The Catholic stance on divorce ignores reality. Most modern, advanced societies have come to accept, first, that people make mistakes and, second, that they change over time. The church's attitude to this is "suck it up." But many Catholics worldwide, and especially in the United States, accept that divorce is preferable to the misery of life with the wrong person.
The institutionalized sexism of the Catholic Church is also untenable. There is nothing spiritually, intellectually, or morally inferior about women. The Catholic Church should allow women to serve equally with men, filling roles as priests, bishops, cardinals and even as Pope. This is the right thing to do.
It is also time for the Catholic Church to move out of the Dark Ages and allow priests and nuns to marry. They should have learned from all the sex scandals involving priests that there is no spiritual superiority to be gained from celibacy, but there is a great deal of risk in enforcing this inhuman standard on the all too human priesthood.
While the Catholic Church is not the only religion to institutionalize the requirement of its members to outbreed competing religions, it seems to be the most egregious. At a time when overpopulation is the primary cause of most of the world's ills, the Catholic Church refuses to bend - every couple is required to continue to have children throughout their childbearing years, no matter what the financial or social consequences. I've got news for the infallible Pope. Except in a few African and Asian countries, NO Catholics believe this or practice it. I think the Pope should excommunicate all of them. Of course, that would immediately reduce it from major world religion to sect status, but they would be standing by their values instead of pretending to.
Now here's my problem with Evangelicals. First, a very BRIEF description of my religious background. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. I was baptized in 1960 in Waco, Texas. My mother's strong faith had a huge influence on me, and I was a regular church goer through high school. I was member of our church's youth choir and routinely would go proselytize on the beaches of Galveston Island. I have grown up. My biggest problem with Evangelicals is that they have become radicals, not conservatives. See, conservatives hold onto traditional beliefs, defending them, sometimes to the extreme and in the face of logic (as in the Catholic Church above). But modern Evangelicals have begun reinterpreting the scriptures, trying to convince us that Christ is pro-greed, pro-war, pro-poverty. They would have us believe that the separation of church and state as established by our founding fathers is just a cultural myth. Well, I reject this.
Perhaps my biggest rejection of Evangelicals has to do with proselytizing, the very sin I was guilty of in my youth. I now believe that trying to impose your faith on others is immoral. Proselytizing requires an assumption that everyone you encounter outside of your faith is spiritually inferior, that their beliefs will condemn them to hell and that conversion to your religious position will get them to heaven. This is an insulting assumption, full of the pride and ego Christ Himself would have rejected. So when proselytizers confront me, I respond with, "Is there something about my appearance that makes you think my religious beliefs are inferior to yours?" I do that because it always causes them to back off but, more importantly, it might help them reconsider just what proselytizing means to the victim. I do support one form of proselytizing - being a living example. If you lead a good moral and spiritual life, people will eventually ask, "What's your secret?" That's when you have a moral justfication for sharing your faith.
I don't believe the new megachurches would be tolerated by Christ. They are run on a business model by false prophets who are motivated by greed and power. I love the new backlash response to them - home churches, where family and neighbors gather in living rooms for worship services. No money is required, no political influence is coveted - just small groups of Christians gathering together to share their faith.
Evangelicals are doing the majority of Americans a huge favor by showing us the absurdity of a literal belief in the Bible. Of course, they don't have a literal belief in the Bible, since that's virtually impossible, given the blatant contradictions contained in its contents. In fact, no one can actually state what the Bible is - which version is the "real" Bible? And how do we interpret the Bible (we all must, after all)? And how destructive this literal interpretation is! At a time when science is our greatest hope for saving the world, Evangelicals would have us return to the Dark Ages, believing that the world is only 6,000 years old, that there were never dinosaurs, or that men co-existed with dinosaurs, and that evolution, even as it occurs before their very eyes, is more myth than fact. Faith is the most important word in the English language, but I will not accept any religion that insists that faith overrides fact. I do not believe the Bible or Christianity requires us to do that.
The weakest and most ludicrous symptom of Evangelical excess is the apocalyptic crap (that's exactly what it is - no better word to describe it) being spewed by some of the biggest names in American Christendom. These apocalyptic movements have been around since the death of Christ. At least one group of believers thought Judgment Day would come in their lifetime, and they lived in the time of Christ. Christ Himself said you cannot know the end of days, yet these false prophets are convinced they KNOW. It is a lie.
Finally, Evangelicals succeeded in turning their faithful into a huge, powerful political action committee. I believe Christ would be ashamed of this. If He returned today, he would not flog the moneychangers, he would flog these pseudoreligious politicians. It is the vilest corruption of Christianity I've seen in my lifetime. And make no mistake - I believe the counter-evangelical political activists on the left are just as wrong.
I used Evangelicals and the Catholic Church to make my point, but almost all of organized religion is guilty of some or all of these sins to varying degrees. But as long as churches feel compelled to violate common sense and the moral positions of most reasonable human beings, their decline in a modern, enlightened age, is inevitable.
For myself, I expect to continue conducting homechurch services with my family. I have three basic beliefs that I hope to instill in my three sons:
1. There is a God.
2. There are many paths to God.
3. Christ is my path to God.
I've been predicting this since George W. Bush "won" his first term in office, courtesy of the Supreme Court. The neocons used Evangelical support to put Bush in office, drumming up anti-liberal religious fervor. The Evangelicals hoped to use the resultant connections to power to bring about the downfall of separation of church and state in order to impose some of their religious beliefs on the rest of the country. The Catholic Church jumped on the bandwagon, supporting Bush with anit-liberal messages of its own. The antireligious backlash was predictable because now both religious groups have identified themselves with and connected themselves to a failed political movement. This is as it should be. It is my belief that nothing in the Bible and none of Christ's words justify turning His church into a political action committee.
The good news is that, in some cases, members of these religious organizations are beginning to re-examine their faith in God as it relates to their values and moral beliefs. I've certainly been involved in a spiritual quest to define myself and my relationship to God for most of my adult life, a span of just under 50 years.
I left organized religion almost 20 years ago, because every church I went to violated beliefs that I'd developed over the years. I refused to sit in a service that offended me and my beliefs. So now it's time to express my objections to established religion.
First, the Catholic Church has, in my opinion, too many untenable positions. The adherence to the belief in the infallibility of the Pope would be comical if it weren't so destructive. The recent visit to Africa by the current Pope, where he stated that condoms, rather than slowing the spread of AIDS, would make AIDS worse, makes Catholics choose between simple, straightforward facts or the word of the Pope. This is not an earthshaking revelation - most American Catholics quit believing in the infallibility of the Pope decades ago.
The Catholic stance on divorce ignores reality. Most modern, advanced societies have come to accept, first, that people make mistakes and, second, that they change over time. The church's attitude to this is "suck it up." But many Catholics worldwide, and especially in the United States, accept that divorce is preferable to the misery of life with the wrong person.
The institutionalized sexism of the Catholic Church is also untenable. There is nothing spiritually, intellectually, or morally inferior about women. The Catholic Church should allow women to serve equally with men, filling roles as priests, bishops, cardinals and even as Pope. This is the right thing to do.
It is also time for the Catholic Church to move out of the Dark Ages and allow priests and nuns to marry. They should have learned from all the sex scandals involving priests that there is no spiritual superiority to be gained from celibacy, but there is a great deal of risk in enforcing this inhuman standard on the all too human priesthood.
While the Catholic Church is not the only religion to institutionalize the requirement of its members to outbreed competing religions, it seems to be the most egregious. At a time when overpopulation is the primary cause of most of the world's ills, the Catholic Church refuses to bend - every couple is required to continue to have children throughout their childbearing years, no matter what the financial or social consequences. I've got news for the infallible Pope. Except in a few African and Asian countries, NO Catholics believe this or practice it. I think the Pope should excommunicate all of them. Of course, that would immediately reduce it from major world religion to sect status, but they would be standing by their values instead of pretending to.
Now here's my problem with Evangelicals. First, a very BRIEF description of my religious background. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. I was baptized in 1960 in Waco, Texas. My mother's strong faith had a huge influence on me, and I was a regular church goer through high school. I was member of our church's youth choir and routinely would go proselytize on the beaches of Galveston Island. I have grown up. My biggest problem with Evangelicals is that they have become radicals, not conservatives. See, conservatives hold onto traditional beliefs, defending them, sometimes to the extreme and in the face of logic (as in the Catholic Church above). But modern Evangelicals have begun reinterpreting the scriptures, trying to convince us that Christ is pro-greed, pro-war, pro-poverty. They would have us believe that the separation of church and state as established by our founding fathers is just a cultural myth. Well, I reject this.
Perhaps my biggest rejection of Evangelicals has to do with proselytizing, the very sin I was guilty of in my youth. I now believe that trying to impose your faith on others is immoral. Proselytizing requires an assumption that everyone you encounter outside of your faith is spiritually inferior, that their beliefs will condemn them to hell and that conversion to your religious position will get them to heaven. This is an insulting assumption, full of the pride and ego Christ Himself would have rejected. So when proselytizers confront me, I respond with, "Is there something about my appearance that makes you think my religious beliefs are inferior to yours?" I do that because it always causes them to back off but, more importantly, it might help them reconsider just what proselytizing means to the victim. I do support one form of proselytizing - being a living example. If you lead a good moral and spiritual life, people will eventually ask, "What's your secret?" That's when you have a moral justfication for sharing your faith.
I don't believe the new megachurches would be tolerated by Christ. They are run on a business model by false prophets who are motivated by greed and power. I love the new backlash response to them - home churches, where family and neighbors gather in living rooms for worship services. No money is required, no political influence is coveted - just small groups of Christians gathering together to share their faith.
Evangelicals are doing the majority of Americans a huge favor by showing us the absurdity of a literal belief in the Bible. Of course, they don't have a literal belief in the Bible, since that's virtually impossible, given the blatant contradictions contained in its contents. In fact, no one can actually state what the Bible is - which version is the "real" Bible? And how do we interpret the Bible (we all must, after all)? And how destructive this literal interpretation is! At a time when science is our greatest hope for saving the world, Evangelicals would have us return to the Dark Ages, believing that the world is only 6,000 years old, that there were never dinosaurs, or that men co-existed with dinosaurs, and that evolution, even as it occurs before their very eyes, is more myth than fact. Faith is the most important word in the English language, but I will not accept any religion that insists that faith overrides fact. I do not believe the Bible or Christianity requires us to do that.
The weakest and most ludicrous symptom of Evangelical excess is the apocalyptic crap (that's exactly what it is - no better word to describe it) being spewed by some of the biggest names in American Christendom. These apocalyptic movements have been around since the death of Christ. At least one group of believers thought Judgment Day would come in their lifetime, and they lived in the time of Christ. Christ Himself said you cannot know the end of days, yet these false prophets are convinced they KNOW. It is a lie.
Finally, Evangelicals succeeded in turning their faithful into a huge, powerful political action committee. I believe Christ would be ashamed of this. If He returned today, he would not flog the moneychangers, he would flog these pseudoreligious politicians. It is the vilest corruption of Christianity I've seen in my lifetime. And make no mistake - I believe the counter-evangelical political activists on the left are just as wrong.
I used Evangelicals and the Catholic Church to make my point, but almost all of organized religion is guilty of some or all of these sins to varying degrees. But as long as churches feel compelled to violate common sense and the moral positions of most reasonable human beings, their decline in a modern, enlightened age, is inevitable.
For myself, I expect to continue conducting homechurch services with my family. I have three basic beliefs that I hope to instill in my three sons:
1. There is a God.
2. There are many paths to God.
3. Christ is my path to God.
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