A Wake-up Call

Dave Lovejoy
September 23, 2012 ·


For the last week, I have been traveling from Toronto, Canada, across the United States to Los Angeles, California - driving through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Listening to local radio, reading billboards and bumper stickers, it is clear that many in our country believe that God is a Republican, and He has anointed Republicans with a special insight and calling which supersedes logic and democracy. I heard hateful, venomous scripture-twisting with purely political aims, spewed from preachers across the country. This is why I now fear for her survival. In researching the origins of this attitude, I found Bill Moyer's address at Union Theological Seminary in New York, September 9, 2005, from which I've included this excerpt:

"We’re talking about a powerful religious constituency that claims the right to tell us what’s on God’s mind and to decide the laws of the land according to their interpretation of biblical revelation and to enforce those laws on the nation as a whole. For the Bible is not just the foundational text of their faith; it has become the foundational text for a political movement."

"True, people of faith have always tried to bring their interpretation of the Bible to bear on American laws and morals—this very seminary is part of that tradition; it’s the American way, encouraged and protected by the First Amendment. But what is unique today is that the radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America’s great political parties—the country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is—and they are driving American politics, using God as a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on."

"What’s also unique is the intensity, organization, and anger they have brought to the public square. Listen to their preachers, evangelists, and homegrown ayatollahs: Their viral intolerance—their loathing of other people’s beliefs, of America’s secular and liberal values, of an independent press, of the courts, of reason, science and the search for objective knowledge—has become an unprecedented sectarian crusade for state power. They use the language of faith to demonize political opponents, mislead and misinform voters, censor writers and artists, ostracize dissenters, and marginalize the poor."

This is not Godly, this is not moral, and I fear it may not be survivable for our country. I am a Christian, but my Christ did not teach hate, and my God is not a Republican.