Category: “Spiritual” (maybe Religious)

Our Irreligious POTUS

[T]he Hosanna-Tabor case … revolved around the ability of a Lutheran academy in Michigan to fire a teacher. Here, the Obama administration advanced another extreme argument, claiming that job regulations prevented the academy from being able to fire anyone over a difference in beliefs.

The lawyers for the Obama administration went far beyond the issues of the case to instead advance the legally absurd position that there is no general ministerial exception, arguing that religious groups don’t even have the Constitutionally protected right to select their own ministers or rabbis.

Thankfully, here, the administration’s extreme position was rebutted by the Supreme Court in decisive fashion, with a 9-0 decision opposing its perspective. You have to take a pretty extreme position for Elena Kagan to join with Samuel Alito on an opinion.

…

Third, for those of you who follow pop culture, you may have taken note of the recent flap between The Robertson family of Duck Dynasty fame, and the A&E Network that produces and broadcasts the Duck Dynasty show. And you may have further observed that the one of the loudest and most aggressive defenders of the Robertson family was the Governor of Louisiana.

You may think that I was defending the Robertsons simply because I am the Governor of their home state, the great state of Louisiana. You would be wrong about that.

I defended them because they have every right to speak their minds, however indelicately they may choose to do so. Of course, A&E is a for-profit business, and they can choose what they want to put on the air.

But there was something much larger at stake here. There was a time when liberals in this country believed in debate. But that is increasingly not the case for the modern left in America. No, the modern left in America has grown tired of debate.

Their new strategy is to simply try to silence their critics. So these leftists immediately mobilized and did all they could not to debate the issues, but rather to attempt to silence the Robertsons.

There was a time when the left preached tolerance. And they are indeed tolerant, unless they disagree with you. To paraphrase William F. Buckley, a liberal is someone who welcomes dissent, and is astonished to find there is any.

The modern left in America is completely intolerant of the views of people of faith. They want a completely secular society where people of faith keep their views to themselves.

…

Finally, let me finish by mentioning an incredible irony. I’ve been working on this speech for a good while. And last Thursday, exactly one week ago, something truly bizarre occurred.

The person who is at the tip of the spear prosecuting this quiet war on religious liberty spoke at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. The topic he chose to speak about was defending religious liberty.

I was stunned, and I bet the President of Hobby Lobby, who was in the audience, was stunned as well. Yes, President Obama did wax eloquent, as he always does, about the horrors of religious persecution that are occurring beyond our borders. And good for him.

To be clear, churches in America are not being burned to the ground, and Christians are not being slaughtered for their faith. There is really no comparison to the persecution of people of faith inside our borders and outside.

Yet, it is stunning to hear the President talk of protecting religious liberty outside the United States, while at the very same time his Administration challenges and chips away at our religious liberty right here at home. Once again, there is a Grand Canyon sized difference between what this President says and what he does.

Here is what the President said last week, no doubt playing to his audience — “History shows that nations that uphold the rights of their people — including the freedom of religion — are ultimately more just and more peaceful and more successful.”  Well said Mr. President, I couldn’t agree more.

So I leave you with this — The President is very concerned about religious liberty…and also, if you like your religion you can keep your religion.

(Bobby Jindal, 2/13/14; H/T Andrew Walker)

Speaking of which, I wrote this two weeks ago:

[A] religion held deeply and with integrity carries with it a view of what is truly true, and of what constitutes human well-being. In other words, anyone who can, upon demand, distinguish

  1. what he thinks is truly true from
  2. what is merely religiously true

is truly irreligious beneath the thinnest and most nominal veneer.

Guess who fits that description:

“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.” – April 17, 2008, while running for president, defining marriage at the Saddleback Presidential Forum.

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” – May 9, 2012, as president, in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC News.

(Both quotes from Politico, emphasis added)

I knew he was lying temporizing with his “for me as a Christian” dodge on April 17, 2008. I knew that when the time seemed right, he’d drop the “Christian” grounds.

I’ve allowed that he’s a “liberal Christian.” I now say that he’s “irreligious beneath the thinnest and most nominal veneer.”

I do not mean that every liberal Christian is irreligious other than nominally. I’ve tended to believe that for most of my life, but I’ve been moving away from it – not because I understand liberal Christianity better, but because (a) I better understand how invisible the historic Christian option is to people whose brains or sensibilities won’t let them swallow the visible “conservative” Christianity and (b) I’m more inclined generally to grant a presumption that others are acting in good faith.

I also don’t mean that Obama has no convictions – that he is merely a sort of political weather vane. I think he has some very deep convictions – to which some adjective other than “Christian” applies.

I also see abundant evidence that of conservative Christians who are merely nominal.

Obama’s not an exception to that presumption of good faith, by the way, but it’s rebuttable, and the evidence rebuts it thoroughly.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Impacting Indiana for 33 years!

Advance America, in a Sunday bulletin insert offered to churches, lays out what its leaders see as dangers ahead:
» Authorities jailing pastors for preaching against homosexuality.
» Cross-dressing men violating women’s privacy in their restrooms.
» Government forcing business owners to cater to same-sex weddings.
» Schools teaching children that gay marriage is normal.
The flier, put out this fall, argues that the items are “Just Four Dangers of Same-Sex Marriage” that could be on the horizon if Indiana fails to safeguard its traditional marriage definition, which already is contained in state law.

(Indianapolis Star story reprinted 12/13 by the Journal & Courier on page C1)

The flyer was quickly dismissed by “experts.” I’m an expert of sorts, and in the context of the article (“dangers of same-sex marriage”), I’d say the fourth is almost certain to happen in Indiana if Indiana recognizes same-sex marriage, even if there’s no legislative mandate to do it.

The others really are, in varying degrees, either (a) plausible but not consequences of recognizing same-sex marriage or (b) outright implausible in the United States.

Bear in mind that the defeat of HJR-6 does not mean that Hoosiers favor same-sex marriage or that SSM will become law. I likely would vote against it, with mixed feelings, because the second sentence is so vague that it feels like deliberate sabotage of the Resolution by false friends. (This isn’t an accusation of anyone. I don’t know who dreamed up that second sentence, or what they had in mind.)

A statutory prohibition already exists. The way litigation on homosexuality-related laws progress these days, things like the Advance America bulletin insert likely will end up marked as Trial Exhibits in any lawsuit alleging that Hoosiers only approved HJR-6 because they’re bigots with a “bare desire to harm” gays (not to mention that we’re ugly and our mothers dress us funny). That kind of evidence weighs heavily with Justice Kennedy, and he’ll be sure to accuse us of bad stuff in his 5-4 opinion for the majority.

But how about the specific “dangers ahead”?

  1. “Authorities jailing pastors for preaching against homosexuality.” “Jail,” implies crime. Eric Miller of Advance America, a lawyer, knows this. Free Speech remain pretty secure, though the made-up right to sexual expression, free from any stigma, is ascendant. I’d not bet against jail in 50 years, nor would I bet against extreme social and media hostility toward anti-homosexuality preaching in very short order. And there will be preachers so obsessively fixated on this particular sin that they’ll deserve to be held suspect. But jail? I call “bullshit” on this one.
  2. “Cross-dressing men violating women’s privacy in their restrooms.” Not a consequence of same-sex marriage. There are apparently true stories about “gender identity” mismatches with biological sex, and of a school being forced to allow a boy who identifies as a girl to use the girl’s restroom. Weird marks of cultural insanity, to be sure, and of the sort of insanity that would also think same-sex marriage reasonable. But whoever came up with this “danger” was just free associating about the outlandish things sexually troubled people do, not reasoning about consequences of SSM.
  3. “Government forcing business owners to cater to same-sex weddings.” This is a big topic. Lots of stories about this sort of thing from states that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Indiana has no such law. New Mexico bans SSM adheres to a traditional definition of marriage but does have such an anti-discrimination law, and a New Mexico photographer is on her way to SCOTUS appealing her hefty fine for declining to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that couldn’t be a “marriage” precisely because of the state’s non-recognition of SSM. Some Indiana cities and counties, moreover, have banned (maybe more accurate to say “subjected to free-floating flak from do-gooders on Human Relations Commissions if someone complains”) “discrimination based on sexual orientation.” I think it’s highly likely that caterers, photographer, bakeries and the like will be subjected to petty harassment of Human Relations Commissions in some localities if Indiana recognizes same-sex marriage, but those ordinances are relatively toothless.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine Indiana recognizing same-sex marriage without previously or concurrently banning discrimination based on sexual orientation statewide.  Bear that in mind as you look at my precis on some of these three items.

Advance America, despite its Christian pretenses, appears guilty of transgressing the 9th Commandment which, even Protestant Reformers agreed, includes reckless gossip.

But what do you expect from a group whose website boasts that it’s “Celebrating 33 Years of Impacting Indiana!”? What say we give Indiana a high colonic, to thoroughly rinse out 33 years of accumulated Advance America toxins, and call it a day?

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.