tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post3662671125648523766..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: Wading Back in the Troubled WatersPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-21598784370031978512010-08-30T20:43:32.228-06:002010-08-30T20:43:32.228-06:00"Tenured Radical" writes:
And yet these..."Tenured Radical" writes:<br /><br /><i>And yet these people, too, have signed on -- whether by voting or refusing to vote -- to politicians who have presided over a period of unprecedented corruption, greed and venality.<br /><br />If they were seventeenth century Puritans, they would come to Massachusetts and massacre the Indians; if they were nineteenth century Mormons, they would head to Utah and -- well, massacre the Indians -- all the while believing that they were doing God's work... </i><br /><br />Wow. That's not very nice, accusing them of being genocide before the fact and really, absent any fact. Coupled with the fact that Glenn Beck traces the nation's falling away from righteousness under God to the maltreatment of the native Americans under Andrew Jackson, this is a particularly problematic attack.<br /><br /><i>...and that a society could succeed without being impeded by government.</i><br /><br />They are not anarchists by any indication. But that a society is a separate entity from government, that the two are not synonymous, yes, I suppose they do argue that.<br /><br />Mr. Harvey forwards Alison Greene---presumably approvingly---that <br /><br /><i>The evangelicals basically said 1) the Depression just shows that we need a revival – that the nation needs to “turn back to God”</i><br /><br />"More God, less politics" was the message on Saturday, to those who were paying attention. <br /><br />On the other hand, TR writes, presumably in favor of technocratically more efficient government:<br /><br /><i>Looking back over the last five years, we need less God and more politics: by that I mean not less faith, and all the forms of ethical community that faith can provide, but we need to end the lie that you can substitute faith for politics. </i><br /><br />"Lie?" Is that even the argument? Perhaps in some religious schemes, to leave the problems of this world up to God, but surely not the American one. I believe the lie is that politics can substitute for faith, or religion, or morality, an idea that George Washington among others argued against. <br /><br />Surely no one is arguing that technocratic inefficiency is desirable or tolerable in any form, nor relies on God to make up for it. <br /><br />TR concludes:<br /><br /><i>What would Jesus do? Throw Glenn Beck and every money changer like him out of the temple...</i><br /><br />Not very nice either, assuming bad faith on Glenn Beck's part. I don't quite understand the man yet, nor do I trust he won't wreck himself. But I do not presume to judge him until politics makes it absolutely necessary. Until then, he is a quasi-political figure, and seems to be transforming into a quasi-religious one. <br /><br />So is Bill Maher, if I were to choose a figure from the other side of the partisan divide, and no less outspoken on politics or religion.<br /><br />The republic can safely accommodate both, I think. It was set up that way.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com