Christianism, one believer's problem with it

[HardHarry]

This is from Time magazine. I really enjoyed the tone and content:

My Problem with Christianism
A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda
By ANDREW SULLIVAN

"Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.

The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.

And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?

Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.

What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

Article

 

[hasbeen99]

Good article. I don't agree with everything he said, but I do agree with nearly all of it. Good find, Harry. Thanks for posting it.

"Christianist". I like that. I may use it in the future.

 

[HardHarry]

I know its politically charged, but at the heart of it is my problem with religion these days - it really isn't with religion, it's with political co-opting, by politician or terrorist.

 

[WilliamJ]

I know its politically charged, but at the heart of it is my problem with religion these days - it really isn't with religion, it's with political co-opting, by politician or terrorist.

christians give christianity a bad name. but, the upshot is we aren't blowing people up to get some nookie with 40 virgins on the alter of allah.

 

[Fan. Attic]

Good article. I don't agree with everything he said, but I do agree with nearly all of it. Good find, Harry. Thanks for posting it.

"Christianist". I like that. I may use it in the future.

I would actually hope you wouldn't. I think Sullivan is simply proposing a handy pejorative label to use in dismissing those whose faith leads them to political conclusions he disagrees with. I'm with you in my distaste for Falwell- and Robertson-esque political machinations in the name of Christ, but the application of a custom-made label sounds like a form of McCarthyism. Like "Reds" in the 50s, no doubt there are some folks about who've earned the label, but I would expect application with a broad brush from activists and writers who share Sullivan's perspective.

There are plenty of folks, for instance, whose conservative political views are informed by their Christian faith, but who still "have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices."

Besides, there already are self-applied labels for folks who want to see religious law "imposed" on the whole society. To learn more, try googling "Christian Reconstructionists" or "Theonomists".

 

[ECILAM]

To learn more, try googling "Christian Reconstructionists" or "Theonomists".

Wow, I'm impressed! Seriously. Good call.

Or, if you have a few spare bucks laying around, get The Institutes of Biblical Law by R. J. Rushdoony. It's downright scarifying.

 

[Fan. Attic]

Thanks, ecilam. My broader point would be that it's important to engage and debate our opponents ideas, rather than just applying shorthand labels to them. It's too easy to dismiss everything an opponent may say because we disagree with one facet of his political life. For instance, while I'm no fan of Rushdoony and other theonomist authors myself, there are people I respect who lean that way. But it's the mutual respect that allows us to engage each other constructively in those areas of disagreement.

This is, I think, what Andrew Sullivan professes to want from those on the "Christian right" toward folks like himself (though I think he also conflates "respect" with "agreement"). But he seems unwilling to extend the same respect the other way. The term "Christianist" applied from his side is no better than Coulter's "godless" or Limbaugh's "party of death" coming from the right.

 

[HardHarry]

Very interesting post Fan. It's not the terminology I care about - it's this passage:

Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone

You can subsititute any political group for Republican, that just is the group du jour.

I think faith and spirituality are very personal issues and should remain so. To see it used this way turns my stomach.

 

[Paladin]

I think part of the problem is the old log in your own eye issue. It's easier to feel religious examining someone else's theology for inconsistencies and shortfallings than examining your own. People feel better crusading against someone who is different than themselves rather than asking how that "other" person may inform their own theology or moral thinking.

It's easier, though lazy and wrong, to crusade rather than critically self-reflect.

Edit: I would add: My interpretation of Christianity centers around self-sacrifice for others. I think many prefer to focus on 'crusading against the heretics' rather than sacrificing of self and possessions for neighbors (both here and abroad). It is one of the most critical theological challenges to the Church in the U.S., IMHO.

 

[Thelt]

There is no reason christians should not be involved in political life in a democratic nation. I would say that christian have a duty to stand up for what they believe in.