Insightful articles about the left and religion — and a plan to fight them

Excerpts from insightful articles – follow links to more from these penetrating reads.  Graphics and bold emphasis not part of original.

The Brutality of Obama and the Left
By J. Robert Smith writing at the American Thiunker:

Let’s not hear this insipid and misleading talk from Washington Republicans anymore: “Barack Obama is incompetent and naïve.” That better describes them.

Barack Obama is a committed leftist working through his agenda to “transform” America. Washington Republicans do injury to the cause of liberty with timid language. That the president and the left bungle or misstep at times detracts little from their successes. In terms of advancing leftist aims, the Obama presidency is historic.

Remaking America didn’t start with Obama. It won’t stop without him, either, unless the left is stopped, period. Split differences with this foe? How so when the left works to erode liberty and pursues policies damaging to national security? We’ve entered days of the starkest differences between the left and us — days that demand from us hard-eyed appraisals and resolute action.

The Secular Left Will Once Again Unite Church And State   The Left will bring us back to 1530 by fusing church and state in the name of freedom from religion.

Amy Otto writing at The Federalist  offers many insights that should Libertarians (and even true liberals) should appreciate.  Progressives are desirous of the leviathan.  Christian conservatives are not. The enemy of my enemy should be considered an ally.

Using the secular example of Amazon, which once opposed internet taxes but now supports them, Otto makes a deft analogy to what could happen (we would argue has happened) to the “social justice” types in various denominations whose seem to view their main job as advocating for redistributionist policies and more government.   They make up to a great extent the movers and shakers, the apparat, of various denominations.

That model of a fantastic start-up slowly caving to government oversight, then realizing its competitive advantage through government coercion rather than competition will be what happens to our places of worship. Instead of Henry VIII having to create the Church of England, churches will facilitate their own demise. . . .

The long game is to create our new Church of England, a church that reflects the beliefs of those who inhabit the high echelons of society.

These attacks may initially be fought with noble means. But, eventually, it will be clear to one sect or the other to take advantage of the “opportunity” to pursue a new “partnership” with the state. Just like any company who thought its ideas and products were enough, then got big enough to realize that the federal government wants its cut, churches will realize that, to protect their freedoms they will have to pay Uncle Sam, their senators, representatives, president, chairmen, and other sundry government officials.

As checks get cut and compromises get drawn that reflect the political sensibilities of those in office, churches will no longer retain their independence from the state. Sure, tax-exempt status and other benefits matter, but the long game is to create our new Church of England, a church that reflects the beliefs of those who inhabit the high echelons of society, a belief system that allows for their deviations from moral expectations while promising them redemption. Even better, this would foster a quieter public square more amenable to government action, with a church that endorses and magnifies government action instead of one that may at times dissent.

. . .  A government that suppresses religious belief is one that enforces a particular religious belief. We have a government in search of a church that will fit the government’s purpose versus a higher one.  . . .

Cutting people off from finding their own spiritual path and forcing them to accept the one the government allows is not progress. We are retreating as a nation, reverting to a lesser form of government with less vitality. Much of what makes the United States exceptional lies within the space we carved out for independence from the state. To sacrifice that now means settling for a diminished future.

Rachel Lu, also at the Federalist, writes:  How To Save Religious Freedom

She and Otto are on the same wavelength, both citing the dangers, degradations of progressivism. Among Lu’s provocative comments and observation:

What Does the Left Want  . .   Here’s what they don’t want: a free and tolerant pluralistic society.

And this (bold emphasis by us):

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think ranking liberals have been getting together in smoke-filled rooms to plot the end of Christianity. But in some ways they might as well have, because secular progressivism isn’t the sort of philosophy that builds free and broad-minded societies. It never has been. There’s no “paradox” here, nor have liberal progressives betrayed any of their own core principles. What we have in America today is a war between ideological and cultural enemies. One side is losing and the other is winning. Far from being paradoxical, it is in some respects chillingly straightforward.

Robert Tracinski recently made a relevant argument here when he explained why liberals are so angry. He could easily have adapted that same argument to explain why liberals are so overbearing, and want the whole world to look exactly like them. Progressive goals are naturally fascist, and as such, hostile to traditional religion (which, as progressives implicitly recognize, is still their most formidable cultural enemy). Liberal progressivism’s natural lifecycle ends with the patricide of its Judeo-Christian parent. Its eschaton (the final ends it perpetually seeks) is entirely political, and extends in principle to every element of human life.

By contrast, the Judeo-Christian tradition calls for subsidiarity and a respect for natural community and natural rights. It also advises restraint, born of the realization that political community will always be imperfect in a fallen world. These two impulses do not mesh harmoniously.

The bottom line is, unless we want the whole world to march to a liberal progressive drum, we can’t expect to compromise with the hard secular Left. “You will be assimilated” really is their driving ethos.

In other words, progressives want the perfection of man through the state and they want it now and damn anybody that gets in the way.

Lu asks (and answers) Are we already doomed?   She does not think we have passed the terminal point yet but nor does she think conservatives must enter into deals.  However we need to fight the good fight effectively. And she offers a game war plan.

To do that, we need the public to understand what human interests are really at stake in these conflicts. Most people don’t see the real dimensions of this struggle, and to an extent, this is our own fault. Conservatives have a bad habit of moving messy cultural clashes to the realm of bloodless formal principles. In our heads, this is the best way to be rational and principled. But in the public square, we mostly end up sidelining ourselves into irrelevance.

The process for that is to “make religious freedom personal ”  . . .  “to humanize our causes” To help propagate that, she calls for an effective alliance with libertarians. In that regard Lu drafts a sort of open letter to them, some of which we except:

Hi, I’m Rachel. Let’s be friends, shall we? Our interests aren’t aligned 100 percent, but we easily have enough in common to work together. I promise I’m not plotting to turn the United States into a papist theocracy. And I think your motivations for supporting conservatism are perfectly reasonable.

I would just ask you to consider something. Perhaps at times, your personal investment in more formal principles (limited government, freedom of association, individual autonomy, etc.) might lead you to underestimate the real significance of cultural and moral conflicts that, to much of America, seem awfully important. If the battle in your head isn’t the one most of America thinks it’s fighting, you might miscalculate sometimes as to what strategies will work. We’re all prone to this kind of error, of course. But in this instance I think the evidence is piling up against those who think we can get Progressive America to sign on for a genuinely free, open-to-everyone naked public square.

(Concluding)

 I’ll cut you a deal. Help out with “humanizing” religious conservatives, and I’ll keep explaining to them why small government is really the most Christian way to go.

All of these articles contain many more important points and develop their arguments  effectively.  All are highly recommended.

R Mall and DLH

0

0