Evangelicals, Lies, and Politics (UPDATED)

One of the things that has come about as a result of the nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is that lots of people are expressing lots of opinions about people (i.e., evangelicals) about whom they know next to nothing. As a result, they are asking foolish questions, coming up with foolish answers, and in some instances just making stuff up out of whole cloth. The latest instance comes from the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column, which is becoming almost as much a source of nonsense about Palin and evangelicals as Daily Kos or Andrew Sullivan. This week, Sally Quinn and Jon Meachamon ask the panel this question:

Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin recently suggested that a gas pipeline is “God’s will” and the Iraq war is “a task that is from God.” Are you concerned about these or any other candidate’s religious views?

Even in the question there’s a fallacy. Plain has not said that the Iraq war “is a task from God. Here’s what she actually said:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.” [Emphasis added at Hot Air.]

There’s a difference, of course, between praying that our national leaders follow God’s will and stating that they are, but that’s a nuance that obviously escapes Quinn and Meachamon. Many of the respondents don’t have the excuse that they are mere secular journalists, and so ramp the nonsense up to a new level (that’s not including the Rev. Willis Elliott, who according to the headline writer apparently thinks Palin is running for president, not vice president). Among them are distinguished church historian Martin Marty:

That people act in the hope or even the confidence that their works are congruent with the will of God is not disturbing and can even be enobling. But it’s a sentiment best kept to one’s self. Shared with a public and shouted in confidence such action threatens peace, civility, progress, the life of a republic and–if I were a bit sure of my ability to make God agree with me, and to let me tell everyone else that I am doing God’s will and they are not–demeans efforts to respond to or witness to God.

So a person who believes they are acting according to God’s will is “not disturbing,” and doing so “can even be ennobling,” but they shouldn’t be so tacky as to say so in public (not even in church, which is where Palin said the above). Doing that “threatens peace, civility, progress, the life of a republic,” and perhaps may even tempt dogs and cats to live together. Who knew that Abraham Lincoln, whom Marty quotes, in seeking however imperfectly to do God’s will during the Civil War, was undermining the very republic he was trying to save?

Then there’s the Rev. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, who sees theocrats under every bed:

Our Constitution reflects an appreciation for religion but contains a prohibiton against the use of a religious test in determining candidates for public office. Thus in an election for a secular office, the religious beliefs of a candidate should not be an issue of concern. What should be an issue of concern is how a candidate’s religious beliefs will influence the candidate’s decision making and development of policy. [Emphasis in original]

If I read this right, Gaddy thinks that there should be no test regarding one’s religious affiliation, but that if one takes one’s faith seriously enough to actually practice it, then there should be a test. Or something like that.

Wendy Doniger, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, decides that misconstruing Palin’s quote isn’t enough to condemn her; she’s got to make up a bunch of other stuff as well:

And as for religion, I’d love to know precisely how the Good Lord conveyed to her so clearly his intention to destroy the environment (global warming, she thinks, is not the work of human hands, so it must be the work of You Know Who), the lives of untold thousands of soldiers and innocent bystanders (He is apparently rooting for this, too, she says), and, incidentally, a lot of polar bears and wolves, not to mention all the people who will be shot with the guns that she thinks other people ought to have. An even wider and more sinister will to impose her religious views on other people surfaced in her determination to legislate against abortion even in cases of rape and in her attempts to ban books, including books on evolution, and to fire the librarian who stood against her.

The line about banning books was debunked over a week ago (as was her equally ridiculous, Kos-inspired claims that Palin tried to cover up her most recent pregnancy and cut funding for assistance to pregnant teen-agers). So we’re in barking moonbat territory here.

UCC pastor the Rev. Susan Smith thinks Palin, and more particularly Palin’s faith, is “scary”:

People who think they are being directed by God to do something are scary; their commitment and conviction is admirable, but what they do, or what they endorse, in the name of God is … scary.

Gov. Sarah Palin is scary.

Should Sen. McCain win, and something happen to him during his term, this fundamentalist woman, who believes in the divine endorsement of the Iraqi War, will be our president. I would imagine that as she would fight to end all abortions, and stop same sex marriage, as well as allow more and more people to carry guns, probably without background checks, that she would do so with the mantra that “God” was telling her to do it.

Whose God?

The judgmental, evil-endorsing God of the governor is not the same God I have come to love. The God I know would never have told us or any nation to provoke a war based on lies. The God I know would be weeping at what we, God’s children, do to each other.

Presumably neither the Rev. Smith nor her denomination ever do anything because they believe that it is the will of God. That would be scary. Smith exemplifies the technique that is getting lots of play in the media: imagine the worst about evangelicals, relabel them “fundamentalists,” and then accuse them of advocating the stuff that you think constitutes teh worst case. So, Palin doesn’t just want to rein in abortion; she wants to ban them all. She isn’t just an advocate of gun rights; she wants to do away with background checks. She doesn’t just support the Iraq war; she thinks it’s got God’s endorsement. And Palin thinks that God has told her all this, though there is no evidence for that.

Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite of Chicago Seminary (UCC) thinks that Palin practices “extreme religion”:

Palin was baptized at 12 in an Assemblies of God church. The Assemblies of God Church is Pentecostal, which means that members believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, often manifested in speaking in tongues. There is a big emphasis in Pentecostal religion on the Second Coming of Christ, especially the so-called Rapture, where Christ returns to earth and the faithful endure tribulations before they are taken up to heaven with Christ.

Thistlethwaite is apparently unaware that Palin left the AoG church (which she calls Palin’s “home church”) in 2002 because she thought it too “exteme,” according to the New York Times. But for those who don’t get evangelicalism (much less Pentecostalism or fundamentalism), such distinctions are inconsequential. Thistlethwaite then quotes Jews for Jesus director David Brickner making a statement about terrorism in Israel being “God’s judgment,” and assumes that Palin must agree with it. This leads her to ask the following astounding question:

So now we have a series of extreme religious views getting awfully close to foreign policy. You put all these beliefs together and I ask myself if Sarah Palin is going to defend the modern state of Israel as a self-determining democracy and work for peace in the Middle East, or just abandon Israel to destruction from its enemies in order to hasten the Rapture and the return of Christ?

At this point my head’s spinning. People like Thistlethwaite have been claiming for years that evangelicals all support Israel unquestioningly, sacrificing the Palestinians and considerations of justice for the sake of their (incorrectly assumed) rapturist theology. Now she’s worried that Palin is going to toss Israel under the bus for the sake of her rapturist theology. Could we  decide on a line of attack and stick to it, please?

I suspect that, in their heart of hearts, a lot of these folks wish there were some way to keep evangelicals out of the political process altogether. They shouldn’t run for office, they shouldn’t vote, they shouldn’t even be allowed to try to influence public opinion, because they are “scary,” “theocratic,” “fundamentalist,” or some such nonsense. Of course, they would probably also be happy with the train of thought that Church of England Bishop N. T. Wright expresses:

She’s an interesting lady, though. You guys in the States are in for an exciting few weeks, I think. Too bad that though the decision will hugely affect the rest of the world, only the elite (i.e. U.S. citizens) vote… that’s actually the biggest issue in the election: U.S. relations to the rest of the world . . . which makes it all the more peculiar how the game is played . . . oh, don’t get me started…

Yep, it sure is peculiar that only Americans can vote in American elections. Elitist to the max, that’s what we Yanks are. Unless we’re theocratic, fundamentalist trailer trash. Then we’re just scary.

UPDATE: Forgot to put the quote of the week in here, from Doniger:

Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.

UPDATE: I just wanted to note that Doniger’s column has provoked something I’ve never seen before in an “On Faith” column: total rejection. There is virtually no one from the usual coterie of atheists, pagans, liberals, or secularists willing to step up and defend the bizarre, hateful rantings in this column. The condemnation is wall-to-wall, and it makes me wonder if either Quinn or Meachamon have had second thoughts about having such an obviously unhinged person contribute to their project.

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