In a strange irony, it has come to be the case that only Democrats now speak up for giving a role to faith in governance. Stranger still, they get away with it — which prompts the question: Why?
In the accepted vocabulary of liberalism, the word “theocracy” functions as a synonym for “Silence them!” The word possesses awesome power to intimidate Republicans.
Yes, occasionally you might hear a conservative timidly voice the opinion that, as was clearly recognized in the America that existed from the founding till less than half a century ago, religion is a source of inspiration for good government.
But we have mostly learned to stop staying such things in public. The liberal media and academics have simply proven too skilled at twisting our words. They would make it appear that we advocate a Sharia state along the lines of Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Can you imagine a Republican presidential candidate inviting the members of an evangelical church to elect him and help build the Lord’s Kingdom on Earth, in which the office seeker himself will function as a self-proclaimed instrument of God? Yet earlier this month, Barack Obama told the congregation of a church in Greenville, S.C.: “We’re going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.” He also said, “I want all of you to pray that I can be an instrument of God.”
These remarks occasioned no protest from the Jewish community.
If Obama were a Republican, you can be sure the top Jewish organizations would be the first to leap furiously upon him, warning that the next step will be pogroms in the streets of the Upper West Side and the sacking of Zabar’s by Cossack horsemen.
Maybe the Illinois senator was just being inspirational and poetic, you might say. Now try to picture the bedlam that would ensue, again just among our Jewish leaders, if a Republican flat out stated that his ambition, if elected, would be to translate his Christian faith into public policy.
Yet as I noted on this page before, Hillary Clinton said just that of herself in a forum this past June: “I think you can sense how we are attempting to try to inject faith into policy.”
At the same forum, televised on CNN, John Edwards said, “The hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me.” He allowed that God’s hand guides other people as well.
“We have chosen to keep our politics unilluminated by divine revelation,” intones Columbia University professor Mark Lilla in his solemnly praised new book, “The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West.” Hardly.
The interesting enigma is why the religiosity of Democratic rhetoric is greeted with serene acceptance by the same people who would be going berserk if Republicans said such things.
Don’t tell me it’s because Republican faith is coercive while Democratic religion is not. Clinton made her comment in the context of pushing her plan to reform health care. Both she and Edwards say their respective schemes to broaden access to medical care — to which she explicitly attaches religious significance — could include privacy-invading requirements.
Clinton envisions demanding proof of health insurance to get a job. Edwards’s plan would force you to visit your doctor regularly: “It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care.”
I would say there are two reasons for the oddly muted reactions from Jews and other liberals.
First and most obviously, whatever declarations of non-partisanship Jewish groups may make, they are resolutely wed to the Democrats. In tightly tying our community’s fortunes to the goodwill of one party, they put us in a dangerous position.
In this circumstance that we have allowed them to create, the other party has little incentive to court or serve Jewish interests. Thank God, Republicans do so anyway, mainly because the Evangelical Christian constituency insists on it.
In any event, the Jewish organizations are not going to protest messianic proclamations from Obama, Clinton or Edwards for the simple but depressing reason that those candidates are perceived as being on the correct team.
Second, everyone realizes exactly what the sincerity quotient is in the Democratic drive to woo Christians. The transparent aim is to leave conservative Catholics and evangelicals with the impression that the secularist party cares about what they, Christians, care about. Uh huh, sure it does.
Perhaps some Jewish groups, familiar with the use (or abuse) of religion for raising donations and for advocating favorite political causes, recognize the strategy and feel comfortable with it. However, they unintentionally betray their Democratic partners by not responding in the hysterical fashion that they would if the same sentiments came from a Republican.
As in the famous Sherlock Holmes story, it’s the curious case of the dog that didn’t bark.
David Klinghoffer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, is the author of “Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril” (Doubleday).
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Great article, but it just points out the obvious. There is a double standard regarding religious speach in America when it is linked to politics. First, there is a basic dividing line between liberal and conservative christians that seems to go hand-in-hand with their politics. There is a basic distrust of fundamentalists (Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and a few other denominations) by Progressive christians (most presbyterians and methodists) regarding not only religious beliefs but also core values and how these values are expressed through charitable and political efforts. It was just back in the 2004 elections that we heard so much about how the Republicans were trying to establish a theocracy and were using faith to manipulate the vote of the religious right. You don't hear so much of that anymore because it was a losing strategy by the Democrats. Instead, Democratic polititicians and liberal groups seem to be pushing their agendas in the progressive christian arena. Most notable are the efforts of former presidents Carter and Clinton in the formation of the "New Baptist Covenant," and efforts by Sojourners magazine and others to present some really left-of-center ideals as being inherent values of christianity.(see christsells.com) Second, separation of church and state is just a ploy. It works in much the same way as the ACLU. If you look at the ACLU's literature they say that they defend civil liberties as a transcending philosophy. Yet, in practice they mostly go after conservatives. This separation-of-church-and-state business is just something that liberals can invoke to attack Republicans and create a fear of the religious right, while they themselves are campaigning in churches.
Ideologue Klinghoffer is misclassifying the issue. Public servants can be informed by their religious teachings, and religious leaders can have a say and influence in public policy. It's tempting for me to write that Klinghoffer and their minions should get a life, and not be so sensitive about a double standard. The political right doesn't have an exclusivity in the moral high ground; it has taken many in the Democratic party too long to effectively claim it. In my view though, I'm more concerned that the political conservatives will divert public moneys in such a way as to rip the separation of church and state that has helped keep antisemitism in check.
What tripe, starting with the opening contention that from the founding until half a century ago America looked to religion as an inspiration for good government - which is exactly the reverse of what the founders intended, and of what most American politicians, right and left, practiced until the rise of a rich and rabid Christianist right wing intimidated them with a lavishly-funded "one nation under God" campaign that ever since has equated secularists and the humanist tradition in America with, first, communism, and now, somehow being "in league with the terrorists." The rest of this blather is just more right-wing ranting, equating the pro-forma "religious correctness" of the Democratic presidential contenders - no professed atheist or even secularist could ever be elected in America - with the kowtowing of so many of the Republicans to the theocrats who would strike the First Amendment from the Constitution. No Democrat has said he (or she) doesn't believe in evolution; three of the Republican contenders have. No Democrat attended the "values voters" convention last weekend, at which one Republican contender after another promised those troglodytes everything short of taking the national board of the ACLU out in an alley to be shot. Why is Klinghofer, who represents the anti-evolution, anti-science Discovery Institute, even represented in The Forward's digital pages? Will you also give space to essayists propounding astrology and flat-earth theory?
What a well written article that expresses the views of so many of us who see through the hypocrisy of the Democ-rats. Notice how few of them, none actually, who had anything to say about Congressman Jim Moron's consistent anti-Semitism (and Congressman Pete Stark's, for that matter) but were screaming about Ann Coulter, along with their "Reform(ed)" rabbis. Democ-rats, being Democ-rats, will do and say anything to get elected. However, they know they can say anything to the evangelical Christian groups and that it won't be commented on by the liberal Democ-rats who dominate what are supposed to be Jewish defense organizations or the media which supposedly serves the whole Jewish community, not just the left-liberals. It are these organizations and media who should be the subject of the greatest criticism--they have become merely an arm of the Democ-rat party. perhaps the most humorous example of their having become a tail on the Democ-rat Party kite was during the recount in Florida after the 2000 election. Wasn't it a riot how former Congressman David Deutsch, together with Jesse Jackson, were asserting that the retired teachers, lawyers, engineers, CPAs and business executives in Palm Beach and Broward Counties were too illiterate to find al-Gore's name on the same butterfly ballot used in Cook County, IL where even the dead can find it.
When men come offering the kingdom of god on earth it is time to refer to Luke 17:21..Jesus is forwarning of those who will say in last days, "look here is the kingdom."...It is also time to ask the question "Who will be the KING of this kingdom"...Obama speaks more like a minister (tongue in cheek) than a king or a politican....My only comment is "you can fool some of the people some of the time.. but not all..