I’ve been fascinated by politics since 1974, when Richard Lugar first ran for the United States Senate against Birch Bayh and lost. During the campaign, my dad gave me a box of Richard Lugar pamphlets to distribute around the town, which became my after-school job. Not “job” in the sense of getting paid to do something, since I wasn’t paid to do it, but “job” in the sense of dedication to a specified goal, which was to see Richard Lugar become a United States Senator.
My dad and my two older brothers would talk about sports, which didn’t interest me, so he would talk with me about politics. I remember in 1980, we were watching a speech by Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and the pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, who was extolling the virtues of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan. When Falwell finished speaking, my dad said, “I like that man.” I was nineteen and admired my father, so I said, “I like him too.” Think about that, the man who had founded the nation’s largest Christian political lobbying movement, joining hands with the presidential candidate of a major American political party. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Of course, I didn’t think that at the time. At the time, I thought it was wonderful and divinely inspired. I thought it was God’s ordained path to national greatness. But in time, I observed the harmful consequences when religious and political powers unite, especially if that religious power elevated the authority of men, while diminishing the rights of women. And haven’t you noticed it tends to do that?
I didn’t know it at the time, but in addition to Jerry Falwell’s talk about national greatness, he had also said, “I listen to feminists and all these radical gals – most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men – that’s their problem.”
That was Jerry Falwell of the United States. This is the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. “It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruating at her husband’s house rather than her father’s home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.”
Do you see even a hint of daylight between the two? Whenever fundamentalist religion has gained even the slightest political power in a nation, has it ever ended well?
For we have seen, repeatedly, that whenever religions and governments join, the virtues of religion seldom carry the day. We seldom see the expansion of compassion, the growth of tolerance, the widening of wisdom. Instead, the government is infected by the vices of that religion—the preoccupation with power, the tendency to shrink human rights and not expand them, the inclination toward autocracy and away from democracy, and the effort to control first our actions, then our speech, and finally our thoughts.
We’ve been talking about the characteristics of national greatness, the chief differences between flourishing and failing nations. And I want to say that in flourishing nations, there is a distinct and unbreachable wall between religion and government, so the ideals of democracies are not corroded by the abuses of religion. It is no surprise that the greatest threats to our liberties in modern America have come at the hands of our fellow Christians who think it their sacred right to reduce our rights. In recent years, they have taken from women the right to reproduce or not, they have taken from Black people the right to vote without encumbrance, they have taken from Brown people the right to walk the streets in peace, and if we would let them, they would take away our right to protest the robbery of these rights. These religionists would declare an emergency to usurp our civil rights when the real emergency is the nullification of our democratic freedoms. Religion at its best expands human dignity. Religion at its worst narrows it. Right now we are seeing the worst religion has to offer, not in some far-off land, but in our land.
Because religion is too often predicated on certainty, those who are religious often confuse faith for fact. Convinced of their worldview, they seek to impose it not only on themselves, but on us too, whether we wish to be imposed upon or not. They worship an all-powerful God, wish to create an all-powerful church, in hopes of forming an all-powerful and authoritative government. But always at the expense of human liberty and freedom. But to challenge them is to challenge God, which they will never permit, so even as their voices increase, the voices for liberty decrease. It was Jerry Falwell who said, “The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.” Did you hear that? Their own country. It is their country, not ours. Listen to the kind of country they want. When asked what should be done with atheists, Falwell said, “Kill them all in the name of the Lord.” Jerry Falwell died in 2007, but the movement he began is as vigorous and dangerous as it has ever been.
This past Friday, the Christians at the heart of our government asked for an emergency stay to Judge John McConnell’s order to the USDA to pay full SNAP benefits to avert starvation. Because Jesus never said anything about feeding the hungry, did he? This reveals the true danger of the marriage between government and religion. It tarnishes both. It undermines the freedoms of democracy, while subverting the values and priorities of true Christianity. It is the hallmark of failing nations.
No country is Christian whose leaders gorge themselves at Great Gatsby golden tables while children go hungry.
No country is Christian that employs masked villains to tear parents from their children, and children from their parents, to tear asunder those whom God had joined together.
Christianity is not a title to be claimed. Nor is it a weapon to be engaged for the destruction of other’s liberties.
Christianity is a way of life that raises up those of low degree that has good news not for the rich, selfish, and abusive few, but for the needy and hurting many.