Mitt Romney, you're wrong: this isn't a Christian nation

There are lots of reasons for people in the United States to vote for President Obama rather than Mitt Romney in November. Romney's sucking up to evangelical Christians is just one reason -- but an important one.

In a recent speech at a hotbed of Christian'ist fundamentalism, Liberty University, Romney told the assembled believers in an imaginary God the untruths they wanted to hear.

In the same week that President Obama galvanized his base by endorsing same-sex marriage, Mr. Romney’s message was that evangelicals could count on him to operate as president under “a common worldview,” including his position that marriage should be between only a man and a woman.

...Repeatedly invoking God and citing an array of Christian leaders and thinkers, from Pope John Paul II to the novelist C. S. Lewis, Mr. Romney spoke of the centrality of family and service and the tradition from America’s beginnings of trusting “in God, not man.”

Only problem, and it's a big one, is that this country never has been a Christian nation. Our founding fathers (and mothers, I assume) were appropriately skeptical of the sort of dogmatism that Romney mistakenly considers to be part of this nation's early history.

Check out the quotes in "The 12 Best Reasons Why The U.S. Is Not Now, and Never Should Be, a Christian Nation." Here's a couple of my favorites:

3) “But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.”–John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

6) “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” –Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

7) “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” –James Madison, letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774

10) “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance

Sam Harris' great little book, "Letter to a Christian Nation," offers up a blunt modern perspective about why Romney is so wrong.

There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell.

…An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists.

Comments

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

While there is some validity in your argument "that this country never has been a Christian nation[,]" it is nevertheless a fact that the predominant culture of the dwellers in the USA have been - and continue to be - Christian. But, further, "[a]n average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon" likewise knows (in accordance with Rev. 22:18, for example) that Mormonism is a heretical cult which stands outside the acceptable limits of what the typical Christian accepts as being "orthodox." Even the condemnative complaints of Jeremiah Wright came from a theological position much more main-stream than anything the Mormons purport or believe.

But I do not look for any consistent response to this fact within our (so-called) "Christian" nation/culture.

Robert Paul Howard

[tucson]

While Blogger Brian is correct in saying that most founding fathers were skeptical of religious dogmatism, Robert Paul Howard is also correct in saying that the predominant culture of the dwellers in the USA has been Christian. I doubt that Jeremiah Wright's "God damn America" style of preaching, attended to by Ob*ma for twenty years, is more mainstream than Mormonism.(I haven't taken a poll, however.)

Blogger Brian wrote: "...Romney told the assembled believers in an imaginary God the untruths they wanted to hear."

--Are you sure their God is imaginary? Might be, but...?

And while citing negative behavior to justify negative behavior is generally poor practice, don't you think maybe just once in awile, just a teensy little bit, that Ob*ma also "sucks up" to his constituency with untruths that they want to hear?

Politics as usual. The dirtiest game in town.

[Robert Paul Howard]

That's why Jehovah's Witnesses, the Assemblies of Yahweh, and hard-core Armstrongites (and some few others) do not participate in elections/voting. (And I do regard their versions of "God" to be imaginary.)

Robert Paul Howard

[Robert Paul Howard]

Zinnia Jones offers some similar kinds of complaints:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rak2y4Do3ac&list=UUamaea05bOJ0q42F9iyaFMA&index=3&feature=plcp

Robert Paul Howard

[tucson]

Unfortunately the culture is too shallow to even imagine that Zinnia's complaints will ever be substantially resolved.