Bustin' Out of Babylon
You probably remember Katherine Harris.
She’s the The Big Hair and Mascara Lady who served as the Florida Elections Commissioner during the 2000 presidential election. She played a big role in handing Shrub Dubya the Florida election and eventually the presidency on a technical knockout by the Supremes.
She kicked off a big kerfuffle last week during her congressional re-election campaign with some comments she made to a group of Baptists that ended up in print in the Florida Baptist Witness. You can find the gist of ‘em below.
Demos are scrambling to wear their religion on their sleeves this time around and some people are talking about the rise of the new religious left. Who knows, maybe both of 'em will make a difference and help end the Right Wing Babylonian Captivity of the US Church.
Those of us who likey the Christian anarchy and my buds on the Christian left would sure be grateful :^)
But I’m thinkin’ it’s gonna take more than that. Gotta take a closer look at the stuff church goers are packin' between their ears right now.
Lots of people in Florida are running for cover from Harris' remarks, but I think her comments represent what a ginormous number of American church goers feel in their heart of hearts.
Guess the question is whether this is good theology or good politics.
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"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."
"If we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our founding fathers intended and that's (sic) certainly isn't what God intended."
…"Whenever we legislate sin, and say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong . . ."
Asked if the U.S. should be a secular country, Harris said: "I think that our laws, I mean, I look at how the law originated, even from Moses, the 10 Commandments. And I don't believe, that uh . . . That's how all of our laws originated in the United States, period. I think that's the basis of our rule of law."
posted by Wordcat at 12:02 PM
5 Comments:
What are you trying to say??? It looks like it's in code. Most of us would need a cryptographer to figure it out. I think that you are too intelligent or something!!!
Well I can figure it out. Seems that " I dont know any better" lololol Oh my, how a few religious women can make my gender look like .....well like maybe they should be in burkas and well hidden........:)
Interesting...I had no clue that this was a feeling of hers. Do you think that she means this stuff (does it resonate with what she's shown before) or is this just a vote-getting strategy? And is it a good vote-getting strategy?
(p.s. - I do feel that regardless of the moral argument she's making, the historical argument is quite off-base)
Welcome to the blog Patricia. I'm glad to have an inspirational mystery writer as a reader. Chalk this post up as just another mystery challenge. I'll try to do better and be clearer. Hard to know what to write sometimes when you're trying to talk to different groups that don't understand each others languages. Oh well :^)
Yeah, I think this is her feeling. I think it's a lot of people's feeling.
Both the moral and the historical argument are pretty questionable. Since when did intelligent Christians believe that non-Christians were incapable of making legitimate moral decisions in the political realm?
Read CS Lewis. Remember the Tao?
He explains it all.
One of her opponents (Will McBride, who often makes note of the fact that he used to be a Baptist youth pastor) was making appearances on right-wing talk radio today. It It seems that even the radio mouthpieces are trying to push for someone other than Harris right now. I only listened for a little bit, but the one caller I heard seemed to support Harris's comments. The radio guy (Medved) spent so much time ripping him down that McBride barely even got to speak.
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