New at Reason

November 20, 2006

Daniel McCarthy traces the development of would-be theocrats via a pair of Religious Right-boosting books.

Comments

|11.20.06 @ 8:32AM|#

...a federal district court ruling to permit physician-assisted suicide shook the editors of the Catholic journal First Things so violently that they began to ask whether judicial tyranny had destroyed democracy itself.

What a strange idea. After all, it was the voters of Oregon voters who had approved of the "Death With Dignity" referendum*; how more democratic could that outcome be?

*Here I am assuming that court ruling in question dealt with that act.

ChrisO|11.20.06 @ 9:49AM|#

There is such a tremendous cognitive disconnect between the "theocrats" and traditional American conservativism focused around limited government, that I think GOP would commit slow suicide by adopting the religious stuff as its core set of principles. There are a lot of deeply religious Americans out there, but not nearly enough to form a governing majority.

|11.20.06 @ 10:51AM|#

"There are a lot of deeply religious Americans out there, but not nearly enough to form a governing majority."

Yeah, but there's probably enough of them to make a socially libertarian America a distant dream.

ChrisO|11.20.06 @ 10:57AM|#

Yeah, but there's probably enough of them to make a socially libertarian America a distant dream.

Gee thanks. Mondays are already depressing enough as it is.

|11.20.06 @ 11:57AM|#

The contention that the Republican party has always been the party of God would be more compelling if their electoral success did not depend so much on the anti-catholic know-nothing movement. The Republicans only starting winning elections once they started courting voters that discussed plots by the pope to take over America. I guess they could still be the party of the protestant God in that case, but certainly not the catholic one.

|11.20.06 @ 12:53PM|#

The biggest problem with the Bible thumping wing of the Republican Party is that they perceive their deity to be such a weenie nthat He needs Caesar's help.

|11.20.06 @ 12:55PM|#

The two sides of the GOP mouth:

(1) Government screws up whatever it messes with; and

(2) We need more God in government.

There are no contradictions....

ChrisO|11.20.06 @ 1:24PM|#

Given how vacant Catholic Churches in this country appear to be apart from Christmas and Easter, I'm not too afraid of any oncoming army of Fanatical Papists taking over the levers of power.

Larry A|11.20.06 @ 5:53PM|#

Catholicism, on the other hand, had the natural law tradition, with its claims to objectivity and rationality. As well, in Linker's words, "there was the Church's long history of theological and political reflection, which made Catholics far more competent than evangelicals and other Protestants to take the lead in pressing religiously based moral arguments in the nation's life."

Can you spell "inquisition?"

So long as Catholics and Protestants were at odds, Linker concludes, both sides had a vested interest in minimizing the mixture of doctrine and state power. But now, "to the extent that they come to consider each other allies and to recognize their potential combined political clout, they will be tempted to view the separation of church and state as something less than a bargain-as an unacceptable sacrifice of their freedom to do everything they can to bring the country's public life into conformity with what they believe to be the truth proclaimed by Jesus Christ."

I can see Catholics and Protestants working together to gain power. Then I can see another 100 year war over how to wield it. Get thee to a history book.

There are a lot of deeply religious Americans out there, but not nearly enough to form a governing majority.

Sort of.

Ask people in the U.S. "Are you Christian?" (Check yes/Check no) and 80-90% will check "yes."

Ask them "What church do you belong to?" (Fill in the blank) and you'll get more answers than you can shake a stick at.

Christianity in the U.S. is not a majority. It's a collection of minorities. Folks who believe a government based on the beliefs and traditions of their church would be a Good Thing don't realize that almost all of them would end up living under a government based on the beliefs and traditions of someone else's church.

The many protestant reformations were bad enough the first time. Again, Get thee to a history book. Or even a video. The recent Untold Story of the Mayflower will do.

Robert|11.20.06 @ 6:46PM|#

OTOH, Calvinism and many of its offshoots have been a bulwark against use of gov't for economic leveling.