This past Martin Luther King Day, Alabama’s new governor, Robert Bentley, addressed a Baptist Church and shared the following sentiment with his audience:
Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.
The press got a hold of it and the thing went viral and then the governor apologized and before I get all First Amendment on the man I recall a lifetime—that is my lifetime—of saying unbelievably imbecilic things in front of classes and colleagues (which I never apologized for).
So I am just going to go back to preparing my lecture on Martin Luther’s 1523 “On the Secular Authority” and let it go.
Besides, we are merely in the preseason of the 2012 Faith and Values campaign.
In the next few weeks, however, an apostle’s posse of Republicans will announce their candidacies (or at least intimate as much to scoop-deprived journalists). And then the real, nasty F and V action will begin.
By the time February rolls around and the GOP candidates will all be trying to ingratiate themselves to the Evangelical base, Bentley’s indiscretion will be long forgotten.
Like the exhibition football game the NFL stages in Kyoto or Bogota or some such place in August—in a few weeks nobody will think of the governor’s un-fraternal declaration if only because so many new brain-traumatizing, concussion-inducing Church-State fouls will have been flagged.
But will 2012 match the 2008 F and V season? Honestly, I don’t see how that’s even possible. Recall that with an outgoing Republican Commander in Chief in 2008, presidential candidates in both parties were peddling their faith-based wares.
For every Hillary reference to the Sunday school classes she used to teach, we had John McCain calling this a “Christian nation.” For every invocation by John Edwards of Matthew 25, we had Mike Huckabee subsuming the Constitution to the Bible.
For every rabbit punch delivered to the traditional secularism of the Democratic Party by Senator Obama, we had Mitt Romney citing Psalms. For every Jeremiah Wright, a Pastor Hagee.
I don’t see how 2012 could possibly match 2008 for outlandish, over-the-top religious rhetoric in American politics. But we have a long, action-packed season ahead of us: if strategists in either party conclude that communities of faith may decide the election, then the worst is yet to come.
3 Responses to Let the Faith and Values Campaign Season Begin!
mainiac - January 21, 2011 at 10:27 am
At least Bently made the profession in a congregation and wasn’t handling snakes, although……
There has not been any major cult action lately; where are the compund seiges, mass indoctrinations, rides on comets etc…?
“So I am just going to go back to preparing my lecture on Martin “Luther’s 1523 “On the Secular Authority” and let it go,” did he write that one in secretus locus monachorum hypocastum/cloaca as well?
humgrad - January 21, 2011 at 10:57 am
What is wrong with quoting the Psalms (some of the finest poetry ever written) or Matthew 25 (equally some of the most influential writing in the western canon)? Remember, no one can inhibit the free exercise of religion.
pocvecem - January 22, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Not to defend Bentley (because what he said was pretty indefensible), but…
If I had to choose between the two, I’d rather have an election season full of substantive religious discussion (such as Romney’s speech the last time around) than one with a bunch of mindless slogans (such as “Yes We Can!”) The key word is substantive.
On a more realistic note, I do not mind people like Huckabee talking about religion during a campaign. Huckabee is a preacher; knowing his religious views is an important part of knowing the man we are being asked to elect. Whether you or I like how those religious views would shape a Huckabee presidency is another matter altogether. But it is pretty obnoxious when others who are less authentically religious start trotting out the God talk.