EVANGELICAL NAVEL CONTEMPLATION:How Radical Religious Right theology Embraces Republican Social Darwinism

By PraetorOne

Sometimes I’m a little slow but it finally dawned on me–there are very real theological reasons why the Christian Right is so attracted to the Republican Party, and I suspect that part of it has to do with the fact that the Evangelical belief in “faith only” salvation goes hand in glove with Republican economic policies. In the past I have referred to Republican economic policies as “the law of the jungle,” “social darwinism,” and survival of the fittest, etc. Little did I realize that the right wing, evangelical belief in faith only theology is a suitable companion to Republican economics.

When you think about it the whole thing makes a certain degree of sense. Not only do many right wing evangelicals believe in faith only salvation, they also try very hard to keep the idea of works, good deeds if you will, out of their religious paradigm. Now why, one must wonder would THAT be the case? The answer is rather simple when you get right down to it. Once you place all of your emphasis on faith and eliminate acts of humanitarianism, it becomes much easier to excuse the greed and graft which has become the current incarnation of the Republican Party. Never act, never worry! If you emphasize faith over acts you find yourself in a position where it becomes easy to forgive–or worse yet–condone the idea of transferring wealth away from the lower classes while handing it to th nation’s wealthiest elite who clearly have no need for additional wealth. Worse yet, it becomes easier to blame the victims for their poverty–a tactic which many Republicans, both economic and evangelical, have become quite accustomed to. It works out very nicely for the right wing evangelical who wouldn’t lift a finger to help someone who he considers anti-christian anyhow. Why help all those non evangelicals out there who are so clearly condemned to go to hell anyhow? Why bother with social programs, environmental programs, and educational programs etc when God is only going to come in the End Times anyhow to destroy the whole bleeding planet anyhow? It’s much easier to follow a religious dogma which emphasizes faith over acts because an emphasis on faith will justify the very noisy navel contemplation which passes for evangelical worship. Although I have to admit, the only time that evangelicals EVER seem to get off their asses is when they want to convert the lowly heathens who they so clearly believe are below them in the theological pecking order. On those occasions the far right is only more than willing to extend a little time and energy on an act, but only because they believe it will provide them with the POLITICAL power that they crave–political power which, of course, will promptly be channeled into convincing people that the only things they need to do are believe and sit on their lazy haunches while the world around them goes to Hell in a hand car.

Ironically–or perhaps not so ironically now that I think about it–the right wing evangelicals, who can quote scripture at the drop of a hat–seem to have a very poor understanding of the Gospel of Christ. True, the New Testament does talk about faith and belief, but that doesn’t explain those portions of the New Testament in which Christ delivers specific instructions about the poor–about giving up wealth, but helping those who are less fortunate, healing and comforting the sick, offering guidelines by which we can live better lives. In the Evangelical dreamscape we are apparently supposed to believe that Christ issued these instructions because it was a boring Tuesday afternoon and he didn’t have anything better to do with himself. Welcome to the happy sappy nightmare world of the Christian Right where the only thing that doesn’t matter in the Gospel(s) of Christ are the teachings of Christ!

On January 13th my wife and I became the proud parents of a happy baby boy who we have named Jeffrey Michael, after my best friend and mentor. One of the problems with which we shall have to deal is the lack of quality day care in our particular county. It isn’t that there aren’t day care facilities, there are. Not a lot, but a few. But to make the situation even worse, we have yet to find one that isn’t run by either the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church or by right wing fundamentalists, and to be frank we really don’t want our child to be indoctrinated by this kind of theological social darwinism. Instead we want our child to take an active interest in the world around him. We don’t want him to settle for empty navel contemplation. We don’t want him to limit his social involvement to praying for people when he can be out there working to make a difference. My wife, Kelli, and I truly believe that good government, democracy if you will, is a participatory sport and we want Little Jeff to take part in this wonderful thing called representative government. This is on area in which the Radical Religious Right is perfectly willing to get involved and unless we take the threat seriously, this country will never fully recover from the potential damage that these people can inflict–or for that matter from the economic and bigoted social damage that they have ALREADY inflicted.

We need to take back this country. Not only to save the nation and Representative Democracy but to save rational, critical thought and perhaps even the Bible itself. A few nights ago I watched a program from some Christian university in Pensicola, Florida. What I saw was both amusing and horrifying. It appears as if there is another time when the Radical Christian Right will get off its ass–when it wants to scare and harangue others. The topic was Hell and the manner in which the “pastor” presented his subject matter was bizarre to say the least. He started out in Matthew Chapter 5, conveniently overlooking th Sermon on the Mount in which Christ delivers a series of instructions on the way to prepare ones self for Heaven (i.e. love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness). Instead the “pastor” zeroed in on brief reference to something which didn’t fully relate to Hell. Then he dragged us back to the book of Psalms; then back to Matthew; then to the Book of Isaiah; then to the Book of Revelations, ad nauseam. By the time he was finished I felt as if I had been on a Biblical rollercoaster, only to learn that Hell was a pace of fire, brimstone, darkness, and worms. I also learned that Hell was a bottomless pit and that it was inhabited by demons and fallen angels and that one day the bottomless pit would be thrown into the Lake of Fire. I was also informed that Hell would have a geographical location, only at this point the “pastor” failed to disclose the location and began to repeat himself–over, and over, and over again. Even more disturbing was the blind obedience of the audience. Every time the “pastor” said “in Revelations Chapter…” the camera would cut to a group of students sitting front and center with their King James Bibles. The expressions on their faces reflected a frightening blend of blind obedience and an utter lack of thought. They poured through those Bibles as if their very lives depended upon it, utterly oblivious to the outside world. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that isn’t even faith. That’s myopic fanaticism.

So why does this matter? This matters because like most of Radical Right theology it has to be sewn together piece by bloody piece until something vaguely resembling proper doctrine can be stitched together into some kind of wacky patchwork quilt of theological insanity. The same holds true for faith based theology. The Radical Religious Right picks a little quote here, a little quote there, and conveniently ignores whatever Christ said that may interfere with their political and personal views, said political and personal views now supported by a phony, patchwork theology which has virtually nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. And these people have the audacity to call themselves Christians while openly questioning the legitimacy, patriotism, and Americanism of other sects which fail to parrot the evangelical rhetoric? It seems to me that it isn’t hard to be a Christian in contemporary society at all. All you have to d is sit on your fat, lazy ass and pray; never bother with good deeds of charitable acts; look down your nose at those who you consider beneath you, and complain about anything and everything in sight. And if someone correctly points out that Radical Right theology is a crock of manure, the Radical Right only has to scream that it is being “persecuted.” Except when they’re trying to score political points in the public arena–then they flip flop and falsely claim that their religious views are somehow mainstream, in the majority.

In closing I can only offer the following observation. If the Radical Religious Right in this country can get away with calling itself “Christian” there’s hope for every chimpanzee in Africa.

PraetorOne