"How Christian is Tea Party Libertarianism?"

[Kamsaki]

Where is there talk of social justice, in the leftist sense, in the Gospels? There is talk of charity, but that is not the same thing: it is a very individualist morality, "Give all you own", focused more on personal self-sacrifice of material goods for spiritual gain, rather than actually achieving economic equality.

It's an interesting one. If you read Mark, the social justice aspect of it seems clearer than, say, in Luke.

Mark seems to paint Jesus's mission as being more about healing the sick; for Mark's Christ, sin is a kind of illness that people are cured of through forgiveness, rather than a natural disposition that needs directed towards God (as the Beatitudes of the other gospels seem to represent). If you steal, murder, fornicate or whatnot, it's because there's something wrong with you that God's forgiveness relieves you of. In this respect, "giving your life to save it" isn't meant as a reward, but a restoration of man's natural state through his having been healed of the corruption of sin.

The role of the church as being primarily theraputic is thus rather easily interpreted. Christ is the model of the well person, and the well person acts in the service of others: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many".

[Kamsaki]

I'm not sure why this is a bad thing. Churches are going to form their own policies regardless, but unless they want to abandon their tax exempt status they shouldn't expect to be heard as voices in government. The people who make up churches already tend to ally themselves with political parties where they can make their voices heard, and they're certainly allowed to discuss their preferred politics in church. But to establish a direct line of contact between government and churches erodes that wall of separation that's already been under fire for the past thirty years. We've had far too much interference with government by religious organizations, and it's time to take a very large step back from it.

But that's just it; this "separation" means that people treat religion as just something incidental to political opinion. It's not, and America's consistent assertion of the separation of the two blinds it to that fact. Religion is implicitly public and political, and such being the case, when we say that religion has no place in politics of itself, that simply gives it license to be utterly overwhelming in its potential political influence, as it currently is. There's a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy as regards non-christian views in American politics, and such is entirely grounded in the doctrine that making religion an issue of public government is something you just don't do; this is a facilitation, not a prevention, of regressive attitudes to the role of Religion in the modern nation.

[Treznor]

I'm not sure why this is a bad thing. Churches are going to form their own policies regardless, but unless they want to abandon their tax exempt status they shouldn't expect to be heard as voices in government. The people who make up churches already tend to ally themselves with political parties where they can make their voices heard, and they're certainly allowed to discuss their preferred politics in church. But to establish a direct line of contact between government and churches erodes that wall of separation that's already been under fire for the past thirty years. We've had far too much interference with government by religious organizations, and it's time to take a very large step back from it.

But that's just it; this "separation" means that people treat religion as just something incidental to political opinion. It's not, and America's consistent assertion of the separation of the two blinds it to that fact. Religion is implicitly public and political, and such being the case, when we say that religion has no place in politics of itself, that simply gives it license to be utterly overwhelming in its potential political influence, as it currently is. There's a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy as regards non-christian views in American politics, and such is entirely grounded in the doctrine that making religion an issue of public government is something you just don't do; this is a facilitation, not a prevention, of regressive attitudes to the role of Religion in the modern nation.

I wouldn't call it regressive, I'd call it very progressive. The idea is that you learn to treat your religion as a private matter and politics as a public one. It is incidental to political opinion, because people can be political without being religious, and religious without being political. The fact that Jerry Falwell encouraged people to think of them as one and the same is testament to his ability to undermine that wall of separation in spite of our best efforts. Of course, there wasn't a whole lot of opposition at first because Falwell was rightly viewed as a crackpot and dismissed.

The fact that there are enough people who want politics to conform to their religious ideals isn't proof that they're inseparable, it's proof that Jefferson and the rest of the founders (even Madison, a devout Christian himself) really knew what they were talking about when they refused to mix them. Allow Churches to do their thing, but do not allow them to interfere with government.

[Virtualila]

I just recieved this via my mother's Church group.

How Christian is Tea Party Libertarianism?
by Jim Wallis 05-27-2010

The insurgent Tea Party and its Libertarian philosophy is a political phenomenon, not a religious one. Like the Democratic and Republican parties it seeks to challenge, it is a secular movement, not a Christian one. As with both major political parties, people who regard themselves as Christians may be involved in, or sympathetic to, the new Tea Party; but that doesn’t make it “Christian.” But like the philosophies and policies of the major political parties, the Tea Party can legitimately be examined on the basis of Christian principles — and it should be.

Since the Tea Party is getting such national attention, our God’s Politics blog is going to begin a dialogue on this question: Just how Christian is the Tea Party Movement — and the Libertarian political philosophy that lies behind it? Let me start the dialogue here. And please join in.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds individual rights as its supreme value and considers government the major obstacle. It tends to be liberal on cultural and moral issues and conservative on fiscal, economic, and foreign policy. This “just leave me alone and don’t spend my money” option is growing quickly in American life, as we have seen in the Tea Party movement. Libertarianism has been an undercurrent in the Republican Party for some time, and has been in the news lately due to the primary election win of Rand Paul as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Kentucky. Paul has spoken like a true Libertarian, as evidenced by some of his comments since that election last week.

He cited the Civil Rights Act as an example of government interference with the rights of private business. Paul told an interviewer that he would have tried to change the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race. He answered a specific question about desegregating lunch counters by countering, “Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

A few days later, he spoke about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Referring to the Obama administration’s criticisms of BP, Paul said, “I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.”

Is such a philosophy Christian? In several major aspects of biblical ethics, I would suggest that Libertarianism falls short.

1. The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone. Both compassion and social justice are fundamental Christian commitments, and while the Christian community is responsible for living out both, government is also held accountable to the requirements of justice and mercy. Both Christians on the Right and the Left have raised questions about Libertarian abandonment of the most vulnerable — whether that means unborn lives or the poor.

Just look at the biblical prophets in their condemnation of injustice to the poor, and how they frequently follow those statements by requiring the king (the government) to act justly (a requirement that applied both to the kings of Israel and to foreign potentates). Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well” (Jeremiah 22:16). Amos instructs the courts (the government) to “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). The prophets hold kings, rulers, judges, and employers accountable to the demands of justice and mercy.

2. An anti-government ideology just isn’t biblical. In Romans 13, the apostle Paul (not the Kentucky Senate candidate) describes the role and vocation of government; in addition to the church, government also plays a role in God’s plan and purposes. Preserving the social order, punishing evil and rewarding good, and protecting the common good are all prescribed; we are even instructed to pay taxes for those purposes! Sorry, Tea Party. Of course, debating the size and role of government is always a fair and good discussion, and most of us would prefer smart and effective to “big” or “small” government.

Revelation 13 depicts the state as a totalitarian beast — a metaphor for Rome, which was persecuting the Christians. This passage serves as a clear warning about the abuse of governmental power. But a power-hungry government is clearly an aberration and violation of the proper role of government in protecting its citizens and upholding the demands of fairness and justice. To disparage government per se — to see government as the central problem in society — is simply not a biblical position.

3. The Libertarians’ supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin. The exclusive focus on government as the central problem ignores the problems of other social sectors, and in particular, the market. When government regulation is the enemy, the market is set free to pursue its own self-interest without regard for public safety, the common good, and the protection of the environment — which Christians regard as God’s creation. Libertarians seem to believe in the myth of the sinless market and that the self-interest of business owners or corporations will serve the interests of society; and if they don’t, it’s not government’s role to correct it.

But such theorizing ignores the practical issues that the public sector has to solve. Should big oil companies like BP simply be allowed to spew oil into the ocean? And is regulating them really un-American? Do we really want nobody to inspect our meat, make sure our kids’ toys are safe, or police the polluters to keep our air clean? Do we really want owners of restaurants and hotels to be able to decide whom they will or won’t serve, or should liquor store owners also be able to sell alcohol to our kids? Given the reality of sin in all human institutions, doesn’t a political process that provides both accountability and checks and balances make both theological and practical sense? C.S. Lewis once said that we need democracy not because people are essentially good, but because they often are not. Democratic accountability is essential to preventing the market from becoming a beast of corporate totalitarianism – just as it is essential for the government. And God’s priorities should determine ours, not the priorities of the Chamber of Commerce.

4. The Libertarian preference for the strong over the weak is decidedly un-Christian. “Leave me alone to make my own choices and spend my own money” is a political philosophy that puts those who need help at a real disadvantage. And those who need help are central to any Christian evaluation of political philosophy. “As you have done to the least of these,” says Jesus, “You have done to me.” And “Blessed are those who are just left alone” has still not made the list of Beatitudes. To anticipate the Libertarian response, let me just say that private charity is simply not enough to satisfy the demands of either fairness or justice, let alone compassion. When the system is designed to protect the privileges of the already strong and make the weak even more defenseless and vulnerable, something is wrong with the system.

5. Finally, I am just going to say it. There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office? It’s time we had some honest answers to that question. And as far as I can tell, Libertarianism has never been much of a multi-cultural movement. Need I say that racism — overt, implied, or even subtle — is not a Christian virtue.

http://blog.sojo.net/2010/05/27/how-chr ... tarianism/

So can Libertarianism* and the Tea Party/Bagger movement fit into a Christian context? How so?

*Note: that's the narrow, primarily US based "Big L" Libertarianism or the Libertarian Party, not the broader "small l" libertarianism.

Fascinating. Points 2-4 would almost say that Christians, for the most part, should be leaning left-wing instead of right. I could see how 1 would cause some insolvency between Christians and civil-right preferring lefties, but still...

[Acadzia]

Yeah, I've been reading Sojourners for a while. Indeed folks like Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Rob Bell are who got me into Christianity in the first place. But now that I am a Christian, I certainly see some flaws in their theology... but those are minor, and insignificant when compared to how those men have inspired me.

That all said, I don't think "Tea Party Libertarianism" runs the gamut on people creating their own Alter Christus. We've always been doing it, and always will. It is one of the reasons I am Catholic, actually... Manicheans and Mormons come and go, but the Church remains steadfast and with it, Christ as He truly is.

[Kamsaki]

I wouldn't call it regressive, I'd call it very progressive. The idea is that you learn to treat your religion as a private matter and politics as a public one. It is incidental to political opinion, because people can be political without being religious, and religious without being political. The fact that Jerry Falwell encouraged people to think of them as one and the same is testament to his ability to undermine that wall of separation in spite of our best efforts. Of course, there wasn't a whole lot of opposition at first because Falwell was rightly viewed as a crackpot and dismissed.

The fact that there are enough people who want politics to conform to their religious ideals isn't proof that they're inseparable, it's proof that Jefferson and the rest of the founders (even Madison, a devout Christian himself) really knew what they were talking about when they refused to mix them. Allow Churches to do their thing, but do not allow them to interfere with government.

But "their thing" is political power, however much they might try to make you think otherwise. It is influence, it is membership and outreach, it is the realisation of some overarching Will (aka; "ours"). Yes, you can be political without being religious, but you can't be religious without being political; try and you'll just end up commodifying a set of ideas for your own personal intellectual satisfaction, declaring Religiosity but ultimately not committing to whatever you don't want to. We call that "bad faith".

The Religion/Spirituality distinction is a point I've come to blows with NSG over quite a bit lately, but it's absolutely critical to understand the difference between membership of an organisation that establishes its authority on the basis of metanarrative and the private consideration and opinion of such tales. Religion is only contingently related to the latter because at present it tends to be within the framework of such public organisations that people actually do consider such narratives; such a distinction is why Christianity is a religion while a belief in fairies is just another idea.

Look at it this way. Can you correctly call someone a Christian against their will to be so called? I contend not; anyone who says "I am not a Christian" without intent to deceive is not mistaken, since Christianity is a Denomination, firstly and foremostly. I suspect, also, that such is a view shared by Christians themselves, though I cannot speak for them.

[Treznor]

I wouldn't call it regressive, I'd call it very progressive. The idea is that you learn to treat your religion as a private matter and politics as a public one. It is incidental to political opinion, because people can be political without being religious, and religious without being political. The fact that Jerry Falwell encouraged people to think of them as one and the same is testament to his ability to undermine that wall of separation in spite of our best efforts. Of course, there wasn't a whole lot of opposition at first because Falwell was rightly viewed as a crackpot and dismissed.

The fact that there are enough people who want politics to conform to their religious ideals isn't proof that they're inseparable, it's proof that Jefferson and the rest of the founders (even Madison, a devout Christian himself) really knew what they were talking about when they refused to mix them. Allow Churches to do their thing, but do not allow them to interfere with government.

But "their thing" is political power, however much they might try to make you think otherwise. It is influence, it is membership and outreach, it is the realisation of some overarching Will (aka; "ours"). Yes, you can be political without being religious, but you can't be religious without being political; try and you'll just end up commodifying a set of ideas for your own personal intellectual satisfaction, declaring Religiosity but ultimately not committing to whatever you don't want to. We call that "bad faith".

The Religion/Spirituality distinction is a point I've come to blows with NSG over quite a bit lately, but it's absolutely critical to understand the difference between membership of an organisation that establishes its authority on the basis of metanarrative and the private consideration and opinion of such tales. Religion is only contingently related to the latter because at present it tends to be within the framework of such public organisations that people actually do consider such narratives; such a distinction is why Christianity is a religion while a belief in fairies is just another idea.

Look at it this way. Can you correctly call someone a Christian against their will to be so called? I contend not; anyone who says "I am not a Christian" without intent to deceive is not mistaken, since Christianity is a Denomination, firstly and foremostly. I suspect, also, that such is a view shared by Christians themselves, though I cannot speak for them.

Is a bowling league a political thing? How about a support group? Are they inherently political? Just because you bought into Falwell's bullshit that religion and politics are inseparable doesn't make them so. The nation went two hundred years without it being a serious issue (oh, some religious nuts tried to bring it up a few times but were never taken seriously), but now things are different? I don't buy it.

The metanarrative is irrelevant. It tells people how the invisible sky fairy wants them to live, which is fine for people who want to believe. Politics is about finding solutions to common problems, like whether we should devote public funds to building a new park for the kids or repairing the bridge that only a few people use. It's about how best to defend ourselves from the other religious fanatics who fly planes into our buildings. Church members already have representation in the political arena, they don't need a second one through their churches.

[Kamsaki]

Is a bowling league a political thing? How about a support group? Are they inherently political? ... The nation went two hundred years without it being a serious issue (oh, some religious nuts tried to bring it up a few times but were never taken seriously), but now things are different? I don't buy it.

(unwarranted implied allegience removed)

Here's why bowling leagues aren't political; I, as a member of a bowling league, do not demand of you, as someone who isn't, that you adhere to our rules and regulations.

Such a demand as "prohibit abortion on the grounds of the sanctity of life" is clearly political. Declarations like that are made explicitly as creed within religious membership. You do not simply say "this is what I do", or "this is what I think I should do"; you say "this is what is right to do". It might be an opinion, a question of faith, but it's an opinion about an objective standard that you explicitly state ought be enforced. In taking the creed, you're not just saying "Christianity is right for me"; you're saying publicly and deliberately "this set of statements is True", and this is an imposition of its tenates and moral assertions on everyone, whether within or outwith the religion.

Church members already have representation in the political arena...

Too much. The separation of Church and state is why; by divorcing church and state, you unify religious and secular politics under the one mechanism of the vote. By contrast, in the UK, by maintaining a recognised church and established faith representatives, people don't fill the ballot box with their religious allegiances, and can instead focus on the issues of state directly and immediately when they vote.

[Treznor]

Is a bowling league a political thing? How about a support group? Are they inherently political? ... The nation went two hundred years without it being a serious issue (oh, some religious nuts tried to bring it up a few times but were never taken seriously), but now things are different? I don't buy it.

(unwarranted implied allegience removed)

Here's why bowling leagues aren't political; I, as a member of a bowling league, do not demand of you, as someone who isn't, that you adhere to our rules and regulations.

Why do churches get the right to demand that I, not a member, adhere to their rules and regulations, particularly if their rules and regulations determine things like what I can do in the privacy of my own bedroom? And why in the world would I allow them to enshrine such nonsense in law?

Such a demand as "prohibit abortion on the grounds of the sanctity of life" is clearly political. Declarations like that are made explicitly as creed within religious membership. You do not simply say "this is what I do", or "this is what I think I should do"; you say "this is what is right to do". It might be an opinion, a question of faith, but it's an opinion about an objective standard that you explicitly state ought be enforced. In taking the creed, you're not just saying "Christianity is right for me"; you're saying publicly and deliberately "this set of statements is True", and this is an imposition of its tenates and moral assertions on everyone, whether within or outwith the religion.

That's the problem. Everyone has a different value system, and forcing everyone to adhere to the same value systems is problematic. If you believe that abortion violates the "sanctity of life" then you shouldn't get an abortion. The problem comes when you tell me I can't have one either. You're now telling me that your faith outranks my freedom of choice, and we have a problem.

If we'd listened to churches women would still be denied the vote or even the right to own property. We'd keep blue laws on the books, prohibit any kind of work or sales of alcohol on Sundays and a number of other religious nonsense. But most of all, we'd be enshrining religious law within secular code, and religious laws vary between religions. We'd undermine the very first Amendment in the Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;....

People can and do promote these values on their own. To use their churches as political organizations -- tax free, to boot -- is to abuse the relationship established between Church and State in the highest law of our land. I won't stand for it.

Church members already have representation in the political arena...

Too much. The separation of Church and state is why; by divorcing church and state, you unify religious and secular politics under the one mechanism of the vote. By contrast, in the UK, by maintaining a recognised church and established faith representatives, people don't fill the ballot box with their religious allegiances, and can instead focus on the issues of state directly and immediately when they vote.

I'm sorry if I get confused here, but you're not making sense. You support the establishment of a state religion within the US? How are we unifying religious and secular politics by way of the vote? And why the hell should religious politics have anything to do with secular law? Religious politics should deal with the church's internal matters. Anything else is religious bullying.

[Kamsaki]

I'm sorry if I get confused here, but you're not making sense. You support the establishment of a state religion within the US? How are we unifying religious and secular politics by way of the vote? And why the hell should religious politics have anything to do with secular law? Religious politics should deal with the church's internal matters. Anything else is religious bullying.

I'll start here, since this is the core of my analysis. I think you think I'm trying to say that Religion should have a say in political operation, like a veto over senate rulings or some such. What I'm actually trying to say is Religions should have a say in a specific and isolated department dealing with explicitly religious issues, because such prevents religious issues from dominating the agenda of the rest of government.

What the UK has is an established church. This means that if there's a question about the Christian religion in the UK, the heads of that church can meet up with the relevant political authorities and discuss it. With such heads in place, MPs who campaign on the basis of religious issues are unnecessary: there is a mechanism in place whereby Christians are adequately represented at the national level by their own internal structure, and so MPs can campaign on secular concerns. In fact, it's perfectly alright to have a muslim MP for a predominantly christian constituency, since christians are otherwise well taken care of. As, indeed, are Muslims, since while not an established Church, there being an established church leaves mechanisms in place that allows for other organised faith groups with popular membership to meet with and discuss their issues with the government.

Religions in the US don't have this kind of facilitated way of raising religious issues with Government. Why not? Because it's generally thought that Religions get well-enough represented by their elected officials. This is a bare-faced lie, as Muslim and Atheist groups will happily tell you (though Atheist groups will, of course, object to being clumped with Religion). More to the point, though, it's a self-fulfilling state of affairs. People like Mike Huckabee get elected in no small part because they provide religious elements of American society with the representation they wouldn't otherwise get if they didn't elect people like Mike Huckabee. This was what I meant by the unification of religious and secular politics - considerable elements of your country elect your state representatives to also be the representatives of your religious views.

What I propose is undercutting the reason people have for voting on an explicitly religious platform by giving them the due representation for their religious concerns outwith the secular representation of your houses of parliament. Establish a government department for sufficiently organised faith groups to participate in that area of government (including, obviously, Atheist groups) that intersects with their various religious standpoints. Rather than a state church per se, you just insist that representatives be nominated by groups of such-and-such a size and procedure, which limits the degree to which the state actually has to deal with individual faith communities yet nonetheless grants them representation. Such will mandate that related groups collectivise into partnerships with each other in order to submit representatives, rather than staying as isolated and radicalised communities, thereby also overcoming the underlying radicalism of American Christianity.

Why does this work? Because Mike Huckabee gets elected as that representative, rather than to Congress. He is specifically nominated to represent religious concerns as a political issue in and of itself, and thus the leaking of religion into the rest politics, as issues like Abortion, Healthcare and the like has demonstrated actually happens at present, is stopped by relieving the pressure on secular politics to deal with said concerns.

If we'd listened to churches women would still be denied the vote or even the right to own property. We'd keep blue laws on the books, prohibit any kind of work or sales of alcohol on Sundays and a number of other religious nonsense. But most of all, we'd be enshrining religious law within secular code, and religious laws vary between religions. We'd undermine the very first Amendment in the Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;....

Strictly speaking, yeah, an "establishment of religion" is what this would amount to. In no way, of course, need it be seen as the promotion of any one religion over another. I gave the example of the UK's established church simply as an example for where such a mechanism of religious representation works to good effect. In fact, by establishing an explicit department for religious affairs, you could be vastly improving the ability of minority faith (/non-faith, for the insistent) groups to have a say.

But you're absolutely not enshrining religious law. Hell no. My intention is to achieve quite the opposite - to constrain the already present influence religious law has in driving your country's governance by shifting its power from controlling the composition of parliament to dealing with those issues that directly concern the freedom to practice religion. Yes, that's done by giving religion an explicit position, but in order to actually wield that power, religions will need to properly structure themselves to provide general representation, rather than simply acting as a guerilla swarm on political thought.

[Treznor]

I'm sorry if I get confused here, but you're not making sense. You support the establishment of a state religion within the US? How are we unifying religious and secular politics by way of the vote? And why the hell should religious politics have anything to do with secular law? Religious politics should deal with the church's internal matters. Anything else is religious bullying.

I'll start here, since this is the core of my analysis. I think you think I'm trying to say that Religion should have a say in political operation, like a veto over senate rulings or some such. What I'm actually trying to say is Religions should have a say in a specific and isolated department dealing with explicitly religious issues, because such prevents religious issues from dominating the agenda of the rest of government.

Wow. You really underestimate the tenacity of religious fundamentalists in the US. Look up Mike Huckabee sometime.

What the UK has is an established church. This means that if there's a question about the Christian religion in the UK, the heads of that church can meet up with the relevant political authorities and discuss it. With such heads in place, MPs who campaign on the basis of religious issues are unnecessary: there is a mechanism in place whereby Christians are adequately represented at the national level by their own internal structure, and so MPs can campaign on secular concerns. In fact, it's perfectly alright to have a muslim MP for a predominantly christian constituency, since christians are otherwise well taken care of. As, indeed, are Muslims, since while not an established Church, there being an established church leaves mechanisms in place that allows for other organised faith groups with popular membership to meet with and discuss their issues with the government.

The UK, like the rest of Europe, also has a higher standard for education and doesn't take their religion quite so seriously. And the fact that the Anglican Church has its own political structure within itself doesn't help the rest of the UK who believe in a different sect or religion. How are Muslims represented within themselves, unless they elect their own candidate as an MP? But if you're implying that the government itself has an office to meet with any religious organization that wishes to speak with them, then I have to shudder with disgust. The very idea that religious fanatics can push their agenda on the government is repulsive.

Religions in the US don't have this kind of facilitated way of raising religious issues with Government. Why not? Because it's generally thought that Religions get well-enough represented by their elected officials. This is a bare-faced lie, as Muslim and Atheist groups will happily tell you (though Atheist groups will, of course, object to being clumped with Religion). More to the point, though, it's a self-fulfilling state of affairs. People like Mike Huckabee get elected in no small part because they provide religious elements of American society with the representation they wouldn't otherwise get if they didn't elect people like Mike Huckabee. This was what I meant by the unification of religious and secular politics - considerable elements of your country elect your state representatives to also be the representatives of your religious views.

Incorrect. Every single religious and atheist person in the US is also a member of the voting public, eligible to vote based on their opinions and conscience. The primary failing of the US electoral system is that it's based on winner-takes-all instead of run-off voting, creating an environment where politics are catalyzed between two parties that must embrace a wide range of opinions rather than duke it out with smaller, more focused political entities.

Mike Huckabee is precisely the sort of consequence of Falwell's drive to merge religion and politics. Given a voice in politics through a government agency, he'll take it as a victory and demand more. He and the other Dominionists won't stop simply because they're given a say in how the government forms policy, they want to be the government, to create a theocracy as rigorous and encompassing as the Taliban.

What I propose is undercutting the reason people have for voting on an explicitly religious platform by giving them the due representation for their religious concerns outwith the secular representation of your houses of parliament. Establish a government department for sufficiently organised faith groups to participate in that area of government (including, obviously, Atheist groups) that intersects with their various religious standpoints. Rather than a state church per se, you just insist that representatives be nominated by groups of such-and-such a size and procedure, which limits the degree to which the state actually has to deal with individual faith communities yet nonetheless grants them representation. Such will mandate that related groups collectivise into partnerships with each other in order to submit representatives, rather than staying as isolated and radicalised communities, thereby also overcoming the underlying radicalism of American Christianity.

Yeah, I get it. And I won't say "No." I'll say Hell No. I will fight that with my dying breath. I respect everyone's right to believe as they wish and to follow whatever religion tweaks their need for fantasy. I will not condone any attempt to bring religion into the public space any more than it already is. We have too much of it as things stand now.

Why does this work? Because Mike Huckabee gets elected as that representative, rather than to Congress. He is specifically nominated to represent religious concerns as a political issue in and of itself, and thus the leaking of religion into the rest politics, as issues like Abortion, Healthcare and the like has demonstrated actually happens at present, is stopped by relieving the pressure on secular politics to deal with said concerns.

Won't happen. All it will do is step up the pressure on secular politics to deal with said concerns. Once they have legitimacy as a branch of government -- official or not -- they'll use it to demand policies that have no place in government. They already do it now, and I won't agree to giving them a hand.

If we'd listened to churches women would still be denied the vote or even the right to own property. We'd keep blue laws on the books, prohibit any kind of work or sales of alcohol on Sundays and a number of other religious nonsense. But most of all, we'd be enshrining religious law within secular code, and religious laws vary between religions. We'd undermine the very first Amendment in the Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;....

Strictly speaking, yeah, an "establishment of religion" is what this would amount to. In no way, of course, need it be seen as the promotion of any one religion over another. I gave the example of the UK's established church simply as an example for where such a mechanism of religious representation works to good effect. In fact, by establishing an explicit department for religious affairs, you could be vastly improving the ability of minority faith (/non-faith, for the insistent) groups to have a say.

But you're absolutely not enshrining religious law. Hell no. My intention is to achieve quite the opposite - to constrain the already present influence religious law has in driving your country's governance by shifting its power from controlling the composition of parliament to dealing with those issues that directly concern the freedom to practice religion. Yes, that's done by giving religion an explicit position, but in order to actually wield that power, religions will need to properly structure themselves to provide general representation, rather than simply acting as a guerilla swarm on political thought.

You really don't comprehend the role of religion in modern US politics if you really believe this.

[Kamsaki]

But if you're implying that the government itself has an office to meet with any religious organization that wishes to speak with them, then I have to shudder with disgust.

That's just it. You can't stomach the fact that the extent to which religious divide plagues your nation is an issue important enough for government to have to deal with. You want to think this is something you should be able to organise without going to the national level. But you can't. Anyone with an outside perspective can see that your republicans are becoming more radical precisely because of the religious rhetoric that's being deployed. Way above Barack the Socialist or Barack the Nigerian in their fears is Barack the Muslim, and from what I gather from pictures and reports, there's no shortage of overt invocation of God and religious ideals in Tea party meetings.

It's not something you can hide behind your sensitivities any more. Religion is a serious threat to your nation, and if you don't have a strategy for dealing with it other than meeting it in elections, you're going to either lose or face violent revolution.

You really don't comprehend the role of religion in modern US politics if you really believe this.

No, I get it just fine. The whole point of my proposal is to change that role by putting the elephant in the room in a cage, with a big name-plaque saying "I am religion, please don't feed me". Which surely you must, if you're not going to get trampled by its ongoing rampage.