Back in our December 2009 issue, we published a While We’re At It needling Conservapedia, the curious online home of the Conservative Bible Project. The underpinnings of that project, it seemed, stressed conservatism first and Christianity second. Sneering leftist hermeneuts, it’s furtively alleged, read liberal biases into Scripture, a state of affairs calling for a conservative solution not in hermeneutics but in an equal and oppositely biased exegesis of the biblical text:
. . . the Conservative Bible Project sets out ten guidelines to shape the proposed retranslation. Some of these include an emphasis on “powerful conservative terms” such as “volunteer” instead of “comrade,” “resourceful” instead of “shrewd,” or, in another case, a decidedly pragmatic substitution of “gamble” for “cast lots” to effect guilt-by-association with gambling. Even free-market principles should be brought out in the text, the Conservapedia writers insist—especially in Jesus’ “economic parables.”
One of Mark Shea’s posts today brought to mind another manifestation of this misordering of first principles—what Pope Leo XIII called “Americanism” in his 1899 apostolic letter Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, as Shea points out. As the letter suggests, it’s one thing to be patriotic, but quite another to be “American first, Christian second.”
From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views, which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name.
But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world.
October 19th, 2010 | 4:50 pm
“It’s one thing to be patriotic, but quite another to be ‘American first, Christian second.’”
Curiously, Andrew Sullivan explicitly spoke out in defense of unassertive, non-threatening, nation-exalting Christianity just yesterday on his blog. He quotes from an interview with the “Economist” by the blogger Damon Linker:
“[W]hen religion is liberal—when it makes few supernatural claims, when it is doctrinally minimal, and when it serves mainly as a repository of moral wisdom—it can play a significant role in a liberal society. But the relationship between traditionalist religion and liberal politics is far more contentious… A deeply devout Christian—someone who places his faith at the centre of his life—will tend to think of himself first and foremost as a member of the one true church working toward the establishment of the kingdom of God under Jesus Christ, if not in this life, then in the next.”
To which Mr. Sullivan breathily appends, “Fundamentalism is a real threat to liberal society, and without a revival of moderate, humble faith, we are in real danger.”
Mr. Linker seems to merely making a statement of opinion about the relationship between religion and democracy. Mr. Sullivan then goes and turns it into a value judgment on the validity of “moderate, humble faith” – by which he apparently means a Christianity that makes no demands and presents no truth.
October 19th, 2010 | 4:53 pm
Incidentally, in one of today’s postings he openly states that the Republicans are to blame for Democrat Jack Conway’s recent religious attack on Rand Paul. Why? For being “essentially a religious organization.”
October 19th, 2010 | 11:36 pm
‘Even free-market principles should be brought out in the text, the Conservapedia writers insist—especially in Jesus’ “economic parables.”’
The parables are just that; parables (i.e. hypothetical, fictional stories) that were never meant to be taken literally, their express purpose being the conveyance of a message that would otherwise have been lost to most of the listeners of the first century.
To think, to believe, that Jesus Christ endorsed fat-cat, corporate greed is the sheer height of stupidity and ignorance. If anything, the central economic message of the New Testament is the renunciation of all that keeps capitalism going today (i.e. private property, selfishness, greed, injustice), and the adoption of extreme left-wing asceticism. Jesus Christ was, so far as economic theory goes, a communist. That much is patently obvious to anyone who actually bothers to read the New Testament without bias, which these silly people have obviously not.
There is absolutely nothing – nothing – within the entire Bible that could be (mis)interpreted to suggest that it supports the exploitation of the poor; just the opposite in fact.
The people responsible for the ‘Conservative Bible Project’ are idiots and worse – damned heretics the lot of them!
October 20th, 2010 | 8:17 am
Peter, While I agree with you that the Conservative Bible Project people are silly, you seem to have some assumptions that are at least as silly. Christ could not have been either a contemporary free-market capitalist or a communist. Neither existed at the time. While I would agree that Christ advocated some redistribution of wealth, he meant voluntary redistribution of wealth, sharing through charity. I doubt he would have approved of a state confiscating wealth for purposes of redistribution. At the very least that has nothing to do with charity or love. Your assumption that capitalism consists of exploitation of the poor is equally silly. The spread of global capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty around the world than any other force in history. And, by the way, communism and socialism spread more poverty and misery around the world than any other force in history. In any case, Christianity transcends particular political and economic systems and to use it to explicitly support one is to distort it. I think we can agree on that.
October 20th, 2010 | 3:59 pm
And why is liberal society the supreme good to which all others must be sacrificed?
October 20th, 2010 | 6:43 pm
Mark Shea is leading any of the few remaining Catholics who follow him astray. He suggests voting in a way that will give the baby murdering democrats votes either directly by pushing the suggestion that they care more about the poor than republicans or to vote for people who have no chance of winning thus throwing their vote away. As long as the democratic party supports abortion in every way possible and gay special rights, every Catholic that cares about life and family should vote to keep them out of office.
October 21st, 2010 | 9:21 pm
‘Peter, While I agree with you that the Conservative Bible Project people are silly, you seem to have some assumptions that are at least as silly. Christ could not have been either a contemporary free-market capitalist or a communist.’ – Fred (Oct. 20)
Yes, I understand what you mean, that Jesus Christ could not possibly have been a communist in the modern sense of that term; i.e. a Marxist-Leninist. True.
What I meant to say was that both Jesus Christ himself, and the early first-century Christians themselves, came far closer to endorsing and practicing a socio-economic system that was much closer to communism than anything else, and that they would today be absolutely horrified at the way in which these people (i.e. the self-proclaimed ‘Christian Conservatives’ – an oxymoron if ever there was one) have deliberately distorted one of the central messages of the New Testament, this central message being the renunciation of material wealth and the desire for it.
October 21st, 2010 | 9:38 pm
‘Your assumption that capitalism consists of exploitation of the poor is equally silly.’ – Fred
I don’t think that it is silly at all, if only because it is absolutely true. Can it be denied that the ruling class (and to some extent, the middle class) have a grossly disproportionate influence in the manner in which, for example, governments formulate and implement economic policies?
Is it just a co-incidence that these same Western ‘democratic’ governments (ex. in the U.K., the United States, Australia – where I live) bow to pressure from special-interest groups (ex. the NRA and oil barons in the USA), for fear that upsetting these groups will result in their particular party being banished from office?
Can it be denied that the constant tax-cutting for the rich that we see in the West (and the subsequent deterioration of their economies) is a direct consequence of pressure from the rich elites, on the government, to reduce the amount of tax they pay?
I could go on, but I think that I have made my point. Am I being overly-simplistic? Perhaps, but I seriously doubt that, come election time, the government that just happens to be in power (or the so-called opposition parties, who seem to have very similar agendas by the way) place the true interests of the majority – the working class – first. I am not that naive.
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