(ThyBlackMan.com) “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution
Around the globe, the fusion of religion and nationalism is a troubling trend. In Israel it has resulted in a new law that exalts Jews over all other Israeli citizens; in India it has reignited tensions between Hindus and minority religious groups; in Myanmar it has led to the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslim Rohingya by the Buddhist majority; and in the United States it has manifest itself in Trumpism, with the support and “blessings” of white evangelical Christian leaders. These American Ayatollahs, who decry nonexistent Muslim threats to impose Sharia Law in the United States, want to impose their own version of religious law, or Dominionism.
It is enlightening that Samuel Huntington, in his essay “Clash of Civilizations”, described three essential similarities between Islam and Christianity:
- Both are “missionary” religions, constantly seeking converts.
- Both are “all or nothing” religions, believing only their faith is the true one.
- Both are “teleological”, believing their values represent the purpose of human existence.
The would-be Ayatollahs of the “Christian Right” seek to use the courts and legislatures to impose their own version of Sharia Law. For example, the Texas Governor just signed the “Save Chick-fil-A law” calling it “a victory for religious freedom”: the freedom to espouse anti-LGBTQ views. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has formed a “Commission on Unalienable Rights”, composed of “religious scholars” and led by Ann Glendon, a “prominent anti-abortion voice”, to “review the role of human rights in American foreign policy.” And several state legislatures have passed laws aimed at setting up a Supreme Court challenge to Rowe v Wade which guarantees women’s reproductive rights.
Republican strategist, Rick Wilson, wrote that Trump is preaching the gospel that “America is a race and not a proposition.” A main tenet of that gospel is the scurrilous “replacement theory”: as in the Charlottesville chant, “Jews will not replace us.” Journalist Adam Serwer recently wrote in The Atlantic, “racism is the core of Trumpism.” Yet the American Ayatollahs hold him as their anointed.
When Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was questioned about the “ethics” of many of the actions of the Trump Administration, he reacted like Allen Iverson when he was asked about “practice.” The hypocrisy and “situational morality” of the so-called religious right is in plain sight. Trump can be accused of rape, brag about sexual assault and be seen partying with international child sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein, while still being heralded by these would-be Ayatollahs as “a man sent by God”, but Bill Clinton is forever damned for a blow job in the Oval Office. This is both blasphemous and ridiculous. These same Mullahs of MAGA denounced family-man Barack Obama as the “anti-Christ” and, from their pulpits, prayed the “imprecatory prayer”: “May his wife be a widow and his children, orphans.”
The theory behind the “separation of church and state” enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers was not to protect the church from the state, but to protect the state from the church. Reverend John C. Dorhauer, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ said, “What they (the Christian Right) want to call religious freedom is in fact the kind of oppressive religious tyranny that my ancestors left their homeland to escape.”
We have to see through this “envious reversal” where the victimizers portray themselves as the victims. That what they are doing is protecting religious freedom against the existential threat posed by Muslims, Mexicans and anyone else they deem unworthy of being an American. The genius of America has always been, at least in theory, that the sole criterion for citizenship is to embrace its creed of freedom and equality, and that everyone is free to worship as they wish. To lose that is to lose the soul of our country and stray from the path to a more perfect union.
Staff Writer; Harry Sewell
