For the week of June 24 thru June 30, 1998  

Politics + religion + militarism = insanity

Commentary By Dick Dorworth


The politics of the United States, at local, national and international levels are as far from perfect as the men and women who implement them. Each of us has our own private and public complaints with the political process and processors, both of which would benefit by more public complaint by more private citizens.

To complain about imperfection in a democracy is to participate in that democracy. It is not an attack on it; and it is a very different undertaking than to circumvent, control or cripple the process of democracy.

Even with its many blemishes and the horrors it has engendered, the political system of the United States is the standard of democracy in action for the world. More, it is the standard for the history of the world.

The foundation of democracy in this country is the U.S. Constitution. It is a remarkable document written by remarkable men. They knew, for instance, that the government of people and the religious beliefs and practices of those same people were very different matters and best kept that way.

The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees religious freedom and, just as important, freedom from the tyranny of a government joined to a set of religious beliefs.

When government and religion join forces, militarism is never far behind. The reasons for this are open to debate, but the recent and past historical record is clear.

Freedom of belief is guaranteed by the Constitution’s legal wall between church and state. The wall has benefited them both as well as their followers and citizens.

No particular religion (and, alas, no possible government) is immune from the temptation to power of joining forces in the name of moral progress for mankind, but, in reality, in the service of political control.

The problem is that some people who discover what they believe to be an immense truth about the world feel impelled to force it on millions of other people. Usually, militarism and terrorism are needed to do that.

The belief that God is on their side is used by both the cynical and the sincere to impose tyranny on non-believers, and, while they’re at it, to expand the boundaries of their political, social, economic and geographical dominion. When politics and religion get in bed together no choice conversion becomes the "order" of the day.

No choice is the antithesis of democracy, free will, rock and roll, sleeping in on Sunday and, most important, equality among men.

There are abundant examples in every religion, including modern, mainstream ones.

Christianity had the Inquisition, the medieval Crusades to free the Holy Land from the barbarians who actually lived there, and, let us never forget, the missionaries who worked hand in hand with the monarchies of Europe to steal the Americas from the indigenous peoples who lived here and to destroy those peoples in the process. The Prince of Peace as political thug.

Islamic warriors in recent years have blown up buildings, airplanes, vehicles and scores of people (including themselves) in the name of Allah, in the service of several different political agendas. Allah as suicidal killer.

My own spiritual practice of Buddhism was completely integrated into the Imperial militarism of Japan before and during World War II.

The intellectual dishonesty and spiritual corruption of Japanese Buddhism during this time was most dramatically illustrated by the Kamikaze pilots who were all disciplined and practiced Zen Buddhists. Buddha as lackey to the Emperor unto death.

There are many more historical and current examples from a variety of governments and religions, but these make the point.

This is not to extol or decry religious belief in general, any religious belief in particular or the lack of religious conviction. These are personal matters.

It is to affirm that whether religious faith is private or public, it does not belong in the arena of government, in the secular tradition of democracy.

Any effort in the United States to blur the distinction between church and state and to join them together is to be resisted.

Unfortunately, there are several movements in America whose goal is to impose religious beliefs on the democratic process. Many of them are associated with what is known as the Christian Right, Conservative Christian or Right-wing Evangelical circles.

One of them, Promise Keepers, rallied hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Washington, D.C. last fall. PK’s claims that it has no political agenda is manifest nonsense.

PK is a political manifestation of conservative Christianity, right-wing politics and, do not forget, male supremacy. Rallies are held in Washington, D.C. because it is the political capital of the nation, not because it is the spiritual base of the county.

On the eve of the rally, PK founder Bill McCartney said on CNN, "We just gotta make sure that the Constitution doesn’t find itself in violation of God’s laws."

McCartney and all conservative as well as liberal Christians, and people whose religious beliefs or non-beliefs do not fall in those camps, have every right and need to believe and practice and live as they will. The Constitution guarantees all of us that. But McCartney is dangerously and disingenuously wrong.

What we really just gotta make sure is that the Constitution doesn’t find itself in violation of its own clear separation of church and state.

 

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