Lincoln Chafee, Governor of RI
It all started when the good governor of my home state of Rhode Island, Gov Lincoln Chafee, put up a holiday tree in the state Capitol building, causing something of a furore from the American religious right. I did not join in this conversation because – and I believe that my fellow Rhode Islander Fr Bill Locke put this quite nicely – I do not believe that Our Lord or his disciples or the Church Fathers would have cared overly much about what we call a tree, so much as they would have cared about the weightier matters of social and economic injustice which haunt our society these days. If there is one thing I have learned about the culture wars, it is that being a conscientious objector pays off… most of the time. On other, weightier issues than these, however, the battle must certainly be joined.
That said, it rather baffles me how thin-skinned American Christians, particularly on the religious right, can be. As secular and (in religion as in everything else) as privatised as the society may have become, we are not a society which actively persecutes Christians. And for this we should be thankful, for there certainly are such societies in the world which do persecute Christians: Ægypt (particularly after the Arab Spring) and the (northern) Sudan being the most high-profile examples. In the Middle East, safe havens for Christians, particularly of the venerable indigenous communities, have historically existed – such as Syria and Iran – but they are undermined by the foreign policy of the US-led West with disheartening regularity; these Christians deserve, at the very least, our efforts at creating a more dovish and more humane foreign policy. In the Balkans up until very recently it was very dangerous to be a Christian (particularly Orthodox) in certain parts of what once was Yugoslavia – as in, one’s very life (let alone one’s livelihood) being at stake. As such, it strikes me as somewhat petty that certain segments of far-right Protestantism in this country will gripe about a Christmas tree being called a ‘holiday tree’. What awaits them is hardly the fate of St Stephen.
Indeed, the political climate is such in the United States that far-right Christianity is so far removed from oppression that it is, has been, and probably will be for the foreseeable future, used as a political tool by the opportunistic. Rev’d Eugene Cho has posted an incredibly thoughtful response to the political advertisement by Rick Perry by two young women who sought to create a more constructive public voice for religion. They – and he – get my thanks for seeking to articulate a radical stance that seeks to avoid both the extremes of the ever more pervasive privatisation of religion on the one hand, and ressentiment-filled religious identity politics on the other.
Good cheer to my gentle readers, and my thanks for your forbearance upon reading my latest rant!
Great post. I think there is a good argument to be made that issues like the "War on Christmas" resonate with people who are legitimately unhappy about the direction of the country but cannot attack more taboo subjects, such as the structure of the economy.
ReplyDeleteThis situation benefits politicians on both sides of the aisle. Both sides overreact and argue that they are being "oppressed." If you listened to many conservatives, you would think we were living under a communist regime where churches are shut down and turned into Museums of Atheism. If you listen to many progressives, social conservatives are the "American Taliban." Both sides are incorrect.
I came across your blog recently via John's but didn't have the time to read any of it until yesterday when I went through your previous few posts--- good stuff, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteHere in Poland the religious right are obsessed with shallow symbolism and finding things to take offence at, whilst having next to nothing to say about how the current brand of capitalism compares to Catholic Social Teaching. A sad state of affairs.
Hi John! There may well be this kind of overhyping of oppression at work on both sides of the aisle, as it were, I'm not doubting you on that. But I think we should ask whose the taboo on economic structure and policy; there we should well find agents on both sides of the political aisle shaping the national dialogue along 'social' rather than along economic lines. For all the talk about being outsiders in touch with Main Street, FOX News and Rush Limbaugh are both based out of New York, and all of the big conservative think tanks (Heritage, Cato, AEI) are located inside the Beltway; naturally, the same tends to hold true on the liberal side.
ReplyDeleteAnd to Czarny Kot; greetings, and a warm welcome to the blog! Hope you continue to enjoy your stay here.
As someone not very familiar with recent Polish politics, though, I am actually quite interested to hear from you regarding what ended up becoming of the Solidarity movement and other Catholic Worker-type movements in Poland after the fall of Communism.
All the best,
M