Monday, July 13, 2020

Conducting Diplomacy, Religiously

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has something called the "Ambassador of religious Freedom", or perhaps its the "Ambassador for Religious Freedom", and maybe it doesn't make any difference. The current office holder is Sam Brownback, a conservative politician from the great state of Kansas who, if memory serves, served as governor and in the United States Senate. As I recall hs is a well educated man, and quite right wing and religious, the right wing and religious parts fitting together nicely, the well educated characteristic not so much. The question is: precisely what is his job? To promote religious freedom around the world, in the United Stats, both, or to serve as an ambassador pf the Christian faith, to which, if memory serves, he is quite devoted? Should this position actually be called the "Minister of Christian propaganda and Indoctrination? One key point' the ambassador has quite recently been ordered by the Chines to stay the hell out of china, along with esteemed conservative deeply religious Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Arguably, if the Chinese are gong to kick and keep Americans out of their country, they picked a pretty good threesome with which to begin. The next logical step would be to preclude Donald Trump all Republicans, and all conservative Republican evangelical Christian Trump supporters, if the Chinese know what's good for them. Five'll get you ten that the American Ambassador For Religious Freedom cares not a fig about promoting freedom from religion, or freedom to be agnostic or atheist, but is concerned principally with promoting the freedom to be a Christian in countries in which such things as Christianity are frowned upon, or are simply not popular by popular choice. Do we smell a federally subsidized evangelical witnessing program here? Christianity, like Islam, has a long history of trying to force itself down the throats of unbelievers. That is indisputable.  Disputable is whether it is a good idea to invade another country in which the people already have their own religious views, and to try to talk them into accepting someone else's, such as yours. Arguably, it is not. But that is a separate issue. What is not disputable is that the Chinese, like most ancient civilizations, do not exactly relish the idea of a bunch of fervent American religious zealots entering their country and trying to turn China into a Christian country. And really, who, other than the religiously fanatic, can blame them?

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