Ominously Mixing Politics and Religion

THE FIRST QUARTER of the twenty first century has been a rocky road, replete with ominous trends. Climate change is bearing full force down upon us, making itself felt, no longer deniably, its terrible portent for both the near and far future evincing terifying scenarios. All the ancient curses, war, famine, disease,far from being conquered by human progress and civilization, seem poised to assert themselves more impactfully than ever before. Culturally, there are patterns and trends emerging into our awareness which are no less foreboding. Perhaps the most troubling trend of all in American society, aside from a sickening tendency to ignore science, pandemics, climate change, and reality, and to replace them with fantasy, is the marriage between the far right wing politically conservative community and fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity, its forging into a mainstream socio-political force with the potential to take over and dominate American society. Actualized by the republican party, extreme religion and extreme politcs have joined forces in an aggressive, full bore attack on America, to utterly transform our liberal democray into a dark, repressive theocracy, intended to turn badk the clock of progress, and to retreat into a mythical past. Ironcially, perhaps surprisigly, two American cultural giants whom one might expect to fully support this circumstance actually opposed it with a vigor one might think more appropriate in a left wing secular liberal. They are Barry Goldwater, arguably the godfather of modern conservatism within the Republican party, and Billy Graham, the very role model of evangelical Christianity. For indeed, both these cultural giants, a paramount political leader and perhaps the greatest preacher of all time, strongly feared and opposed any marriage between right wing politics and the Christian evangelical faith. Both men, in fact, as early as the nineteen fifties and sixties, seem to have seen the marriage coming, long before its actual consumation in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Goldwater seems to have feared the pollution of politics by religious fanatacism, and made statements to the effect that it would be a sad day in America if ever the political parties were taken over by "the preachers". Billy Graham was of the old school; politics and religion were seperate realms, with seperate aims, going in different directions, and the two should not be mixed. The reverend Graham, who alone of all the famous big time mass audience ministers of the American pahtheon was never even suspected of corruption of any sort, financial or other, feared that mixing religious devotion with politics would sully the purity of not only the message of Christ, but also, the hearts, minds, and souls of those who purport to love, follow, and worship Him. And, sure enough, both men were right on the mark. Both of their darkest forebodings came to pass, in the worst, most profound way. In retrospect, looking back on forty years of interbreeding, we can now plainly see that religion has polluted politics, and politics has polluted religion in America. Barry Goldwater was a super hard core right wing political ideologue. Billy Graham had a one track mind: Jesus Christ. You would never have expected either man to harbor an open minded, progressive approach to the mixing of politics and religion. But both men had the courage and character to put their own beliefs and interests in second place to the imortance of a free, healthy society, unconstrained by hard, inflexible stifling culture, We shoud all learn from their example, put aside our hyper partisan hateful politics, and come together for reasonable solutions to real problems. Whether we are capable of this remains to be determined..... Politcal ads and admonishments are routinely delivered from the pulput, all across America's fruited plain, to congregations segregated by race and political ideology, further fragmenting the one true faith. Relgious fanatics are seekig high political office, gaining it, and poisoning America with a theocratic agenda utterly adverse to the intent of the founders, and entirely harmful to our secular, democratic society. To an extent, they have already succeeded. They must be stopped, prevented from doing even further damage to America. Whether there is any remedy for this abhorrant situation is unknowable. If there isn't, we, and our society, are doomed to return to the dark ages, which in a sense, we and it already have.