very good take on this chaotic chapter in our time. very good points, all.
will i sleep better, armed with the notion that rump has planted the seeds of his own failure and demise even before assuming the throne?
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I mean… Sen. Warnock is an actual reverend and theologian with a PhD… I don’t see how he can talk up his faith more than doing so each week from his pulpit? 
You’d think the NYT might cover that better…
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Or ignore it, since we’re supposed to have separation of church and state. That’s especially why politicians who toss in asides (usually hypocritically) about their faith in the mythical Sky Daddy always curdle my porridge.
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“For too long atheist men have gotten to enjoy being part of the priveleged class, sneering at women and LGBTQ and non-white people. Isn’t the bus big enough that we can throw them back under it yet?” 
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Kay Grainger, a Republican Representative from Texas, hasn’t participated in a floor vote or debate in Congress since July. And no one seems to have covered this story, nor was there an official statement as to why from her staff. Now, she didn’t seek reelection, but she still could have been voting, and she hasn’t. Given the GOP’s razor thin majority, you’d think someone would have been asking questions sooner.
It turns out she’s been in a memory unit of an assisted living facility after she was found wandering and confused outside of her home. That’s sad, but holy shit, we need a way to remove people like that from office sooner.
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I don’t know… The reality is that many Americans are religious and some of them are going to become politicians (though, yes, as a country, we’re certainly becoming less religious as a country - or at least fewer people are going to religious services). I think the question is how one expresses that in their work - are they using religion to justify authoritarianism, or are they letting their faith inform them of how we should improve the lives of everyone in this country. Plenty of people manage to find the path between being a person of faith and being in a secular society. The people I’m concerned with are not the ones who happen to be religious, but the ones who are trying to make all the rest of us religious against our will. It’s the authoritarianism I’m concerned with, not necessarily someone being religious. Secularism is important because it ensures that all of us can fully participate, whether we believe in a sky daddy or not. And of course not all religious people see their faith in that way, bending to some authoritarian father figure in the sky and just enacting blind obedience. Warnock is much more in the King tradition of faith, which is trying to bend the arc of history towards justice…
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Christians are definitely over represented in Congress. And nonbelievers have a tough time getting elected.
I don’t know what the gray lady is talking about.
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Generally speaking, they are running with the idea that the only “real” Christians are the right wing, authoritarian bigoted ones, who do very much embrace the sky daddy model of Christianity… All the millions of left-leaning Christians who see their faith as a directive to help the poor and needy, to be open and loving, to make the world a better place for everyone, don’t count, according to the NYT, because they are not the ones who are performatively religious and easy to identify for a newspaper that refuses to dig into the story of anything deeply, because that would mean less money going to the owners of said paper. And as Ayn Rand (an atheist, of course) dictates that the only real morality is that of enriching oneself. Any faith that demands we think deeply about the world and that asks us to care for others is not “real” religion, it’s just woke nonsense that gets in the way of enriching the elites, so it must be dismissed out of hand…
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Do they check the religious bonafides of their employees?
If so - they need to disclose the information for all of them.
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I guess a few of them are pretty vocal about it… David Brooks had some religious things to say on the Newshour Friday… annoyingly, as always…
For real… this is just more of them complying ahead of time by pushing this kind of narrative, that if only the Dems were more religious the “right” way, they’d win more voters. They are actively ignoring that anything but an authoritarian religious mindset exists, and that not all people of faith use their values as a cudgel to beat others down with.
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While I don’t view religion as inherently negative or positive, I am initially weary of those who openly espouse their religion, as I’ve seen bigots openly express their prejudices through a religious lens far more than I’ve seen people advocate for marginalized groups through that same lens—they usually seem to come from smaller groups.
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I don’t think they should express it in their work, not overtly in words, no more than I think my work colleagues should. Especially because (aside from the separation of church and state issue), those politicians who largely receive votes and accolades while doing so are Christian, while those who overtly espouse or cite the inspiration of some other faith often get condemned for doing so. Any politician who says “Gobbless Amurica!” or anything else that’s clearly Christian reinforces Christian dominance, whether or not they’re lovely “good works” Christians.
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Ok… Clearly I’m not making myself clear here…
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They can do whatever they want - away from work. At work, IMO, religion should never be discussed by politicians and churches should be strictly forbidden from talking politics. Crossing those streams should result in censure and then removal of politicians and loss of tax-exempt status for churches.
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I don’t think demanding people never discuss an important part of themselves in public is particularly helpful. Secularism doesn’t mean never talking about religion. It means having space for everyone, whatever their faith or lack thereof.
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I’m not saying they should be forbidden from discussing their faith in public. But is it too much to ask to STFU about it while they are doing their job? If I interrupted or disrupted every work meeting by talking about fishing, I’d be rightfully fired.
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We’ve come a long way from when Kennedy said there were no religious blocks for voting (of course there were) and that he would make decisions regardless of the dictates of his faith.
That second part is gone.
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Oh I do get what you’re saying-- not all Christians are baddies, and some are directly motivated/inspired by Christian belief to do good things for others. The latter is fine with me, as long as a Christian of that sort isn’t also shouting “Gobbless Amurica!” and citing Bible verses from their bully pulpit. I just think they should keep that shit to themselves.
We seem to be interested in different facets of the issue, no problem there, aye?
Exactly.
Yep, and if you’re a politician in the US spouting Christian beliefs, you’re reinforcing Christian dominance, and mixing church and state.
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