Saturday, November 06, 2004
(Composed 10-14-2004)There was a tragic and sad pandering to religious sentiment last night at the Presidential debate in Arizona. It was trite, insincere, and unnecessary, especially on the part of John Kerry who almost de-constructed a well balanced attack against Bush on domestic issues with a spiritless salute to the faith of his opponent. Bush himself was caught off guard and came up with a watered down version of his standard sermon regarding that issue. Why can't they just say "My religion is a personal matter and not to be used as a vehicle to win this election." They could go further and say "With the grace of God I will serve diligently as your president once I am (re)elected, and leave it at that. Why must this become an issue in this election?
If it was so catastrophically important to query the candidates on their religious background, why wasn't that question asked FIRST? That last minute "Oh by the way" inquiry into their Faith Issues was highly subordinate to a Power that is supposed to have primacy in everything. My point remains solid here. These guys are just saying what they have to say to get elected. Bush has already said that America is being led by the hand of God. If that is not true, then the invasion of Iraq was morally wrong. If it IS true, then God is back to His old Testament ways of utter violence and murder. Woe be unto us!
There is no need for a moral argument in Iraq. The UN Charter is sufficient. Saddam Hussein did nothing at all to warrant an invasion of that magnitude by a country acting in absence of a UN mandate. Sanctions, perhaps, but a horrific, and bloody bombing attack? I don't think so. With the understanding of God left to the imaginations of those who serve Him (or not), there is no moral singularity to sanctify such an invasion. There IS International Law, however, and that law was ignored by this action. If the deaths, violence, carnage, and destruction over there was done according to the will of God, then I don't know God at all. President Bush had no right to extend his religious beliefs to the slaughter of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens in the presumed moral campaign to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Self-serving politicians need to corral testimonies to their Faith and invocations of the name of God. This religious pandering is uncalled for in a free country where Church and State are supposed to be separate. It was a clear test of religion for the moderator to ask that question because it mandated a positive answer no matter how feebly constructed as to the truth. If either man had simply responded that they had no faith or did not believe, their campaign would have crashed and burned right there in the auditorium at ASU.
The Constitution clearly states that there should be no test of religion for the attainment of public office, and that question forced their hand.
Article VI, Section III:
"...but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
"The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States.'
They simply HAD to answer in the affirmative, or they would have lost any chance to gain ascendancy to the office of President, a public office if there ever was one. The loophole would have been, or is, the fact that the law does not require them to respond favorably, just public sentiment. The effect, however was the same. I have said (I think) in the book that no president can gain office without declaring his belief in God, and Christianity. Even though the Constitution forbids that restriction, the electing public demands it. This is what makes the USA a Christian nation in spite of the Constitution, and despite the many different religions, and atheistic positions that abound in this pluralistic society. The public, seems to no problem with this, apparently because it matters so much to them that their candidate has faith in God.
After such a proficient and well spoken deliverance, John Kerry fumbled and mumbled as he tried to reply positively to the patronized ramblings of a beleaguered and vanquished George Bush, reeling and floundering on the ropes against the persistent, attack of his opponent. Even his death rattle cry of allegiance to God was sophomoric, weak and predictable. That one question took us all the way back to the birth of this nation when God-Fearing men penned the Constitution, carefully avoiding and direct connection between the Government of the United States and a mandated religious conviction. They had had enough of the Anglican experience and did well to leave the matter unstated. They knew their zeal for religion and their faith was tacitly understood. They also knew that a clear statement regarding the association of God and the Law of the Land could be disastrous in some future time when Religious zealotry might result in an attempt to replace the republic with the same theocracy they fled from in England. When pressed for clarification, it was left up to Thomas Jefferson to imply the separation of Church and State in a letter he wrote on 10/7/1801 to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for is faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
In a letter to Samuel Miller in 1808, Jefferson went on to explain his opinion about this matter:
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority (letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808).
How powerful it would have been for one or both of these candidates to quote or paraphrase the Danbury letter, or Article IV.III of the Constitution! How I (alone) would have stood and cheered at this gracious respect for the name of the Almighty as well as for those in the electorate that choose not to believe in an Almighty. It will be a long time before presidential candidates will run for office without pandering to a test of religion, be it innocuously proposed by a seemingly innocent moderator, or somehow drafted into the Constitution at the behest of a public looking to settle the issue once and for all regarding the separation of Church and State in the USA.
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