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President Obama and the moral equivalence of religion in politics

Christopher Curran
Posted 2/19/15

President Barack Obama’s recent comments at the National Prayer Breakfast sought to portray an equivalency between the radical Islamist aggression of recent decades and the long ago warring of …

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President Obama and the moral equivalence of religion in politics

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President Barack Obama’s recent comments at the National Prayer Breakfast sought to portray an equivalency between the radical Islamist aggression of recent decades and the long ago warring of Christians by recalling the religious Crusades of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. Also, he noted the “Inquisition,” which was actually a series of Inquisitions performed by the Catholic Church between the 13th and the 15th centuries.

One can speculate whether his attempt was to tamp down current Islamic unrest, or to thwart the recruiting of new apostles of terrorism, or possibly to offer understanding to radical jihadists by asserting (in extreme figurative paraphrase) that sure, everybody at one time or another has murdered in the cause of their religion.

Whatever the 44th president’s motivation might have been during that pronouncedly Christian annual ceremonial meeting, his words once again provoked discourse and debate about the odd historical mix of politics and religion. This incident also once again generated questions about the viability of religion in American politics itself. Is the consistent appearance of religion in politics adverse to an acceptance of modernity and the constitutional pillars that our founders intended? Have we reached the precipice in our American history where religion can only generate divisiveness or has that always been the case? Does a candidate’s projected religiosity possibly lead us to elect a candidate for all the wrong reasons?

The president’s seeming inability to accept that radical Islam and ISIS/ISIL are essentially one in the same has caused him to haphazardly craft a foreign policy based upon a false premise. Obama has repeatedly depicted Islam as a peaceful and benevolent religion. He has also redundantly offered the idea that the bombers, abductors, decapitators, merciless military fighters, and terrorists are errand criminals who have fallen prey to a cultish mentality. During the prayer breakfast, he stated: “… a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism – terrorizes religious minorities.”

He refuses to admit that the centuries-old objective of many Islamists is to establish a world of Islamism (Political Islam), which is ruled under Islamic Law (Sharia) and where Pan-Islamic political unity (Total Muslim World Domination) will stand eternally. In simpler words, these radicals don’t necessarily have a problem with our civilization, but with civilization itself. They wish to enter a regressive time machine that will transport all people of the Earth to the 7th century, where the “revelations” of their prophet become a living reality.

Obama further charged Christians with being morally equivalent with these current day “thugs” by stating: “Let us not get on our high horse … and to remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

First of all, the 200-year period of the Crusades, incepted by Pope Urban II, transpired between the 11th and 13th centuries. Second, the Crusades were initiated in response to the territorial gains of Arab conquerors that had seized the Holy Land, among other regions. Thirdly, these conquerors fought under a banner of “Islamic Anarchism” (total submission to God) in an ultimate effort to establish a “Caliphate” (a theocratic Islamic government). One can plainly see that the current efforts of ISIS/ISIL have the same objectives. These are not errand thugs who have succumbed to the spell of a cult. On the contrary, they are truly following a game plan orchestrated centuries ago by their forefathers.

In regard to the president referring to the dark days of the Inquisition, in which the Catholic Church would put people accused of heresy on trial, sometimes resulting in death sentences, certainly the church acted unjustly. Yet, that was hundreds of years ago and the Catholic Church has evolved into an organization of non-aggression and ecumenical tolerance.

Moreover, the current pope, Francis, has voiced and written repeated overtures to opposing religious zealots calling for moderation and understanding with an offer of peaceful coexistence. The present pope could not be farther in thinking in comparison to his predecessor, Pope Urban. Thus, Pope Francis’ standpoints display the progression of the Catholic Church over these many centuries from its despicable past.

The same cannot be said about radical Islamists, who are continuing to fight a war conceived in the 7th century.

The president’s choice of subject matter for the National Prayer Breakfast also ignited perhaps a more important argument. Has the United States reached a degree of refinement where we no longer need to imbue politics and politicians with religiosity? If the president had been more general in his choices of subject matter in his speech, he could have been uplifting without being offensive. Therein lay the problem with that uneasy coupling of religion and politics. Inevitably, the politician will offend some adversarial entity.

Back in 1787, the Constitutional Convention correctly blocked the establishment of Christianity as our national religion. Furthermore, to shield the country from the untoward mix of politics and religion, they created the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (separation of church and state).

However, despite this safeguard, in the election of 1800 Thomas Jefferson was criticized by opposing Federalists. They claimed that our third president’s deism made him unfit “to lead a Christian Nation.” Throughout newspaper critiques of his candidacy, his political opponents would use his lack of espousal to a specific religion as a cudgel.

Later on in American history, when Irish immigrants arrived in droves, starting in the mid-1800s, their attempts at initial suffrage and eventual candidacies were thwarted by Protestant opponents. The newcomer Irish were portrayed as having primary allegiance to a far away Roman Pope. This assertion of misplaced loyalties was used against many a Celtic candidate in the late 19th century. Thus, the fight for political power resulted in a 50-year-long endeavor to finally gain political viability in the early 20th century.

In 1928, the Catholic New York Gov. Al Smith was criticized for his Catholicism when he ran for president. Thirty-two years later, John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced similar scrutiny, but through adroit dissuading speeches and smart marketing he prevailed and became president.

Twenty years further on, B-movie actor and former California governor Ronald Reagan won the presidency attributable in no small degree to his overwhelming support from evangelical groups like the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority.”

George W. Bush, our 43rd president, garnered many especially Bible belt votes by his proclamation of being “born again” in faith.

All these examples show the power of imbued religious nuance in politicians.

But President Obama should not try to delineate for us the religious connotations or motivations of our enemies. His job is not to counter-balance the perceptions of atrocities in world history. His job is to adhere to the Constitution and serve the needs of the American people. This attempt at showing moral equivalency should not be his goal.

For that matter, if all politicians would extract religion from our political equations we would realize a more valuable equivalency that would serve our political processes greatly. Let us judge our leaders upon their capability and established records, not what church, synagogue or mosque they might or might not attend.

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