Ben Gilmore frequently reminds us of the Biblical basis for our democracy. His June 27 column proclaimed, “Our nation was the only nation in human history to have been consciously and purposefully founded upon Biblical principles.” I don’t fully buy that. I would rather consider the influence of philosophers John Locke and David Hume. In particular, Locke’s concept of the “social contract” was at the very core of the discussion with our founding fathers. The Declaration of Independence seems to echo the very words of Locke.
“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…”
However, I am willing to assume that Gilmore is correct, at least to some small extent. Many of those who first came to America did so seeking the right to worship as they felt that God required them to do. It began with the Pilgrims and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Quakers who came to Pennsylvania and the Catholics who followed Lord Baltimore to Maryland. Let me only note that many of those who sought religious freedom for themselves denied it in turn to others, or why else did Roger Williams leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
When referring to the relationship between organized religion and politics, others would quote the philosopher, Blaise Pascal. “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Gilmore is in a unique position to intermix his religion and politics. He is a leader of his church, the retired leader of a series of seminars that teaches history from a Biblical perspective, and head of the local chapter of the California Republican Assembly. My real question for Gilmore, and any who intermixes the study of religion and politics, is very simple. In light of the increasing sense of modern science that by his own acts, man is making irreversible changes in the world, how does your particular view of a Biblical basis for government inform our actions?
Let us take the obvious example of our attitude toward the other species that live on this planet. When you consider that the acts of man have made many of them endangered, I would ask a simple question: What would Noah do? The familiar story of God’s purging this world of evil, yet prevailing on Noah to save all of the species on earth, is common to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions.
Gilmore tells us that part of the Biblical tradition in American politics is to respect private property. Yet, how does this Biblical reading of our history tell us to act when the concept of saving an endangered species restricts our freedom to do as we would with our property? I would think that Noah would put God’s creation above his self interest.
I would also challenge Gilmore to come up with a response to the concept of global warming. It seems that even Pat Robertson is becoming a believer, if I can use that word. How does such a religious reading of the world’s conditions tell us that we should act? Do we believe, as some do, that man is the custodian of God’s world, to care for it and preserve it, or so we believe that God created this world solely for the benefit of man?
This is a crucial question and should not be ignored. When leading legislators, such as Oklahoma’s Senator James Imhofe uses Pat Robertson’s 700 Club to broadcast his extreme view on global warming, then the weight of religious belief is given to a radicalized version of the truth. Imhofe has compared the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Is this the rhetoric that we get from Biblical guidance or is Imhofe just a charlatan hiding behind the trappings of religious support?
When Pat Robertson announced on his 700 Club broadcast recently that “We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.” it raised serious levels of concern among some Republicans. As one Republican blogger proclaimed about “moonbat” (his term) Robertson, “Those sound like talking points straight off the Sierra Club’s Web site. What is one to make of this stunning conversion? How is one to have any respect for Robertson when he seems to have either crossed over into the enemy camp or swallowed a fistful of crazy pills?
The political implications of this are severe. If Robertson tries to take his flock with him, there could be damaging repercussions for the Republican Party.
“I’m confident that God will let us prevail in the end, of course; but He may punish us with some losses this November, to purify us and make us do penance for the sins of Robertson. We shall soon see,” wrote a recent blogger.
Somehow, this also sounds like the rhetoric of Gilmore’s California Republican Assembly, which proclaims in it’s statement of “What we Believe” that “We believe in the guiding force of moral law as expressed by the Judeo-Christian ethic and contained in the Holy Scriptures of these historic faiths.”
When confronted with proclamations such as those above, I would rather listen to the admonition of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. “Our task should not be to invoke religion and the name of God by claiming God’s blessing and endorsement for all our national policies and practices – saying, in effect, that God is on our side. Rather, we should pray and worry earnestly whether we are on God’s side.”
