The Objective Standard Blog

Saturday, July 22, 2006

‘It’s About Authority’ by Erich Veyhl

Posted by TOS Admin at 7:59 pm

Craig Biddle’s recent TOS article “Religion vs. Free Speech” emphasizes how the religious duty of unconditional obedience to God’s will would make freedom of speech impossible, allowing people only to “speak the truth” as revealed by God. Having just finished reading Biddle’s article, I had to laugh when I came across an article now being promoted by the religious right, “The Tragedy of the Religious Left,” by Chuck Colson. Colson analyzes a recent conference organized by “religious progressives” to discuss “taking back religion from the conservative Christians.”

Both sides (unintentionally) underscore Biddle’s article and illustrate the anti-reason false alternative between religious intrinsicism on the right and the subjective collectivism of the “progressive” New Left as it attempts to repackage and cash in on its own religious dogma.

Religious rightist Colson quotes the New York Times as reporting, “Turnout at the Spiritual Activism Conference was high, but if the gathering is any indication, the biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone’s priorities rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement.”

Colson, subtitling his article “Worshiping the Goddess of Tolerance,” said, “The Times hit it right on the nose,” and informs us, “You see, that’s the crux of the liberals’ problem. This conflict is not about political or social divisions. It’s about authority—specifically, whether or not Christians are willing to acknowledge that the Bible is our authority.” He disdainfully quoted a “religious progressive” conference participant: “I don’t want to play the game of ‘the Bible says this or that,’ or that we get validation from something other than ourselves.” Colson added, “the Bible has to be the ultimate authority. Otherwise we end up worshiping the goddess of tolerance and believing that tolerance takes precedence over truth.”

Meanwhile, while the “religious progressives” of the New Left may not like Biblical authority and claim to support free speech—except of course for the speech of their opponents under their central political strategy of campaign finance reform—they have retained their own agenda of authoritarian sacrifices and complain that the religious right hasn’t gone far enough. As usual, it’s a battle over whose interpretation of authority will be imposed.

The Washington Times reported that the conference’s “spiritual covenant” says, [Congress] should gear all its legislation, tax policies, budgets, and social programs towards being ‘loving and caring for others’ and ’supports a national health plan, suggests members of Congress ’spend part of one day a week feeding hungry people at a shelter or other … hands-on service activity,’ the public funding of all state and national elections and many other innovations.”

The Times reported that the conference “aims to equip liberals to operate in a political arena where religion has played a more prominent role since 2000, says Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of the Jewish magazine Tikkun and a chief conference organizer… Part of the conference’s intent is to form ’spiritual caucuses’ inside all political parties by the 2008 elections. These caucuses would work to bring elements of the ‘covenant’ onto party platforms.”

The conference web site says “We will bring the Spiritual Covenant for America (based in part on the conversations that took place at the July 2005 conference and developed into a platform in Rabbi Lerner’s The Left Hand of God) to the attention of the U.S. Congress and the liberal and progressive forces headquartered in D.C.”

In other words, this is a political battle over which side can impose its sacrifices through appeals to religious dogma in the next election for political power. As Biddle quoted Ayn Rand from her article “Faith and Force”: “And that is the state to which [faith] reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence.”

Posted in: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Religion