Elections are Civic not Religious

A couple of recent posts on Patheos does a pretty good job summarizing and exemplifying a number of all too common ignorance laced misconceptions. The two major assumptions that pervade both "The Perfect Religious President" and "7 Ways to Prepare Spiritually to Vote" are:
1. Mixing religion and politics is a good thing;
2. Religion and Spirituality mean the same thing to every one.

Both are horribly misguided. The good that religion may or may not represent is highly debatable. Mixing religion into politics is less debatable but still tends to provoke arguments. There is far more to support the position that mixing religion into politics is a terrible idea. There is absolutely no legitimate debate that religion and spirituality are as amorphous as they are subjective. No one agrees on even a basic definition let alone a specific set of traits or characteristics.

By its very nature religion is divisive and riddled with all sorts of problems that tend to only unnecessarily complicate everything it touches. We are all best served when religion is kept away from public policy and governance. Religion should only be tolerated when it is kept to be a personal matter. Individuals should vote their conscience but I also hope that they examine their motivations before casting their vote. Everyone should ask themselves why they are voting and what they are voting for. I have yet to get the impression that "religious voters" ever do any such thing.

I'm not anti-semitic, Salkin is arrogant

Quite a few of Jeffrey Salkin's blog posts have been loaded with all sorts of ridiculous self-serving crap. His recent post, "Say it ain’t so, Bernie!", was particularly irritating. All too often when someone points out how full of shit pieces like this are they get accused of being anti-semitic. Why? Why isn't this viewed the other way around. Salkin seems annoyed that Bernie is not being a good representative of Judaism despite the fact that Sanders has never identified himself as religious. He has identified himself as culturally Jewish, which I'll come back to later. Sanders is running for President, a secular leader. What his religion may or may not be should be irrelevant. Not to Salkin. He seems to think it's perfectly fine to impose his religious standards on someone else. That the religion in question happens to be Judaism is also irrelevant. If a candidate was born to Baptist parents does that mean they should be hounded by another Baptist if they choose not to practice that specific denomination, or any sect/denomination at all? Why should that be seen as a factor in any profession they choose?

Personally I find the "culturally ____ (fill in your faith of choice)" nonsensical. So what if you grew up in a culture saturated by Christianity, Judaism, or whatever? Do you believe it now? Are you practicing it now? It's a cop out. It loans respectability to something that hasn't really earned it. After all, if it was actually worthwhile you wouldn't need the adjective "culturally" before the term itself. You would simply be X. Bernie Sanders is not practicing Judaism. So whatever he may think about Judaism, I see no reason to assume he owes that faith anything. More importantly, as a candidate for the highest elected office he should be expected to serve all US citizens equally. So, no, Jeffrey Salkin, you do not merit any special attention or treatment despite your insistence on it. You are not better than the rest of us. The very notion that Sanders owes you or any others who are practicing Judaism is arrogant, hypocritical, selfish, tribalistic, bigoted, and despicable.

Bad Advice even Hypothetically

Even if you take Birdsong's advice hypothetically it is still horrible. Setting aside that over the past decade or so more and more Americans have become fed up with politicians interjecting their personal faith into public policies, Dan Birsong's take on "civil religion" is idiotic and his insistence that Romney is somehow not religious enough is just as wacky.

In his CNN Belief Blog post, "My Take: How Romney could transcend Mormonism with civil religion", he lays out five main points. Each is at best misguided nonsense. I find it interesting that a political science lecturer could fail to understand the Constitution so thoroughly. The first few points he makes are made in complete ignorance, or possibly defiance, of some of the most basic principles our government in founded on.

"1.Talk about a sacred Constitution."
No! The Constitution is of great importance but is not sacred. The framers of the constitution intended it to change. Sacred scriptures are intended to be unchanging. It is also important to note that God/Divinity are not mentioned once in the entire document. That was not by accident. Despite claims from the religious right, our government was intended from the very beginning to be secular. There are only two references to religion in general and both are cautionary. The last paragraph of Article VI states "...but no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." And then there is the more familiar First Amendment that does provide the basic concept of separation of church and state.

"2.Present himself as America's patriarch."
Again, no. I already have a father, whom I love dearly, and I don't need another one. In this context patriarch could easily be interpreted as an authoritarian figure. It seems to have slipped Birdsong's mind that we fought a war to establish our independence. Technically, Britain was no longer a monarchy at the time but the King of England was a potent symbol for tyranny that we used to recruit soldiers.

"3.Use civil religion to compensate for his Mormonism"
It is highly debatable that Religion can ever be truly civil. As for mixing religion in to politics, the results are almost always bad. It is also completely unnecessary and by its nature divisive. Does Romney really need to "compensate for his Mormonism"? If he does, what does that say about religion? If he makes it clear he won't use his personal religious views to make policy that impacts the rest of us it should not matter. Basically, keep religion out of public matters and everyone will be the better for it.

"4.Follow the lead of previous presidents."
Because they never fuck things up. Birdsong throws in a few quotations that don't really mean much and completely ignores the type of statement that show how horrible religion can be when it comes to "civil" matters. During a campaign stop in Chicago on August 27, 1987 George H.W. Bush stated in an interview answer, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." What a wonderful example to follow.

"5. Look for a 'Book of Mormon' moment"
This section makes me suspect that this whole piece may be a joke. If it is meant to be satirical it is a little too subtle in the above sections. He doesn't seem to get that the Book of Mormon musical is intended as a farce. However, I find it hard to believe that anyone involved in the study of politics and/or the media could be so utterly clueless.

If this is a joke it is a really bad one. If it isn't then I have to conclude that Birdsong is one of the most ignorant and incompetent political scientists and campaign strategists on the face of the planet.