Religion

NeoGreen

(4,031 posts) Wed Aug 12, 2020, 12:25 PM Aug 2020

Religion has become a powerful hammer driving a wedge between 'us' and 'them'

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article244863797.html

Religion has become a powerful hammer driving a wedge between ‘us’ and ‘them’
By David M. Elcott, August 10, 2020

Democracy is under assault every day. Journalists are called enemies of the people. Judges are threatened by vicious tweets. Those who try to sustain government institutions are arbitrarily fired when they challenge the president. Dissenting governors and mayors face political blackmail from the White House. Violence against dissenters is as real as the cars plowing into peaceful demonstrators, or badge-less federal “agents” in desert camouflage battling demonstrators on urban streets. The science on public health and climate change is demeaned.

(snip)

This deep anger is fueled by a resurgence of religion as a national identity marker, more than a century after Nietzsche declared that “God is dead.”

Faith, in fact, is one of the most potent mobilizing tools of those committed to undermine liberal democracy. Reactionary politicians foment a seething rage over the idea that the Christian religious identity of the majority of Americans is being asked to share the wholesome national heritage with an ever-more diverse population. At the core of their American narrative is the notion that the United States was founded by white Christian pilgrims building a new Jerusalem, one that God will continue to bless if only it is not polluted by alien and degenerate cultures. This storyline is not about religion or faithful obedience to God, but wedding a memory of religious identity to a narrow populist, anti-globalism nationalism.

Worth repeating: "Faith, in fact, is one of the most potent mobilizing tools of those committed to undermine liberal democracy.

And, I repeat myself: 'Faith', is the problem.