Donald Trump Makes the Call
Donald Trump called forth a malignant and devouring monster that had lived among us for centuries. It hid in churches, under hoods, in political movements and parties. It found a home in the dogmas of conservatism, states’ rights, conspiracy theories, nationalism disguised as patriotism and tradition. It destroyed the hopes, dreams, and lives of ordinary people, but fed a greedy aristocracy. It was protected by those who accepted lynchings, starving children, bigotry, and all manner of fear and distrust. The monster heeded the call of its president to turn carefully cultivated fear into unthinking hatred. A minority party took over the American government and made it clear it would do anything to maintain its power and undermine our democracy. It has come to look increasingly like a cult, demanding conformity to its narrowing dogmas, exiling those who will not conform, and using Donald Trump as its mascot as long as he is useful.
Clarence Thomas Extends an Invitation
Now Clarence Thomas has made the Supreme Court the tip of the spear in a religious war waged by the Right to move America toward a theocracy that bears no resemblance to anything holy. This minority has become a Christian Taliban hell-bent on establishing a Christian Sharia. Thomas, too, has heeded the call of the monster and sends it toward its targets. In the recent Dobbs ruling, while one justice said the ruling applied only to Roe v. Wade, Thomas wrote a dissenting concurrence and expressed his desire that other cases based on the same provisions should be re-litigated – on things like contraception and the right to marry a person of one’s choosing. He notably omitted the one that granted him his inter-racial marriage. In his concurring opinion, he has overtly extended an invitation to other bigots to bring lawsuits to take away more of our rights.
These monstrous rulings reveal the willingness of a large sector of our society to sacrifice the health, self-determination, and economic stability of our citizens to this minority’s religious and political dogmas. This monster has no scruples, and devours anything it needs to feed its power. At least now we see better who they are and know they cannot be trusted with power. Their only desire is for power, control, and domination. They offer nothing to the world but its degradation.
A Religious War
We used to call it a “culture war” but the battle lines are stark now with calls to move religion into the halls of government, to give tax dollars to religious schools, and to harass devotees of other faiths; with false claims that America was founded as a (white) Christian nation, that God gave us the constitution, and that America has a “manifest destiny” that justifies its genocide and broken treaties. It seems that some rights are from their god and some are not – depending on how they selectively read their scriptures and whether the rights cut into corporate profits.
I don’t think it’s religion itself that is the problem, but the arrogance of religious zealots that hunger for secular power and claim some divine right to dominate others – as they’ve done for thousands of years. No, it’s not a religious problem but a human one that uses religion as a tool for power and the religion’s savior as little more than a mascot.
History Repeating Itself
There’s nothing new here. My Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods gives account of this sad element in humankind’s relationship with religion going back to the earliest of times. The persistence of it does not give me hope that things will change without more soul-searching, deep thought, self-reflection, and direct action than we may be willing to do. But the alternative becomes increasingly destructive. Perhaps in the face of immanent destruction we may be motivated to embrace our ideals and principles instead of our heroes, mascots, and celebrities – especially those under the thrall of this monster let loose into the world fed by ignorance, fear, bigotry, hatred, and pseudo-religion.
* Matthew 10:26 and the back jacket copy of Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods.