Republican Platform: The Continuing of Sorrows

Posted on October 20, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Reading Secularism

“The Government is not God” says a poster at a Republican convention intercessory prayer rally depicted in the November issue of Harpers. I am one who never said that it was. The Government is the embodiment of our nation, the bureaucracy that we human beings have assembled to live together. I want the distinction kept, too: I don’t want the Ten Commandments put up in civic structures and I don’t want the words “In God We Trust” on our coins. It is important for people to remember what is of Caesar and what is of the Spirit. Simonists want us to confuse the two.

Then there’s another point: I’m not the member of a party whose candidate thinks, speaks — but doesn’t act — as the embodiment of God’s will on Earth. The people who bent their knees, waved their hands, and thought themselves so important that the Divine is going to drop everything for them to smite down John Kerry and all who follow him vote Republican.

John Kerry does not say that he represents God. George W. Bush says he does. Christ has a few things to say about that kind of man and about the simonists in business suits who jump up and proclaim hellfire against any who might consider voting for his considerably more modest and more able opponent :

….Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

Yesterday, I said that we have Caligula in the White House. Let me explain the reference. The Romans often deified their emperors after they died. The Emperor Vespasian, for example, muttered as he failed “Oh dear me. I think I am becoming a god.” Caligula, on the other hand, offended Roman sensibilities by declaring himself lofted to the heavens in his lifetime. He had a bridge built between his palace and the Temple of Jupiter so, he said, he could confer with his fellow god. He was often heard “debating the issues” with the idol.

This man in the White House that we have now doesn’t claim to be a god, but he claims to talk to God and receive direct instructions from Him. Simply comparing his words and deeds with the New Testament should dispel any real Christian of the notion that this is so. What we have is a false prophet.

As a Democrat, I ask that we keep the Government and God separate. Bush represents a relatively recent tradition in American politics which attempts to confound the two. And I am certain that this man is a false prophet. Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the like never fell into lies. To bolster his position, George W. Bush lies and prevaricates and denies his constituency accountability through his control of the Government and his friends in the business sector. He speaks with forked tongue, changing his statements from day to day, week to week to stay alive in the polls. His reign is illegitimate and amoral. And when he says “The Government is not God” he acts as if it is.

The Government is not God and George W. Bush is not a true prophet. Let’s put a humble man in office. Of the two leading candidates, John Kerry best fits the bill. Resoundingly.

Where are Fundamentalists in these United States being incarcerated, tortured, and martyred? This, too, confirms that this is not a real movement of Faith, but a cloak for a darker purpose. I don’t hate them for the name of Christ — I like Christ. What I don’t like is their perversion of the Christian message. Christ forgave those who sinned sexually. The one time he lost his temper was in the Temple surrounded by moneychangers. This Administration represents the moneychangers: they are Babbitts walking down the streets of their flat-earth-minded towns and harming those who Christ told us God loves the most.

The Government is not God. Neither is Wall Street.