CNN.com ran a column during the presidential primaries last Winter called Don’t be fooled by candidates’ God talk, by Brian K. Taylor, assistant professor of communication studies at James Madison University and author of Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics. It is worth considering here.
Throughout the commentary Taylor treated any religious entreaties by presidents and presidential candidates as pandering, never considering that it might in some cases actually be genuine. And Taylor’s refusal to distinguish between the two types of Christian faith – genuine vs. political (as Obama’s is) – is precisely why this treatise is doubly vapid and deceptive.
Wrote Taylor:
‘Even in an election cycle dominated by economic concerns, (Texas governor Rick) Perry and several of his Republican presidential opponents have spent the last few months trying to out-God-talk one another in hopes of attaining salvation at the ballot box. While debate moderators and election commentators focus on economic issues, the religious rhetoric of the presidential candidates appears to go mostly unnoticed – except by the key Republican voting bloc being courted.’
To which the obvious response is: So what if a candidate wants to invoke his/her Christian faith? And to appeal to like-minded voters? Our nation was built on Christian faith. And candidates always appeal to like-minded voters, don’t they?
But to the academic and atheist left, this is heresy. Because liberals worship only, in ascending order, trendy intellectualism, power/money and, worst of all, themselves. They think that they have all the answers and that there is no faith component to life. In short that they are God in place of the real God. Then when pure atheist regimes are installed – Hitler, Stalin, Mao – the results are predictable: Genocide, chaos, poverty, starvation, barbarism, oppression and misery.
Meanwhile America – a nation based on Christian faith in God – has throughout its history been the freest nation ever in history with the most enlightened laws and opportunities for all. Despite the endless and unrelenting criticisms by the Democrat left, immigrants of every stripe and every race worldwide have one nation in mind as their ultimate destination – the USA.
Taylor then makes the preposterous claim:
‘After being a Republican, the best predictor of someone being a Tea Party supporter is whether a person has a desire to see religion significantly impact politics’.
Huh? This is completely false and shows Taylor’s classic academic ignorance. The Tea Party movement is strictly economic, not religious at all. In fact when it has been suggested that Tea Partiers ally themselves more openly with other conservative groups like Christians in a national conservative party, there is no evidence that they have considered it. And that appears to be intentional.
Listen to Taylor:
‘This type of confessional politics, in which candidates invoke God and cite Scripture to win elections, has unfortunately dominated U.S. politics for three decades. Ever since Bible-quoting Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, presidential candidates have followed his example of using religious rhetoric that is testimonial, partisan, sectarian and liturgical.’
Jimmy Carter was no Christian, sir. He was a fake Christian and a left-wing ideologue who, for instance, helped to install a radical anti-Christian regime in Iran by undermining the pro-American Shah.
And what about all those liberal politicians from faux-Christian Bill Clinton to the phony “reverend” Al Sharpton who go to black churches and politick their heads off in violation of those churches’ tax-exempt status? Who is manipulating religion there?
Answer: The secular left is, in a completely backhanded way. They are exploiting religion in the most brazen fashion by using the black churches to promote another religion – secularism/atheism and Democrat socialism. Even the fake Christmas-type holiday invented for blacks, called kwanzaa, has as one of its central tenets economic collectivism.
Because we all know what the real religion of the left is – worship of Democrat socialism and its political leaders and its ideals. It is based in worship of fallible man in collectivist societies, which is how socialism/communism always ends up destroying tens of millions of people.
Just go into the black inner cities of America where real God-loving Christian churches, and thus all faith and hope, are obliterated. All the government checks in the world and all the assurances of secular leftists like Taylor will never put those ravaged communities back together again. Never. Perhaps they could try something completely new like worshipping God on Sunday?
Yet they continue to pursue the exact same policies and expect a different outcome. That is the definition of “insanity”.
Indeed in the faith centers of the left in the universities they preach the ‘religions’ of environmentalism, paganism, multiculturalism, homosexuality and feminism. These are the ‘scriptures’ and ideologies that Al Gore and every other leftist appeal to boldly and without hesitation. These centers of atheism don’t seem to come under much scrutiny from Taylor, however. After all that is where his paycheck comes from.
Taylor admits his naivete by saying:
‘Not to be outdone, President Barack Obama also employs the confessional political style. During the 2008 campaign he spoke of God and cited Scripture with more eloquence and ease than McCain. Obama continues to weave biblical themes and divine references into his speeches, including in remarks… at the September 11 anniversary event in New York.’
Uhh, professor Taylor, Barack Obama is no Christian. For you to claim that shows that you yourself are fraudulent. He even once said that he believed in “collective salvation”. Isn’t that communism, or the opposite of the Christian doctrine of individual salvation?
Any rational person knows that Obama is a false Christian. After all he attended an atheist, anti-American black-liberation church for 20 years. He professes to be a Christian only for political convenience. He cites Biblical scripture only when it is entered into his speeches by his writers, not from personal knowledge. He has barely attended a Sunday Christian service since he had been in the White House for more than three-and-a-half years.
This whole CNN treatise show precisely how manipulative a leftist like Taylor is. Here he claims he himself is a Christian:
As a committed Christian and former Baptist pastor, I do not wish to see religion excluded from the public square. However, giving religious beliefs too much weight in electoral decisions undermines the basic democratic values that have guided our nation for over two centuries.
Yeah, sure… Watch out when someone claims to be a “committed Christian” as he teaches communications at a university and writes on CNN.com about too much Christian influence.
Former Baptist pastor?
Baloney. Many of these modern-day “pastors” are atheists in religious garb whose real goal is to undermine Christianity by infiltrating churches and insinuating their ideas into them.
Taylor concludes:
The expectation that candidates talk about God and their personal religious beliefs shifts attention away from critical policy concerns, creates a de facto religious test for office and essentially disenfranchises those of minority faiths or who have no faith. Confession may be good for the soul, but it is not always good for democracy.
Here Taylor tries to sound so level-headed. Nonsense. This whole CNN commentary is rife with deceptions and is another attack on Christianity couched in the pseudo-intellectualism of the left. Taylor is an anti-Christian activist (formerly) cloaked in a clerical collar. Just look at his credentials – assistant professor of communication studies at James Madison University and commentator for CNN. What more evidence do you need?
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