April 26th, 2010:

Re: Andy Ostroy: This Jew Says ‘Sorry Sarah, America is Not a “Christian” Nation

Tea Bagger with confusing message

Sarah Palin apparently hasn’t heard of Separation of Church and State. Here’s what she said at a Women of Joy conference in Kentucky last week, attended by 16,000:

“God truly has shed his grace on thee — on this country. He’s blessed us, and we better not blow it. And that’s why I talk about politics. Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers. Hearing any leader declare that America isn’t a Christian nation . . .”

In her usual obnoxious, snarky, grating manner, Palin’s “any leader” reference was clearly directed at President Obama, who in a 2006 speech said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation–at least not just–we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”

The nation is fast becoming a nation of non-believers. If you group atheists and agnostics with all the other secular and non-believer subgroups you get a number of people in the US totaling about 28 million. This figure is up 110% since 1990, and this is not counting the neo-pagans. In the meantime christianity has grown only 5% in the same time frame. The US is still predominately christian with over 150 million claiming to be christian, but there are enough secularists now to fill several states. The reason for the growth of atheism in the US is clear. The right wing fringe has hijacked the real christian message and has polluted it with hate and racism. They have poisoned christianity for anyone who may be considering it.

The well is poisoned for the catholics as well. Catholics look at the problems the church is having covering up their sexual perversions and they try to distance themselves from it using various excuses. The general public sees this as a credibility problem and rightly so. Who wants to join a church that boogers your kids behind the curtains and then tries to cover it up?

I was watching one of those christian infomercials yesterday morning, Sunday, April 26th, and the televangelist was speaking about socialism. He very calmly and softly spoke of taking action to urge your representatives in Washington to stop the spread of socialism in our government. Here’s the problem. Moving a congregation toward a political goal is not what church should be about and that kind of activity should be investigated as tax fraud. This is why we separate church and state. The separation clause was written to keep church out of state, but it was also meant as a means to keep state out of church. The clause does not do a good job of the latter as this kind of political speech happens regularly in the fundamentalist world. But, many people are turned off by these types of messages from the church pulpit. They want to hear a christian message, not a political advertisement. Also, they look at other more socialistic democracies such as France or England and realize that those nations are also predominately christian nations and they have no problem with socialistic programs. What gives?

The christian right wing fringe is anti-socialist. You see it on their signs, in their chants, and in their slogans. But are they really? Medicare, one of the biggest social programs, seems to be very popular with the tea bagger demographic. Social Security, a very socialistic program, is held onto tightly by the elderly tea baggers. They are even so mixed up as to complain about the public transportation in Washington DC when they went there for their big tax day rally. This hypocrisy is sending mixed messages. It is easy to see through the anti-socialist message to the real cause of their hate. They lost the election to a black man. No one wants to be a part of this kind of christianity.

I think that the number of folks who are turned off by the religious right and those who are just turned off by the hypocrisy are vastly more than the 28 million mentioned above. If you add up every person who claims that they are christian but either attend church rarely, or do no attend church at all, that 28 million would turn into 128 million. I this a christian nation? Not entirely.

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