Religion and US Politics

Well, here are a couple of controversial topics. I am not sure visiting aliens would easily understand either of them. Last week we went to see “The Book of Mormon”, a fun evening out, and a show brave enough to make fun of a marginal religion. Actually, I think the writers would be pleased that I saw the show as a bit of a dig at all organised religion. They were smart in choosing Mormons rather than Catholicism or even Judaism; that way they could be thought provoking without being hounded off the stage or into the courts.

A simple insight came to me a couple of years ago and has dogged me ever since. I just don’t understand why all religious people aren’t left leaning. I especially don’t understand how some of the most right leaning politicians in the US use religion to bolster their arguments and appeal, and even appear to be sincere about it.

The thought arose one day while I was watching a local news channel. I think it was during the New York mayoral election, and there was some organised event where candidates were meeting someone like the local cardinal. The presenter stated, in a way that this was an obvious and incontrovertible fact, that the Republican candidates would find this meeting more comfortable than the Democratic ones. Somehow there was a conflation of Catholicism with the core of Republican ideas, that was so deeply accepted as a to be almost axiomatic.

Now, I make little secret of two things. The first is that I have always been somewhat to the left in European politics, have drifted leftwards as I have become older, and the left of European politics lies somewhere off the spectrum of US politics deep into Bernieland and beyond.

The second is that as I’ve grown older I have taken religion and spirituality more seriously. I confess to chronic doubts about most of what I profess in my Sunday morning creed, but I’ve found a way of reconciling that by embracing what religiosity can achieve for others and for me, how it can help to make us, and the world, better in so many ways.

For Christians this comes down to the core message from the Gospels, and my guess is that the core message from most other religions is much the same. In my simplified world I can condense the Gospels into a few keywords offering a guide for how to live.

Love. Peace. Joy from simple blessings. Generosity. Humility. Embracing of difference. Respect for nature and for ignorance. Forgiveness.

Each week the Gospels offer us up this same message. Since the start of lent, we’ve had many examples. The Ash Wednesday message is of prayer (love), fasting (simple joy) and alms giving (generosity), all to be performed without ceremony (humility). Then came the temptations of Christ, invoking their opposites (humility, simple joy, respect of nature). The transfiguration is about respect for ignorance and humility. The woman at the well is about embracing difference and forgiveness. The prodigal son is about love, peace and forgiveness.

The messages are wrapped up in a story about a great example to us, Jesus, who may or may not have been conceived of a virgin or come back from the dead and who may or may not sit in judgment or various other things that might have offered reasonable punch lines for The Book of Mormon. Other religions have their own great examples.

Then I meet other great examples every single day of my life, starting with the one I am blessed to wake up with. Those I see living by the keywords are contented and spread peace and contentment to everyone around them. I never feel better than after being with such people. I strive, and usually fail miserably, to be like them.

Then I tune into the Republican debates, and all I hear is the polar opposite. Somehow, we are supposed to cheer those who want to build walls against immigrants, suspect all minorities, punish mercilessly, bomb foreign lands, torture, be reckless about climate change, condemn gays, support more guns, and promote small government at all times, a code for leaving everyone to fend for themselves. It really is the polar opposite, the diametric polar opposite.

I can’t imagine voting for any of this, but if their polls say that others would vote for such messages, then fair enough if that is what they want to promote. In my opinion the world would be a less tolerant, more dangerous, poorer and less contented place if any of these goons (except Kasich) were to become president, but I am not even a voter so what do I matter? Actually, I don’t find Trump any scarier than the others, at least he is not scripted and appears to possess a brain, albeit one I find noxious. Cruz feels far more dangerous than Trump.

My problem only comes with the constant reference to religion, and I simply don’t understand how this can happen. Have these people ever read the Gospels, or the texts of their own religion? Do they listen to anything when they attend Church? Do any of their supporters? Or is it I, is my own interpretation skewed one hundred and eighty degrees from the intent in the Gospels? I guess it must be me, humility demands that I can’t be right when seemingly everyone else disagrees.

Part of the issue may be the flawed way religious leaders portray their own creeds, as they have ever since Christ, or Abraham, Mohammed or Buddha. I listen to prayers of the faithful every Sunday that make me cringe. I love Pope Francis, but I struggle to defend a lot the doctrine he represents.

The obvious explanation of the bewildering conflation of Catholicism with Republican politics is that one issue has assumed huge prominence in the advocacy of Catholicism in the US, namely abortion. On that, I can see both sides of the argument. But I do suggest that anyone who argues that human life is inviolable even at conception should be campaigning just as fiercely against the death penalty. If I saw that, I would trust their motivation a lot more.

Is it ungenerous of me to suspect that some of this has to do with money? The Vatican seems to have rather more of that than Jesus might have approved of, yet seems to covet more still. Might those prayers of the faithful that I listen to each Sunday be partially pandering to wealthy donors? Oh Francis, Oh Francis, more power and courage to you, your task is monumental!

So I guess I am going to remain confused. Perhaps I’ll understand the Gospels more fully one day, and find that part that makes me yearn to vote for Cruz. Perhaps I’ll even understand why Democrats and others don’t even challenge the dogma of these so-called evangelicals. Wouldn’t it make a nice debate if they started by producing a bible and asking them to sum it up in a few values and then moving on from there? Why doesn’t this happen?

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to pray that none of these guys actually win in November. And, even if one of them does, I suppose I can spend still more of my time at the convent and less in front of the TV. At least until Armageddon, anyway.