August 11, 2011
According to an article in The New York Times
by Manny Fernandez and Daniel Cadis (1): “Standing on a stage
surrounded by more than 30,000 Christians on Saturday morning, Gov. Rick
Perry of Texas called on Jesus Christ to bless and guide the nation’s
military and political leaders and ‘those who cannot see the light in
the midst of all the darkness,’ in a brief but rousing sermon-style
spiritual address at the controversial prayer rally that he sponsored at
the same time that he is weighing whether to run for president. ‘Lord,
you are the source of every good thing,’
Mr. Perry said, as he bowed his
head, closed his eyes and leaned into a microphone at Reliant Stadium.
‘You are our only hope and we stand before you today in awe of your
power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins.
Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see
fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as
a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us
and for that we cry out for your forgiveness. . . . Like all of you, I
love this country deeply,’ he told the crowd. ‘Thank you all for being
here. Indeed, the only thing that you love more is the living Christ.’ ”
Fascinating stuff, but boy does it raise a lot of follow-up questions. I have listed a few of them here.
1. How should we address you? Governor, Reverend, Reverend/Governor, Governor/Reverend? Help. I'm confused.
2. But gosh, in reference to the first question, since you are not
ordained but known widely in Texas as a "preacher," is the title
"Reverend" inappropriate in any case? So when you are doing what you
did on Aug. 6 in Houston, should it be “preacher,” or possibly just
“preach?”
3. Tell me, Gov., or Rev. or preacher, or whatever, just what kind of
Christian are you? Pro-choice, anti-choice (and there are both among
Christians, as you well know [but of course many of your followers don’t
or don’t seem to]), anti-death penalty (like the recently deceased,
Catholic, former Governor of New York, Hugh Carey) or pro-death penalty, believer in
the trinity or not, believer in the necessity of baptism or not,
believer in the rapture in which, apparently, only certain kinds of
Christians will be “saved” while the rest, and certainly the rest of us
who are not Christians of any kind, will dammed to hell for all
eternity?
4. Since you are a Methodist, just where do stand on ballroom dancing, including the Texas Two-Step?
5. When you say “Lord, you are the source of every good thing,” just
which Lord are you talking about? Is that the Christian Lord (and if
so, given the characteristics the vast number of Christian denominations
give to him/her/it there seem to be a bunch of them) the Jewish one
(and there are a few different denominations of Jews too, with rather
different concepts of God), or Muslim (and as I am sure you know, Islam
has three major denominations, Sunni, Shiite and Sufi). If one wants to
believe you, they do have to know just which God you are talking about,
don’t they?
6. And while we are on that subject, what about that religion, one of
the largest in the world, Hinduism --- you may have heard of it ---
that believes that there are multiple Gods up there, or wherever. And
who knows, could the Gods not be Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, et al, or
the Aztec, Inca, or Egyptian equivalent of same? Might not the question
be, “Gods, you are the source of every good thing?” Of course, since
no believers, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or what have you
have ever been able to prove, other than always eventually falling back
on “faith,” that one or more God or Gods exist, as far as I as a Secular
Humanist Jew am concerned there is/are none anyway. But that’s another
story.
7. Then there is the matter of: “You are our only hope and we stand
before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your
blessings, and humility for our sins.” A) If “God” (however you might
define him, her, it, or them) is (are) our only hope and has power in
front of which we should stand in awe, that doesn’t give us much hope,
does it. After all, last April you led Texas in a three-day-long prayer
for rain and rain didn’t come. Man, that must have been
disappointing. But I guess your approach would be “if at first you
don’t succeed, try, try again,” no? B) How do you define “sin,” and if
your definition is different from mine, or even from that of another
self-identified Christian, how do you go about reconciling them?
8. That last question is real important, Gov./Rev./preach. In the
16th and 17th centuries Christians in Europe killed each by the
hundreds of thousands over disagreements on the matter and related
subjects of religious doctrine (and did so in the Near East in the 3rd
and 4th centuries C.E. over something that you may or may not have heard
of called the "Arian Controversy." By the way, that’s “Arian,” not
“Aryan.” That one came later.). Boy, I dunno. You do seem to be one
of those “Christian Nation” types (see the next question). How do we
know that under that doctrine, were it take over, let’s say, the US
Constitutional government, that Christians of various types would not
eventually be warring on each other over such matters, just as they did
back then? Things could get very messy, don’t you think?
9. One of your supporting Revs. (blocking on his name right now), has
said that the First Amendment to the Constitution (and I assume that,
unlike Michele Bachmann who seems not to have, you have actually read
it), applies only to Christians. What is your position on that unique
(at least I’ve never heard that one before, but I must admit that I do
not attend the church or churches in which it is proclaimed)
Constitutional interpretation?
10. And the what about another one of your dear old supporters, the
Rev. Hagee, who holds that the holocaust was God’s way of forcing the
Jews out of Europe to Palestine, to prepare the way to Armageddon and
the rapture (which, unfortunately would not benefit any of them), and
that the murders of the six million by the Nazis and their allies which
just an unfortunate by-product of that policy? Oh yes, he also
considers Catholics to be less than dirt. Do you think that the word
"Christian" subsumes the "Catholic?" And while we're on this subject of
who is a Christian and who isn't, some (right-wing) evangelical
Christians like yourself consider Mormonism to be a cult. Especially
since two of your potential rivals for the GOP Presidential nomination
(to say nothing of the present Senate Majority Leader) are Mormons,
where do you stand on that one?
11. Finally, Rev./Gov./what have you, in 1996 there was a book
published entitled The New Americanism: A Political History of American
Fascism, 2001-2022. (If you might be interested, Gov., you can find it
on Amazon and archived at www.tpjmagazine.us.) In it (chap. 10), a
fictional President named Jefferson Davis Hague, gave his Second
Inaugural Address, from the National Cathedral on Washington, DC, on
Dec. 25, 2008. He came from a combined religious/political background
much like yours. I wonder what you would think of the opening
paragraphs of his address (the whole, very lengthy address was based on
the published thinking of many right-wing Christians speaking and
writing in the early 1990s. As Casey Stengel often said, “you could
look them up.”)
“My fellow Americans under God. I stand here before you on the
birth¬day of our lord Jesus Christ, anticipating in all humili¬ty the
opportunity you have so gra¬ciously given me to continue to do His
bidding as your President. And I can tell you that his bidding now is
to continue to fight the good fight, for the Lord, and for you the
American people under God.
“In fighting this fight, to the best of my ability, blessed by both our
lord Jesus Christ and you, the American people under God, I am both
pleased and privileged to be able to announce today the first step we of
the second Hague administration have taken to do just that. We have
converted our nation's leading political party, the Republican Christian
Alliance, the party of God fearing people that has put you in complete
control of the government here in Washington, into a brand new entity.
“This is an historic decision, comparable to the one that
established the original Republican Party back in the mid 19th
century. For all of us, Christian and pagan American alike, it will
usher in a glorious new era of peace and harmony under the blessings of
our Lord and his only son whose birthday we celebrate today, Jesus
Christ.
“Reflecting the spirit of our times, and the best of all American
tradi¬tions, we have named our new party the American Christian Nation
Party. For yes, in truth, declaring and carrying out Chris¬tian
policies is the only way that we will be able to contin¬ue to fight the
good fight to rescue our beloved country from the forces of sin,
godlessness, and liberalism that continue to drag her down.
“For inspiration, in this never ending struggle I have turned often to
the great Keith Fournier, who sat at the right hand of our beloved Rev.
Pat Robertson, as the executive director of the American Center for Law
and Justice. As he said (2):
" ‘The challenge I have as a Christian is to bring people to Jesus
Christ, to a personal decision to accept him as savior and lord, to
bring them to personal repentance and conver¬sion. But for me that is
only the beginning. That salvation must be sustained, nourished, and
deepened. It must also lead to personal transformation and holiness
through implantation into Christ's body, the church. The church is not
an option, an extra we can accept or reject. It is the ark, the ship
of God, and her mission is to help rescue and restore the drowning. This
has always been her primary mission. The church exists to evangelize
and disciple toward personal and corpo¬rate transformation, a mission
entrusted to her by her head, master and Lord, the evangel Himself,
Jesus Christ.’ "
OK, Gov./Rev. Although it was fiction, it sounds just like you might sound if you were ever elected President, no?
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References:
(1) Fernandez, M. and Cadis, D. “Prayer Rally Draws Thousands in Houston, The New York Times,” Aug. 6, 2011, p. 12.
(2) Fournier, K.A., A House United?, Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 1994, p. 33.
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