Rick Santorum attended a meeting with pastors in McKinney, Texas the other day. The meeting was interesting for a number of reason. My grandfather was a Baptist pastor in McKinney when my mother was a child. It is inconceivable that in his day and age–or even just a few decades ago–Protestant pastors would have welcomed a Catholic political candidate like Santorum. However, the meeting with Santorum appears to have been ecumenical. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Yet, there are indications that a rapprochement is occurring in some areas of the US between hardcore evangelicals and Catholics, in part because of Santorum’s candidacy. This is something that should have happened a long time ago.
Santorum’s remarks at the meeting were also of interest. According to ABC News,
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a group of pastors here today that despite his focus on “the role of family in our society,” he is not running to be “pastor in chief” …
“It’s not because I want to be the pastor of the United States,” he said. “I have no intention and no desire to be the pastor of this country. There are pastors all over here who, you know, you guys can do a little better than you’re doing right now, I’ll be honest with you,” Santorum said before asking for an “Amen” from the crowd
“We could be doing a little better out there in the churches, but I’m leaving that to you, all right? But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to stand and fight for the things that are consistent with what this country was founded upon, which was a moral foundation,” Santorum said …
The owner of the event space – the Bella Donna chapel – a Santorum supporter, started inviting pastors from the Dallas area about a week ago to hear the former congressman speak.
About 100 clergy packed into the small chapel, while an overflow tent next door was open to the public and held several hundred despite the cold temperatures …
[Santorum] brought up how he got involved in work to restrict abortion rights [sic] and when he first entered the Senate it was not an issue he was particularly passionate about, especially because it was a risky political move.
“You can be the most conservative person ever. You can even vote pro-life,” Santorum said. “You can vote against everything, you can vote for no government, and you’re fine. But once you speak out on the moral issues, you now have your head above and out of the trench and you are going to be shot at.
“And that’s why most members of Congress won’t talk about it. They’ll vote that way, but they will not go out and talk about this issue. Unless it’s in front of a pro-life group, and then the press gives you a pass. But to actually do anything, then you were a theocrat, you were the pastor in chief. You are this radical that wants to try to force your views on everybody else and try to moralize everybody, when all you’re doing is standing up for the dignity of every human life. But that doesn’t matter. It’s one thing to vote that way, but it’s another thing to get out and talk about those issues.”
He also addressed the California Proposition 8 ruling for the first time, which found the state’s ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional.
He said the decision read as though anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is “bigot.”
“Where’s the tolerance in that?” Santorum asked, calling the decision the “intolerance of the left.”
“They want their world view and if you question them, you’re haters, bigots,” Santorum said.
There are two main points in Santorum’s remarks, and on both he is exactly right.
First, the US does not need a pastor in chief or a theocratic government. It was disturbing to see a long-time Baptist pastor such as Mike Huckabee running for president, and even more disturbing to hear him justify overtly political positions on biblical grounds. Then, in this political season, we had Rick Perry organizing prayer rallies and pastors, lecturing pastors on their responsibilities, and giving speeches where he sounded like an evangelist rather than the politician that he is. Social conservatives should be alarmed when a politician behaves this way.
Even more disturbing is the specter of an American president taking Bible verses out of context in order to lecture American Christians on their duty to expand government spending, and then going on to invent a new theology out of whole cloth that would allow him to overrule church teachings and papal pronouncements and make Catholic Christians take part in acts that would violate their consciences.
We–Americans–do not need this kind of thing.
Yet, there is a second point that Santorum makes which is just as important. While Christians do not want a theocracy, they are also citizens of the US, and they have a right to be heard and to inform the political process. Somehow, first culturally and now legally, this right is being taken away from Christians in the US.
It is not an imposition to outlaw abortion. Traditionally, culturally, legally, and morally, abortion had never been known in America as either legal or a “right” until the US Supreme Court decreed it as a legal right in 1973. By the same token, in no culture or tradition had homosexual marriage ever been legal or accepted until quite recently, so it cannot be said that it is an imposition to ban it.
For 2,000 years in Judeo-Christian countries both abortion and homosexual “marriage” were not allowed, and people got along just fine. If the illegality of such acts makes a country a theocracy, then America would have had to have been a full theocracy until Roe vs Wade and a partial theocracy until now, and all countries such as Germany–where abortion is effectively banned and homosexual marriage is not legal–must be theocracies now. But we know that is not true.
The ones really trying to impose their beliefs on others are those who are now trying to invent new “rights”, such as the “rights” to abortion and homosexual marriage, and then to silence, shame, and delegitimize those who disagree with them.
The great tragedy is that so many conservatives have taken this bait. They will say that abortion and homosexual marriage is wrong at church on Sunday, but nowhere else. If they are in the legislature, they will vote against abortion and homosexual marriage if nothing is at stake and if they know their vote is meaningless. However, when there is any political risk, they are silent. If a liberal is in the room spouting off nonsense, they are shamed. And, if there is a political discussion on TV, in a living room, in a blog, or in a committee meeting, they give tacit approval to the delegitimization of the very views they purport to hold.
First, cowed. Then, neutered. Finally, butchered. But they can only do this to us if we let them.
Related articles
- The Caucus: Santorum Talks Faith With Texas Pastors (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Buoyant Santorum Takes Campaign To Texas – And Corrals Some Perry People (npr.org)
- Santorum talks faith with Texas pastors (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
Of what I have read, this is your finest work. I’ll be sharing this.
Why, thank you!
Excellent post John, I am going to reblog it!
Thanks!
Reblogged this on My Blog and commented:
Santorum is exactly right, we do not need a pastor in chief, what we need is someone with principles and understand the reason this country was founded. Someone who is a servant of the people and is willing to stand for the Constitution.
Great post I enjoyed it tremendously. I appreciate Rick’s position and am thankful he’s gaining some momentum. Should make for an interesting race.
Reblogged this on theconservativehillbilly.
In 1650′s Massachusetts Puritan era Roger Williams began the discussion of separation of church and state although it is reasonable to say he was theocratic in over all view of government. Let’s take laws, It was a crime to commit adultery. Williams postulated that it may be a sin but not a civil crime, Observe the Sabbath – not doing so may be a sin but should not be codified into civil law. Of course such as theft or murder would be a sin and a civil crime. What is happening now is that the anti abortionist are trying to impose their moral values of sin into civil law. The whole idea of abortion is distasteful for me and I would be against late term. In Israel they prefer to have the child born and the state takes them as orphans. In Arab world abortion my be allowed with consent of doctor and priest but it is not a woman’s choice because the child is not her property as all things belong to Allah. I do know one thing: our Lord Jesus never went to the Roman Senate or the Jewish Sanhedrin to get laws passed. In the secular world the abortion is considered a medical procedure and should not be invaded by the church house as it belongs only in the state house.
No, He didn’t go to the Roman Senate to get laws changed, that was not the reason that He came to earth, He came to die for our sins that we might be forgiven by God for them.
By your reasoning, if the secular world says that it is okay for your neighbor to come and chop off your head and take your possessions, that is fine. Personally, I think that leads to anarchy. Our country is based on the laws of Moses, if you don’t believe it, do the research yourself, it is pretty easy to find the ten commandments online. As far as abortion, even the medical profession should be constrained by moral laws, if they are not, what is to stop them from cloning individuals and farming out their body parts. By your reasoning, these would just be simple medical procedures. What, in your mind, is the difference from a baby and a fetus? Medically, the only difference is that one is in the womb and the other not, what then of abortionist who deliver live babies during the abortion process? Should they be allowed to kill them as Mr. Obama has advocated for? They are medically considered babies! Or how about abortionist that do kill those live babies by clipping their spinal cords or sticking scissors in the backs of their necks? When is the murder of babies a crime? If it is just in the womb, why? Dead is dead, whether it is in the womb or out. It amazes me that the same people that through hissy fits at people killing animals for food, think that the killing of a baby is okay. Do you know the reason? It is because if they can kill a baby, they can evade the responsibility for that baby, if they can prevent someone else from killing an animal, they have power. Jesus didn’t come to end the laws, He came to fulfill them, until He comes back at judgement, we will be responsible for our actions, murder of the defenseless is a terrible thing that those who do it will have to answer for. Giving government that right, takes the responsibility away from the person and that is not a good thing for society or humanity.
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Give us a break!
Abortion & Vaginal probes harken back to Salem witch trials and punitive stripping of women to discover marks of witchcraft.
We need this in America, now?
What’s really scary is that you actually seem to be sincere in your belief that there is any equivalence between wanting to ban abortion and the Salem Witch trials. If there is any parallel at all, it is that people such as yourself are the ones wanting to put Christians on trial and burn them.