The RIC

Which stands for "Religious Industrial Complex," vide Digby. I wasn't sure where to put this one -- it could be an FGB post, but it seems much larger. But then again, maybe not.

At any rate, Sarah Posner has written a piece that examines the phenomenon of "religious outreach" on the left. She's taking the same jaundiced look at this "new" phenomenon that I to do, especially in the area of social policy, which for me, as you might guess, is a deal-breaker:

Yet, while these leaders have taken on issues outside of abortion and gay marriage—not a new development, incidentally, for mission-oriented evangelicals—and claim to tamp down the divisive rhetoric on those issues, each remains wedded to core religious right beliefs. Warren and Hunter supported the same-sex marriage bans on the ballot this year in their respective states (California and Florida). Warren has argued that homosexuality disproves evolution and has compared pro-choice advocates to Holocaust deniers. Although Wallis has been at the forefront of promoting the “abortion reduction” agenda as “common ground” he says everyone can agree on, he remains opposed to reproductive choice.

So these new, more "liberal" voices on the evangelical right, are, when push comes to shove, still on the right -- note the comment on Warren's argument that homosexuality "disproves" evolution, based firmly, it would appear, on total ignorance in service of a religious agenda: Edward O. Wilson came up with a very tight, more than plausible evolutionary basis for homosexuality over 25 years ago. (See the discussions of "altruism" in Sociobiology.) And if you think these people have changed their spots, check out the sad story of Richard Cizik.

The bottom line here seems to be that the "establishment" faith outreach gurus are doing nothing more than pursuing the old Democratic pipe dream of luring the hard-core evangelical vote away from the Republicans.

There has, of course, been a response from the establishment, which Pastor Dan deconstructs rather effectively.

I had started a much lengthier post on this set of commentaries, but you can read them -- and I strongly recommend that you do. What I want to do, in keeping with the original intent of this blog, is to drop back a step and look at a basic question that doesn't pop up in any of them: What is the appropriate role of religious belief in public life in a secular nation? The arguments being tossed around in the writings referred to here seem all to boil down to "whose religious beliefs are going to be written into public policy?"

It occurs to me that the mere fact that this particular debate is happening is evidence that we are moving away from the core principles on which this country was founded -- note that this is all couched in terms of brands of Christianity. It's probably no surprise that as a non-Christian, I'm not real comfortable with this. (And to provide some context, when I say "non-Christian," I really mean that I don't subscribe to any of what Joseph W. Campbell called "the desert religions": I am a devout but not particuarly observant Pagan, and I don't really think that my beliefs, or anyone else's, should be public policy.) This is, when all is said and done, a secular state, and I think it should remain that way.

Do my beliefs influence the way I vote? Certainly. Does that mean I vote for candidates who express the same beliefs? Never -- I'm an issues voter, by and large, with an eye to how effective anyone is going to be at governing. Yes, my religion influences my vote, but that vote is going to be exercised toward those policies that best fit. I should point out the one salient factor that makes me weird in this context, that is, in terms of the "culture war": what other people do with their lives, as long as it's not destructive to others, is not my business. And so, a candidate's personal religious beliefs, particularly in that area, are at best an irrelevancy and at worst, a reason to vote the other way.

Digby touches on what I consider the bottom line, but doesn't quite nail it. I guess my bottom line is that this whole phenomenon -- the ascent of the religious right and the attempt to counter it among Democrats by embracing it, is cause for concern, but no less so are appeals to a "religious left." Whatever the hell happened to secularism?

Think about that for a while.