Cross-posted at
MN Campaign Report
There are two angles to the story of Michele Bachmann and the Living World Christian Center. One is that which is being carried by the AP and several local outlets now, that of the IRS complaint against LWCC by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington based on the pastor's personal endorsement of Bachmann. The other, however, is what got this story play in the big national blogs in the first place, and that is the material showing Bachmann calling herself a "fool for Christ" and describing her three-day fast while meditating on a run for Congress.
I have no problem with religious individuals becoming political leaders. Elected officials on both sides of the aisle take their religion seriously. If you've ever driven in a presidential campaign motorcade for John Kerry, you know that no matter where he was in America, if it was Sunday, he tried to find a church and attend mass. This from a godless, northest Librul - a commitment not just to his faith, but to the trappings and dogma of his religion. The two are not the same thing. Likewise, doing the right thing on behalf of constituents and doing the right thing on behalf of one's faith are not always the same thing. But that's another discussion.
By all accounts, LWCC's pastor, Mac Hammond, preaches a message of self-help and worldy riches while the flock waits for their heavenly equivalent. I'm not sure this fits in with the Bible or pretty much any commentary on the New Testament before the mid-to-late 20th Century. Was it not Christ himself who answered a rich man's anguished question about the attainment of heaven with a simple path: "give all your possessions away, and come with me?" I'm pretty sure the goal of the Christian faith was not to provide people with an outlet for their desire for worldy riches, but rather to temper that desire, and make people aware of injustice in this world, to stand against it on behalf of those who could not, and to live a simple and humble life along the way.
This is where religion runs into trouble with government - it IS government's job to enrich its people. It's right there in our hallowed documentation - "...endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If you replace "happiness" with "property" then you have a pretty good summary of the philosophy behind the Declaration of Independence. The pursuit and protection of property was a big part of the Enlightenment philosophy that informed the writers of the Declaration and the Constitution. The role of government is to protect people's right to amass property, but Christianity taught a message that was somewhat at odds with this new-fangled "Democracy."
How did this Joel Osteen-fueled "self-help" Christianity become so huge (Osteen preaches in the building where the Houston Rockets used to play. Seriously)? I'm sure it feels good to have one's desire for worldly possessions validated instead of diminished from the pulpit. But that's not the point. The point is what happens when candidates like Michele Bachmann not only put their faith on display, but proudly proclaim it as not just a religious mark, but as a political one - "I am a fool for Christ, therefore you should vote for me." That is what she insinuated, of course, by following Mac Hammond's personal endorsement with her exposition of her faith. It is bad for our government, bad for our country, bad for our democracy, and dare I say it, bad for our freedom, to let people like Michele Bachmann inject their faith, any one faith in a country with so many, directly into the laws we elect them to make.
The goals of government and religion have been warped, twisted together like some gnarled, mutated swamp creature by twelve years of a Republican majority in Congress, of which six have included a President who has readliy and willingly manipulated the American evangelical Christian community for its voting and organizational strength. It's time for that manipulation to end, in favor of a government which defends not just the letter of the Constitution, but its true intent.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion....." Do you really think Michele Bachmann would pay attention to that?
Really?