The Religious Right has always relied on the argument, explicit or implicit, that the only good Christians are those that follow right-wing politics, and that if you have different positions—or even just different priorities—you’re not a real Christian. This election season is no different, as Janet Folger demonstrated in her column today about “priorities”:
And we need to prioritize when it comes to our policies and our politics. Take a bunch of “evangelical Christians” who, according to Sunday’s Seattle Times, claim to be pro-life Christians and for Obama. No matter how slick the slogans or how “cool” the candidate, you can’t be both.
Look, to be a Christian means you have to follow Christ. What did Christ say? “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” And what were some of those commandments? God prioritized them for us, and “Thou shalt not kill” made the top 10. It wasn’t “change” or “diversity” or “tolerance” or “government programs” that made the list; it was the protection of human life.
Forget thinking about how commandments such as that one might apply to, say, war, and forget working against abortion through means other than the GOP and the Supreme Court—to Folger, the link between moral absolutes and partisan politics is so ironclad that there is only one analogy possible:
I’m not questioning the First Amendment rights of anyone, but I have to wonder if under today’s “tolerance is supreme” mindset, we would have also encouraged and welcomed Nazism with open arms into our schools, universities, churches, prisons and neighborhoods. If a presidential candidate who favors killing 50 million citizens can be supported by self-proclaimed “evangelical Christians,” I think the answer is yes. Thankfully, we have history to show us the result of such an unmistakable evil philosophy. But if we look a littler harder, we can see the results of Obama’s philosophy today: 50 million dead children, millions of wounded mothers, fathers, siblings and friends … and the consequences continue.
