I, for one, do not believe Michele Bachmann was joking when she implied that Hurricane Irene was an act of God. Someone who is as devout a Christian as Bachmann is never completely joking when the word God enters a sentence. What’s more significant is that it doesn’t matter whether she was joking. Merely mentioning the word God in that context is enough to ignite a debate that should be taking place on the Right but sadly is not. No, Bachmann’s comment doesn’t quite sink to the level of Jerry Falwell’s post-9/11 vulgarity, but the Tea Party movement is in many ways a new fusionism, and for the first time in history, it’s not just liberals who might have a problem with Bachmann’s theistic identity politics.
Don’t hate me for bringing this up. It needs to be said. Candidates like Bachmann have not yet come to terms with the fact that vast numbers of young conservatives and libertarians take more cues from Barry Goldwater than they do from Russell Kirk (and it’s not yet totally clear how Bachmann’s church would treat Catholics like Kirk). Indeed, many younger conservatives are not interested in defending Bachmann’s religiosity, much less indulging it. I certainly am not. The same goes for Rick Perry.
There needs to be room in the conservative movement for saying things like, “Please don’t invoke the name of God in every speech.” This is not the same as uttering a favorite liberal sneer like “evangelical.” Nor should it be grounds for, excuse me, ex-communication from the Right. Faith should never be a means of rallying “the base”; it should remain emancipated from the theatrics of campaigning. This is something on which both theist and atheist conservatives ought to agree, or, at the very least, discuss.
Legally a hurricane, flood or earthquake is called act of God.
Yes: unless Mr Wargas is planning a Part II of this post, in which he attacks insurance companies for referring to Hurricane Irene as an “Act of God”, I think he looks silly. (Therefore, I don’t have a problem with the author taking himself too seriously; someone has to take him seriously and it sure isn’t me.) I doubt any of the complainers here were ever going to vote for her in the first place, so I doubt the comment damaged her electability. Come to think of it, I’m willing to give her a second look, now that you’ve pointed this story out to me-thanks!
FWIW, I also think the hurricane was an “act of God” rather than an “act of man” aka AGW.
Was Charles Krauthammer serious when he tweeted near-identical sentiments?
Probably. He’s not religious at all, and wrote this in 2007: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07349/841910-35.stm
Excuse me! That should read, “probably not.”
Are we holding the Israelites in bondage?
Do you believe Obamacare was “really” sent as a plague from heaven?
In that context, it would have to be taken as satire, comparing Obamacare to a pair of natural disasters and the divine plagues.
There’s a difference between an act of God and divine punishment or retribution. If Michelle said it was an act of God, she’s right. It sure wasn’t an act of Congress or the EPA or “tha one”.
Nothing more dangerous and destructive to our society than are religious and political zealots no matter what ‘side’ they purport to represent.
Not true. Morons who believe that being religious is in and of itself a personality flaw, and that being comfortable with being religious is in and of itself evidence of “zealotry” are much more dangerous.
I see you don’t have any regards to the Constitution along with your other Tea Party following. Nothing like a hyocritical religious and politcal zealot! Oh, silly me! I forgot, being a TeaParty follower you get to rewrite and interpret the constitution and the Christian Bible to suit your own motives.
No doubt God is mighty proud of you and you’ll be sitting to the right side of God when you arrive! Actually, I strongly suspect you’ll be in the religious hypocrisy line alone with gazillions more.
What on earth are you babbling about?
I’m torn between wondering why you are feeding the troll, and wondering what the troll has to entertain us with this time.
I’m keeping in mind he’s just mortally insulted all but everyone of the founders, and probably every politician up through WWI or so, most since, and most Americans.
Right… I’m sure that you think that religion has had no part in the politics of the past 200 years… You sir are of the modern age and tend to disregard all past history.
America’s CinC leads soldiers with “Wicca” on their dogtags … and those soldiers can’t be in doubt that their religion is respected equally with “Christian”.
———————————————
Military Views on Wicca: US Army Chaplain’s Manual
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/comment/94896/
Horsedung. The left gleefully tries to pin it on AGW, and generally gets political mileage from doing so. Why is bringing God into it any different?
Its not.
That’s the problem.
The left is obviously trying to impose their ideology on people, why should I want someone imitating their methods to impose their ideology me?
Yes, the Founders were Traitors.
The climate crazies have been claiming not only that Hurricane Irene was “divine retribution” according to their own unlovely jargon, but that the recent earthquake was caused by frakking. In this, they are about as “scientific” as the Muslims who claimed that Iran’s earthquakes a while back were due to women showing their hair, or that the tsunami that hit Thailand and Bangladesh a few years ago was due to some (nonexistent) underwater nuclear test. Some climate crazy even claimed, within the last week or so, that some imaginary space aliens might choose to attack the Earth because these mythical creatures might feel threatened by the equally-mythical “global warming”—and this utterance was reported by the media with a straight face.
All of the above statements share two things: they are utterly faith-based, and they are batshit crazy. Yet many people, it seems, have less problem with the above lunacies than with Bachmann making what was clearly a joke that had the disadvantage of being phrased in the language of traditional Western religion.
Pedantic point. You frack to make gas. You frakk to make babies.
And just where does Lefrak City fit into this?
It all depends on your definition of the phrase “Act of God” and your interpretation of the Bible, if you believe in it in the first place. I’ve known Christians who wound insist that God was behind the good things in the world, and that things like hurricanes and so forther were either random or the work of the devil. In the recent past, most of the people who believe that disasters are the work of God punishing us for some perceived wrong are rightly dismissed as kooks. Whether Bachman’s in this latter group or not remains to be seen. There’s also the more passive, God-does-this-to-us-to-test-our-Faith types. Their God always struck me as a bit cruel, essentially toying with people to see how far he can push them. That never struck me as loving or worthy of a deity who should be worshipped.
I’ve turned into an agnostic. At this point, it doesn’t really matter to me what Bachmann thinks is the source of the hurricane, unless someone can prove man-made global climate change (extremely doubtful at this point). Short of that, whether she thinks God caused it or whatever isn’t relevant; what she would do in the aftermath, in terms of disaster clean-up, would be very important. What she does with the economy would be important, the jobs situation, etc. So of course we’ll engage in a discussion of whether she will be “submissive” to her husband, and her views on abortion, because those serve as the useful distractions these days. We talk (on the National stage anyway) about everything but the important issues. It’s pathetic.
Alright, I was all ready to jump on the side of the author . . . and then I saw the video. Not sure how Mr. Wargas wouldn’t interpret that as a joke–especially with all the laughter amongst the audience. And, in fact, this is a joke I’ve made myself (as I’m sure many others have). And my credentials are purely secularist and libertarian.
Of course the point is a good one. Nobody wants to be talked to about religion. And–frankly–its downright un-American to stress one religion over any other belief. But this isn’t the right circumstance to be making the point.
Hey Keith,
I’ve seen the video, too. She appears to be joking, yes, and the audience has taken it as a joke. But that wasn’t my point. If pressed hard enough, I think Bachmann would admit that though she *meant* it as a joke, she still believes acts of nature are acts of God, including hurricanes. So it’s a joke she believes.
I could be wrong on that. I don’t have direct access to Bachmann’s brain, and I don’t care. But, as I’ve also written, it doesn’t matter whether she was joking.
The AGW advocates who claim that AGW caused the hurricane and earthquake are dead serious. Would it be better, worse, or indifferent if they were joking?
Much, much, much worse. But the article was not about whether she was joking, but about how the conservative movement needs to address the divide between religious and social conservatives and an increasingly younger, libertarian section of the philosophy.
Excuse me, I mistyped. It’s worse, of course, to be serious.
Robert, I have to agree with Keith, here. She was clearly joking and you’re taking it too seriously. Yes, Christians joke about God and religion too. I agree that what Jerry Falwell said regarding 9-11 was crass, but there were several leftist who were blaming America for the tragedy which I found equally repugnant. When a tragedy or a natural disaster happens, it’s only human to wonder why and offer an explanation.
As a Christian, I remember what Christ said in response to a tragedy in which 18 Galileans were killed when a tower fell on them. “Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent[i.e. turn around, change your way of thinking] you too will all perish.”
Hey Nancy,
The point was not that Bachmann’s comments were offensive (although the relatives of those who died in the storm might beg to differ), but that her latest mentioning of God, in whatever context, should serve as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the role of religion among different conservative factions–namely, the extent to which politicians should mention God. It’s a legitimate debate to have, esp. among conservative with different beliefs.
That’s why I said it doesn’t matter whether she was joking.
Robert, so long as she did not say it’s because New York approved gay marriage that brought on the storm, what does it matter?
I find libertarians amusing when they express these kinds of reservations about a candidate who mentions God in any way. They’re like a bunch of PTA moms who whisper about a biracial couple that has moved to the neighborhood.
And these goombahs support Ron Paul. What?
You just have to laugh.
Robert, you need to stop taking yourself so seriously. No reasonable person could look at that video and not understand it was a joke. For you to say “Someone who is as devout a Christian as Bachmann is never completely joking when the word God enters a sentence” is simple bigotry on your part. You know this, how exactly? Oh, because you have lots of friends who are devout Christians!!! Please spare us the attempt to appear original and impartial.
Actually, part of the point of my piece was a call for religious conservatives to rebuke candidates who *constantly* invoke God and their faith, as it cheapens their religion.
Unlike Perry, she’s not yet arranged a mass-public prayer event, has she?
So you want freedom from religion? Just vote for Urkel, again.
So far two conservatives have played the race/bigotry card in their comments. I would like to keep a running count.
I will stop taking myself seriously when I stop getting paid to do so.
(and it’s not yet totally clear how Bachmann’s church would treat Catholics like Kirk)
have “flash mob” lutherans been attacking catholics lately?
Dude, if Michelle Bachmann were Catholic, this Wargas fellow would be “concerned” about “protecting” her religion.
Yeah, like Godzilla “protecting” Tokyo!
Robert Wargas: I am curious as to why you believe that religious people actually believing what they profess to believe “cheapens their religion.”
If one is “religious,” one believes in G-d. If one believes that G-d created the heavens and the earth, charts the course of the heavens and marks the sparrow’s fall, then it would be a betrayal of that belief to not believe that what is casually referred to as “an act of G-d” is—surprise!—an act of G-d. One may joke about it, of course—most religious people comfortable in their religion have no problem making jokes about their faith—but that does not mean there is no core of belief.
I do not see why this should terrify anyone, given that the vast majority of our Presidents have been religious people who, to some now-undeterminable extent (since they are mostly dead), believed exactly that—and the Republic did just fine, thank you. What is matter for concern is not whether a potential President believes that the hand of the Deity may be seen in the march of the heavens, but whether that potential President will rally the nation to provide disaster relief should it, G-d forbid, be necessary.
Frankly, if the potential President can and will do that, I don’t give a damn if he or she is singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” while doing it. And I am not Christian.
It is not unreasonable for even a very religious person to believe that constantly mentioning God in the course of one’s career cheapens *their* beliefs (those of the observer), not the beliefs of the politician saying it. This is therefore not necessarily the position of an atheist or an agnostic (you’ll notice I didn’t mention my own beliefs in what I wrote); it is a position that even religious conservatives could hold.
Thanks for your comments.
It is not unreasonable for even a very religious person to believe that constantly mentioning God in the course of one’s career cheapens *their* beliefs (those of the observer), not the beliefs of the politician saying it. This is therefore not necessarily the position of an atheist or an agnostic (you’ll notice I didn’t mention my own beliefs in what I wrote); it is a position that even religious conservatives could hold.
You have just moved the goalposts to the other end of the field. You began by talking about how mentioning G-d or one’s own religious beliefs cheapens those beliefs—and now you are claiming, with no basis that I can see, that such discourse cheapens the beliefs of the observer.
What, pray tell—if you will pardon the expression—is your basis for this astounding claim? Are you trying to say that the non-believer, confronted by a believer, will feel lesser because the believer speaks as s/he is accustomed to? That would seem to be evidence of a neurosis—or at least a serious threshold of intolerance—on the part of the non-believer more than anything else.
Many believers don’t like God being invoked by politicians as much as non-believers don’t like it. They dislike it for different reasons, but they both dislike it.
Both of these points were in what I wrote originally.
Neither is an “astounding claim.”
As always, it depends on who is doing the “invoking,” how it is done, and in what context.
Anyone who could get their boxers in a twist over Michelle Bachmann’s “act of G-d” joke is clearly the intolerant sort who is going to be offended by any invocation of the divine—except, of course, some imam making a nice multicultural reference to Allah.
If Bachmann were declaring her candidacy “a Christian crusade,” that would be way overstepping the bounds, but up to now she is well short of that. What really seems to bug our faux-tolerant secularists is her refusal to be apologetic about being religious, and her failing to treat it like a stubborn embarrassment to be gracefully ignored, as Michelle Obama does with her posterior.
From a number of tea party sites.
•Eliminate all welfare programs that do not call for work in return. Why should the tax dollars of hard working Americans be used to support lazy people.
•Eliminate social security, medicare and medicaid. These are all just ponzi schemes designed to take money from hard working Americans and transfer it to others. It’s not the fault of hard working Americans that some people have to struggle. Everyone in this country has had the same opportunities, and if they did not take advantage of those opportunities, or were lazy, why should the rest of America have to support them.
•Return GOD to government. We all know when our founding fathers talked about freedom of religion, they were only referring to religions that believed in CHRIST. Only those religions are protected under the constitution, and things like mosques, abortions and gays shall be eliminated under the penalty of law.
“There will be no more free rides in this country. Either work hard or leave. Believe in CHRIST or leave.”
“We are a grass roots movement trying to take this country back from those who do not share our core values.”
“In times of turmoil there is only one place to turn, and that is to the word of God. When we do that all our problems can be solved, and it should be pretty obvious to everyone how God is telling us to proceed.”
“What we need to take away from that statement is that sacrifice has to be made, and it should be the weak that make that sacrifice so that the healthy and wealthy can prosper.”
“Social Security and Medicare must go. Continuing to drain resources from productive members of society, simply to benefit the weak is not only a sin, but also immoral.”
“I’m truly sorry if a few old, disabled and sick people have to suffer, but it sure isn’t my responsibility to help them. There is no other way.”
“Survival of the fittest!”
“God tells us that!”
“Freedom of religion for all Christians. Jews might be ok too.”
“From a number of Tea Party sites?” Without links, your assertions mean nothing.
How does it cheapen their religion?
Well, take your pick:
Exodus 20:7
Do not take the name of G-d your Lord in vain. G-d will not allow the one who takes His name in vain to go unpunished.
Or;
Matthew 6:5-6
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Either way, it seems rather clear that it does in fact cheapen their religion to run around talking about G-d this, and G-d that at every opportunity in order to gain elected political office.
One can always tell a religious illiterate by the way they quote things like the above. I’m not talking about people of differing faiths or sects who have doctrinal differences or disagreements, but illiterates who cannot or will not understand how the passages they blithely misquote are understood by those who believe in them and attempt to follow them, and certainly cannot understand—or do not care—how stupid and ignorant they sound when doing so, and how insulting their pompous utterances are.
“Taking G-d’s name in vain” refers to swearing false oaths—not merely to the obvious false oaths of perjury, but to two types of vain, i.e., purposeless, oaths, e.g.; swearing to something that is pointless, such as that an obviously wooden object is wood, and swearing to no purpose, as for example that an obviously wooden object is in fact gold.
I cannot speak to the intricacies of Christian tradition, but it is obvious that the passage you quote about “praying in secret” refers to praying, not to the mere mention of G-d’s name.
Religious illiterates are offended, not by religious persons “cheapening their religion,” but by religious people taking their religion seriously—which means actually making reference to it in normal conversation. It is customary in Orthodox Jewish circles to reply to a casual greeting such as “How’s it going?” with “Baruch HaShem” (literally, “Blessed be the Name,” usually translated as “Thank G-d”); this is said whether things are going well or badly, since one must praise G-d in fortune and in adversity. I have no doubt that to some religious illiterates this will be offensive, and that some would even be dunderheaded enough to start blathering about how this “cheapens religion,” but in the end what offends the illiterate is merely that the other person mentioned G-d at all.
truly religous folks don’t invoke the lords name every other sentence. if they’re ate up with it perhaps but, usually it’s folks trying to convince you that they’re something that they are not. what I get from the truly religous people I know is honesty. plain and simple.
now as far as the folks that want to pounce everytime they hear a religous reference, well those folks concern me alot more than the bible thumpers.
“Was Bachmann Joking? It Doesn’t Matter: Conservatives Should Discuss It Anyway”
oh thanks for telling me what to do you statist clown.
What this discussion shows is that God is in the Public Square in America. People go back and forth on it, but it is good that in America, even still, God is still in the Public Square (as opposed to large parts of Europe, for instance).
Think about it. Cool, eh? A good part of the rest of the Western World thinks we’re nuts. It depends on one’s perspective, but I think it is healthy. We have a dimension to us that millions of others have lost, can’t relate to, and are (perhaps) less fully rounded for missing.
As to the idea that constantly mentioning God is crass and cheapening, well, we’re in a free marketplace of ideas, so let the cheapening happen–and there will be backlash to counter it (which is maybe what the author is doing here). God doesn’t mind. After all, He became man and let us have our way with him. (Allah, on the other hand, isn’t so nice, is he?)
But in general, as we have freedom of speech and religion in the U.S., we’re gonna have God talked about, political ‘crusades’ launched, and all sorts of ‘divine intervention’ in our political lives. It has always been thus in the U.S. of A., it’s in our history, our political DNA, and it is all good.
As to whether God causes hurricanes, etc., that’s more purely theological, and I would defer to those more learned than I. But from what little theology I know, I think the issue is not so much on how long we live or whether we die of old age, natural disaster, or man-made murder (though the latter affects the soul of the murderer)–but how we live in what time we are given. That’s more the focus.
An Préachán