If you are not familiar with the writings of Mark D. Tooley, director of the United Methodist Committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, I would encourage you to make his acquaintance via this very astute (and accidentally hilarious) essay.
One cannot easily reasonably imagine that there is a person of the cloth, so to speak, who would opine that "gundamentalism is a religious movement without spiritual grounding," but reality trumps reason, at least most of the time. Gundamentalism may indeed be a religion without grounds, but so, it seems, is gun hysteria; and nothing is more hysterical than the prophetic voice which is the Rev. Rachel Smith (Mr. Tooley has Ms. Smith's Christian name wrong, which disappoints me).
"Gundamentalism ... is without spiritual grounding," Ms. Smith? What does that even mean?
Look, I am no gun-toting redneck; I've never opined here one way or the other regarding gun ownership or gun control. But I have been quite outspoken about the fundamentalism of the Religious Left, of which Ms. Smith is very much a part. The Religious Left tirelessly claims that the Religious Right is tirelessly trying to impose its values and religion on the world; meanwhile, the Religious Left does nothing BUT impose its values and religious ideals on the world, the secular AND religious worlds. The hypocrisy, so blatant and obvious, is nonetheless always stunning. Religious Left blindness is incalculable, really.
And if Ms. Smith is concerned that the Supreme Court has got gun-rights wrong -- that it has found a right where there is none -- I would ask her to provide us the spiritual grounding she most likely believes provides Americans the constitutional right to kill babies in utero -- and out! -- with daggers, knives; our bare hands.
(As a total aside, I have never met a pro-life, anti-abortion vegan, have you? I am not suggesting such folks don't exist. I am suggesting that they are rather rare [and never medium rare].)
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
4 comments:
The pro-abortion vegan does not consider the fetus a life form, and therefore has a rationalization that allows them to approve of abortion while not approving of consuming animal flesh. I have several co-workers who hold these two conflicting beliefs simultaneously.
Your native son Bishop Gene Robinson praised the Anglican Church as the place where people can hold two contradictory positions at once.
“The Anglican tradition is uniquely capable of holding two seemingly contradictory ideas together. Its position on abortion, for example is that all human life is sacred. And, that no one has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body. Both are true,”
http://www.catholic.org/
international/international_story.php?id=27996
So, if you run into any more of these confused people, direct them to the "happy" Bishop's Church.
I cornered my very religious vegan friend and asked her if she was pro-life, her answer..."It depends."
So far you are correct.
Dear Pewster,
There must be one out there!
BG
Oh, Pewster,
My reaction to Mr. Robinson's inanity is to wonder if he would permit me to announce that the Church can hold disparate views regarding homosexuality, one praising it and the other damning it, and that they are "both true."
Of course, he does not see that his statement does not permit any disagreement. You MUST accept that the Church holds no definitive views, except this ONE.
As you know, +VGR is not what one would call a church heavyweight.
Everything is true! Everything is permissible!
Peace,
BG
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