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.
Showing posts with label Rev. Rachel Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rev. Rachel Smith. Show all posts
Monday, July 07, 2008
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