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Monday, December 17, 2012

No Huckabee, In God's Name No


Mike Huckabee seems to suggest that if we had not "systematically remove[d] God from our schools," God perhaps would have intervened...or at least, the Newtown massacre would not have happened. This is outrageous for a few reasons that I will explore here. (I base this on the God-of-grace who Christians claim faith in.)

First of all, a God of grace is a God of unconditional grace. Grace by definition is gift without conditions. To say that, as another politician stated, God is a "gentleman" for not showing up where he is not wanted is, well, stupid. Grace does not abandon in the name of politeness. To say that God's grace was cut short by a lack of invitation or rejection is to create limits that contradict the very definition of grace.

Secondly, a God of grace is a universal God, and certainly not the God of Christian imperialism. Christian imperialism, the backbone of the Religious Right and the ideology used to legitimate the military-industrial complex, is anything but gracious. It is misogynistic, homophobic, often racist, and anti-Muslim. It is used to support a capitalist system that privileges the stronger over the weaker in a game of competition, trampling all over the poor and disenfranchised, and legitimates killing the "enemy" in the name of God while claiming to be "pro-life" (i.e. middle east warfare). This system is evil.

So the God that has been kept out of schools is the God of Christian imperialism. The vision our education system as encouraged is one of pluralism and inclusivity--one that tolerates different religious viewpoints. I don't think this is opposed to the God of grace.

There really is no good reason for what happened. A mentally-ill boy shot up a bunch of children. A woman gave her life. Why God allowed it, especially a God of grace, I cannot say. But the Christian imperialists, in using this tragedy to further their wicked agenda, to me is beyond comprehension. The military-industrial complex, backboned by Christian imperialism, calls for drone strikes in the middle east that kill hundreds of innocent children ("casualties"), and we don't even bat an eye, much less even come close to considering it a "national tragedy" that adds to America's long list of sins. 

But I guess it doesn't matter, because God has been "systematically removed" from the middle east by our Muslim enemies and is too much a "gentleman" to intrude on our drone strikes that kill multitudes innocent children in his name.