And People Wonder Why 2Kers Worry about Mixing Religion and Politics

Published on by D. G. Hart

Daniel McCarthy explains why people (Christians included) should be skeptical of all parties and politicians, especially the GOP:

The story that voters are told today, both by Republicans themselves and by a mainstream media that views Republicans in general as extremely anti-government, is that the party has changed over the last five years. Whatever a Republican House may have done in 2003 just isn’t relevant to what a different Republican House wants in 2013.

There are two problems with that storyline. First, the 2003 Republican House was a continuation of the 1990s Republican House, which also shut down the government in a spending battle with a Democratic president. Something must have happened between 1995 and 2003 that led the Republican House to change its philosophy. In fact, several things happened, but the most important was the election of a Republican president in 2000. A Republican House would not have been eager to pass something like Medicare Part D under a Democratic president.

So if the small-government 1995 Republicans became the big-spending 2003 Republicans, what reason is there to believe that small-government 2013 Republicans won’t become big-spending 2017 or 2021 Republicans?

The second problem with the story that says Republicans have changed is that for all the new blood that has come into the congressional GOP, the party’s leaders—elected by its members, of course—are much the same people responsible for the 2003 Republican Party. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan—the GOP’s present House and Senate leaders and its 2012 vice presidential nominee—all voted for Medicare Part D. The party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, instituted his own Obamacare-like system as governor of Massachusetts. This is a surprising leadership cadre for a party that’s supposed to be radically different in 2013 from what it was in 2003.

Instead of “Republicans have really changed,” a more plausible story is, “Republicans are pretty much the same,” both in key personnel and in principle. The principle the party has lived by in 1995, in 2003, and in 2013 is that Republican presidents and their policies are good, Democratic presidents and their policies are bad. The size of government or the national debt is a secondary concern, if that. The real test is what a party does when it holds power, not how desperately it struggles when the other party has power.

39 thoughts on “And People Wonder Why 2Kers Worry about Mixing Religion and Politics”

  1. “Daniel McCarthy explains why people (Christians included) should be skeptical of all parties and politicians, especially the GOP. . . .”

    Your title doesn’t follow from this, or from the lengthy quotation. I don’t think you have a clue why some of us are so opposed to 2K, why we think that the Bible is transparently opposed to your view.

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  3. I like the title for this one. It makes me answer—it probably has something to do with what your “religion” is.

    If your “religion” is about what God is doing in you to produce “the” kingdom, then you might teach an “integrated” politics which ignores Christ as mediator of grace. You might even teach a not yet aspect to justification correlated with your progress in that regard.

    But if your “religion” is about what God already did in Christ, maybe the politics will look a little different also

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  4. RIP Kauffman – In addition to his fine reviews in the New Republic, he also has the distinction of having “discovered” Walker Percy. While working as an editor for a publisher, he found the manuscript for what would become “The Moviegoer” and helped it get published a few years later. It won the National Book Award in ’61 and is probably Percy’s best work.

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  5. Phil, right. When all you give is driveby’s, it’s a little difficult to figure out what cage you’re rattling.

    But what does follow is that blurring the kingdoms — the civil and the ecclesiastical (think the history of the West, think the difference between King and prophet in the OT) — with parties like we have in the U.S. makes no sense.

    So I suppose you favor secession and rebellion. I thought so.

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  8. “Under pressure from grassroots radicals and the new outsider groups, the old Republican coalition is beginning to shatter. The single-issue and evangelical groups have been superseded by right-wing populist groups, which are generally identified with the Tea Party, although there is no single Tea Party organization. These groups can’t easily be co-opted by the party’s Washington leadership.”

    http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115134/republicans-eve-destruction?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=flyout&utm_campaign=mostpopular

    Now back to your regularly scheduled choir practice.

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  9. igasx, nice sign off, but the point of your quote is hardly clear. Have you been taking lessons from Phil? “Read my bumper sticker. It’s funny to me.”

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  10. ‘La la la’
    That’s the sound of the melody of the overplayed pop tune.
    When the culture changes how will the pop artist adjust?

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  12. D.G. – With guys like us, continuing to read, write, watch and think is what will keep us alive. It sure won’t be the vigorous exercise we get at our jobs.

    In other news, watching the local sports news last night and the sportscaster explained that Ames, with the #1 offense in class 4A, played Des Moines North, with the lowest ranked offense in class 4A. “Something has to give”, he said.

    Really? Something would have to give if Des Moines North had a highly ranked defense, but nothing had to give just because one offense was good and the other was bad.

    The final score? Ames – 70, Des Moines North – 0

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  13. Pat,

    I just can’t get through “The Moviegoer”. After two tries I’m about 2/3 of the way through. Now it’s buried in the stack. Walker Percy is one of those guys I always intend to tackle, but just can’t quite get there.

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  14. I do take one culture war stand: I won’t go to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, as much as it pains me. I would like to go to my grave never giving those people a dime.

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  15. Big D.i.G.- The sound of McCarthy’s argument? Bad Republicans have always been the same, unprincipled big gov’t types, who cow to the center to get elected, yet the new insurgents, principled small gov’t types, should use the same tactics to get elected. What?

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  17. I hear the Muzak. The insurgents are listening to another tune. A tune you may actually enjoy if you take the time to listen.

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  18. Erik, don’t bother with Walker Percy’s fiction… his essays and his fun book on semiotics, Lost in the Cosmos are treasures.

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  20. Anyone who can’t see that both the left and right are populated by manipulative power brokers is a mime trapped in a glass box of his own construction.

    But, GAS, your poetic, amorphous comments do have a certain stylistic appeal.

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  21. But we can take comfort in the Noahic covenant, under which the seasons will continue and a certain order will be maintained despite the gasbags in power.

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  23. MM- I agree with you about the mimes, the gasbags, and the Noahic. The best part of the insurgency is the pain being applied to the Republican establishment. OTOH, the leftist utopian vision will only end in forced idolatry. I see no reason why a Two Kingdom view requires submitting to idolatry.

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  25. Eric wrote: “I just can’t get through “The Moviegoer”. After two tries I’m about 2/3 of the way through.”

    Me: My first thought was, “How should I pray for this man?” I’m biased, and Percy isn’t for everyone. His essays might be a better starting place. His collection, “Signposts in a Strange Land” has some keepers. Not the least is his recipe for mint juleps, from his Uncle Will. See below:

    “You need excellent bourbon whiskey; rye or Scotch will not do. Put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampen it with water. Next, very quickly—and here is the trick in the procedure—crush your ice, actually powder it—preferably in a towel with a wooden mallet, so quickly that it remains dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside of the glass, cram the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand. Finally, fill the glass, which apparently has no room left for anything else, with bourbon, the older the better, and grate a bit of nutmeg on the top. The glass will frost immediately. Then settle back in your chair for half an hour of cumulative bliss.”

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  26. D.G.- I don’t know family radio and will occasionally listen to Rush for the entertainment value. But if you’re looking for the biggest nutball in conservative radio I would go with Glen Beck. It’s not as if you’ll find homogenous movement except for a general anti-establishment mentality which is a good start.

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  28. Yup. You take all kinds to achieve a political objective. Think of it like subscribing to a Reformed Confession: some will have really bad taste in music.

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  29. Is Philip Larson a pseudonym for Doug Sowers?

    Besides, the last time I checked, “Lasron” was a Lutheran name. Luther was quite a proponent of 2K. Is someone treading on his cultural heritage?

    For what it’s worth, my heritage is Scottish and Huguenot.

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  31. Glenn-gassy-glenn-ross, but when it’s a political objective that mixes in religion, you can count out 2k kinds. Subscribing Reformed confessions requires a resistance to religion and politics intermeddling.

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  33. A place I’ve always wanted to visit is Mississippi, specifically Oxford & Greenville. Faulkner, Foote, & Percy country. Hopefully I’ll get there someday. It would be fun to retire to a small college town in the South. Spend 1/2 year in Iowa and 1/2 down there. I’ve always lived in college towns and want to continue that. If I was rich enough to live in Chicago or New York that would be fun, too, but I don’t see that happening. Being rich in those towns would be fun, being a middle-class commuter would be a drag, I imagine.

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  35. Eric – notice the first reviewer on that bio:-) Ben Wise is a friend of mine. He was working on his PhD at Rice, while I was doing campus ministry there. That said, he is a good writer and interesting thinker. I’m pretty sure he’s had that mint julep recipe a few times, as well.

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