Guy Fawkes and the Whore of Babylon
Do conservative Baptists have a problem with conservative Catholics?
New kids on the Street, Lance Mannion and Nancy Nall, stir their noodles and wonder if the GOP’s Big Tent will ever collapse under its own weight.
Nance reports that the Southern Baptist Mission Board has 1200 missionaries serving in predominantly Catholic countries, which sounds to Nance like a gigantic case of preaching to the choir, except that the Baptists don’t think Catholics belong to the choir. Catholics, says the president of the Mission Board, are “lost.”
Nance wonders if conservative Catholics might have a problem with their supposedly fellow Christians and political allies thinking of them as damned and asks if this might lead to a crack-up of the Religious Right.
Lance responds that it might, if either group actually believed in the religion they profess to practice.
Hey, Lance. I know lots of people read blogs to see their own opinions stated back to them in a different voice — and I’m among them — but I have a confession to make: One of my favorites is Amy Welborn’s Open Book, run by an ex-neighbor of mine from when I lived in Indiana, a conservative Catholic and undisputed member of the religious right —only she’s not much for the war in Iraq, believes strongly in social justice for the poor and holds a lot of positions Rick Santorum might isapprove of, even if they’d feel comfortable in the same church.
We voted for different people for president, I’m sure. But she’s always thoughtful, not mean and a good writer. I have her bookmarked.
And it’s a good thing, to see what people who don’t move in your circles are talking about and thinking. I found something very interesting there and I’m wondering what you think of it — news that the Southern Baptist International Mission Board appointed 116 new missionaries during their May meeting. They’re off to the usual places in Africa and Asia, but the report also noted that 1,200 Southern Baptist missionaries serve in “predominantly Roman Catholic
countries,” home to 852 million people. If trying to convert the already converted isn’t the definition of “preaching to the choir,” I don’t know what is.
€œWhy would we invest such efforts in Catholic countries?The answer is quite simple: It is because they are lost,€ (IMB President Jerry) Rankin said. €œThe people may be identified as cultural Christians since that is their socio-religious profile, but most of them do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…. They,
too, deserve an opportunity to hear, understand and respond to the life-changing message of the Gospel. They cannot be ignored in our commitment that all peoples would know our Lord Jesus Christ.€
Amy’s postings are only a part of her blog; her comments are some of the liveliest and most opinionated on the web, and you can imagine how some of them took this remark. Sniffed one:
“Personal relationship” is Evangelical parlance for “individual relationship” - meaning separate from any church. Which usually means accepting Christ as Lord and Savior and “getting saved” in the privacy of your own bedroom. It’s sort of like a skin cell on the pinky toe of Christ saying he doesn’t need the heart, lungs, pancreas, or stomach… just him and the Head, that’s all there is to it…
Others bemoaned the split as a natural outgrowith of the heterodoxy afflicting the One True Church. Others complained that evangelicals are always “poaching” in areas where Catholics have already done the heavy lifting.
Now, Lance, you and I are probably Catholics in approximately the same place these days; I’m thoroughly fallen away, you’re teetering on the brink, but we’re both “cultural Catholics,” if only because we were raised that way. But anti-Catholic bigotry was something I didn’t even know about until I reached adulthood, having been raised
in a polite Ohio WASP community where no one asked anyone else about their personal relationship with Jesus (how rude!). I was unaware that my fellow mackerel-snappers were looked down upon by other Christians, although I was a child then and my concerns were less heavenly.
But I guess my question to you is this: Do you think anything will come of these hairline cracks in the religious right? I’ve long been baffled by the close ties between evangelicals and conservative Jews; I mean, the Jews do know about the New Testament, right? But the idea of a widening of the split between Protestants and us statue-
worshippin’ papists sort of tickles me. It’s like the scenes in “Reds” where the various wings of the American Communist party self-immolate. Divide and conquer, right?
——-
Well, Nance,
The Church is the Whore of Babylon, we do worship statues, they’ve never forgiven us for that Guy Fawkes misunderstanding, and they sure were right about the priests, but that’s minor. What matters isn’t what Catholics think is going on during the Eucharist. What matters is that the conservative Cathlics and the Right Wing fundies agree about what should go on in the bedroom—which is nothing at all fun.
First thing to remember though is that when the Fundies say we Catholics are lost and we’re going to hell if we don’t shape up and stop smelling the incense, they mean it in the nicest of ways. They are worried about us. They ask if we’re saved the way they’d ask a homeless person if he was hungry. When they say Catholics are damned for all eternity they say it with the same compassion as they say there are children starving in Africa.
They want to help.
Many of them, at least.
But it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, because the Right Wing Fundies, like the conservative Catholics, like most Christians throughout history, don’t really believe in the religion they profess to practice.
Christianity is a very tough faith. The hardest part of it is that it asks people to be more concerned about the next world than about this one, and people just can’t help themselves, they are stuck in bodies in this world and those bodies want to fed, fucked, clothed, comforted, and fussed over.
Christianity has inspired a lot of good, but I think it’s been most effective in giving human beings a way of fooling themselves into thinking they are being good when they are taking care of those bodies’ desires and being really, really, really bad.
The most Christian period in history was the Middle Ages, which gave us the Crusades. For several hundred years pious people expressed their faith in Christ though wholesale slaughter, rape, and theft. After that came the Protestant Revolution and the Hundred Years’ War. Here in America, the one and only theocracy that ever functioned on the continent, the Puritan rule in Massachusetts Bay Colony, condoned and encouraged the Witch Hysteria, which was basically a cover for land grabs and the working out personal vendettas.
If the Right Wing fundies really believed in Christianity they would not have hitched their wagon to the party that believes more than it believes in anything else in the storing up of treasures on earth, the party whose leaders never heard of camels and needles’ eyes.
I admire your patience and open-mindedness in reading Amy Welborn’s blog. But conservative Catholics like her infuriate me. They’re not good Catholics, no matter what they say about believing in social justice etc. etc.
Amy is loud and proud about being “pro-life,” and in the run up to the presidential election she was louder and prouder about that than she was loud and proud about any of her beloved social justice issues. She advocated strongly for the re-election of George W. Bush and dismissed concerns about the War in Iraq, an unjust war if ever there was one, a war Pope John Paul II had opposed, more strenuously than was reported in the American media, because, she believed, the chance to outlaw abortion once and for all was more important than anything else. Saving American blastocytes was more urgent to her than saving the lives of Iraqi babies.
Amy is smart enough to know that there is no way the Republicans who are out to outlaw abortion will enact any sort of social justice agenda. She is smart enough to know that they won’t end the death penalty; in fact they plan to expand the list of crimes punishable by death and make it a lot easier to execute people convicted of capital crimes. She is smart enough to know that if and when the Bush Leaguers outlaw abortion, abortions will not cease. All that will happen is that legal abortions will not be available to poor women. The well-off will go out of the country to get their abortions. And the poor will get them however they can from whatever quack or butcher offers to do it for them cheap.
She is smart enough to know this, smart enough to know that none of the things she supposedly believes in as a good Catholic will come to pass, and yet she still voted for Bush and urged her readers to vote for him. This means she doesn’t really believe in social justice.
So what does she want?
My feeling is that conservative Catholics want exactly what the Right Wing fundies want — everybody else to stop having fun. They aren’t pro-life or anti-abortion. They are anti-joy.
They want control over other people and the right to insist on their own moral superiority while they do it. They are in profound agreement over this, and differences over Communion, the Pope, the importance of good works, and whether all dogs go to heaven are trivial. In fact, the Fundies love the new Pope because he’s made it very clear that the thing he most intends to do is stamp out all fun among Catholics.
So, no, I don’t think the Right is headed for any crack ups over religion, because I think religion is besides the point. They are united in their desire to stamp out joy. They want their bodies to be able to control how much fun everybody else’s bodies get to have.
June 12th, 2005 at 7:54 am
While I count myself among the host of lapsed Catholics, I have to admit that I take a strange comfort in the fact that there’s still a voice for “traditional” morality out there.
I may not agree with Pope Benedict on the evils of artificial birth control, but I’m glad he’s making the case. I can engage the debate, consider the basis for his argument, and, in a typically American fashion, draw my own conclusions.
As for the Conservative Catholic/Evangelical alliance in moral matters, it’s a new twist on the old saw that “politics makes strange bedfellows”. Fundies won’t be saying the Hail Mary and Catholics are not going to get wrapped up in (dubious) rapture theology but in areas of common social policy concern, I think it has merit and longevity. There’s even a place for the Mormons in the “big tent”
June 12th, 2005 at 8:29 am
Would like to call your attention to Pope Benedict’s infallible views (which changed from 1964 to 1998) on “other faiths” (taken from Chicago Tribune Perspective Section)
Guess the Baptists aren’t the only ones who think they’re the “only ones” saved.
June 12th, 2005 at 8:43 am
That’s not inconsistent.
He’s restating (in both quotes) ancient Catholic ecclesiology. He’s never denied the title “Christian” to Protestants and others, merely the appelation “Church” for their communities.
In the Catholic view only the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches (with a few other minor exceptions) are true Churches.
June 12th, 2005 at 9:19 am
Roe vs. Wade is to Hitler and the Nazis
As the Religious Right is to the Grand Alliance among the U.S.A., the British Empire, and the Soviet Union during the Second World War.
That is, if the Supreme Court reverses Roe vs. Wade, the alliance will fall apart and they’ll be fighting each other.
That’s the way I see it. I’m now open to agreements, disagreements, and other opinions on the matter.
June 12th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
Haven’t read Amy Welborn (now there’s a name ripe for satirizing!) but in my personal experience, you can never overlook a pro-life advocate’s personal experience. The first genuine right-to-lifer I ever met, when I was growing up in a working-class Catholic ghetto in the North Bronx at the end of the 60s, was an ex-nun married to a runaway seminarian who spent the next 10 years trying desperately to get pregnant. When she finally succeeded (yes, jokes were made about the monsignior breaking down & giving the couple an illustrated manual), she had 4 kids in the next 5 years. While otherwise an intelligent & reasonably educated person (she was from the last generation of working-class women who went into the convent to get an education), you could NOT have a rational discussion with this woman about birth control, much less abortion. There was no family planning scenario, from the most hypothetical to the most concrete, that she didn’t construe as an attack on her precious babies, both the ones she already had & the ones she wanted in the future. And I’ve found this generative paranoia a persistent undercurrent in every pro-life argument I’ve run across in the ensuing 40 years… from rich conservatives bloviating about “Americans being outbred by the Third World” and Black Separatists fuming that “Planned Parenthood is a front dedicated to sterilizing Black men” to the Randall Terry supporter convinced that the abortion her parents paid for when she was 17 is the reason she can’t get pregnant now that she’s 35 and married. Or, grotesquely, the Caucasian woman who showed my friend at a pro-choice rally an Asian infant and said “Because of people like you, I couldn’t adopt at home and had to settle for this!… ” Remember the old mantra “When you’ve got them by the b*lls, their hearts & minds will follow”? It didn’t work in Vietnam, but it’s been a real vote-winner for the modern Republican party!
June 12th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
First, this exchange is not worthy of you Nancy. If you€™re doing it for the money, it€™s not enough. If you€™re doing it for exposure, there has to be a better way.
Second, Lance€™s mendacity illustrates the futility of attempting a constructive discussion, so I won€™t bother. But just consider this €“ perhaps the religious folks you distain have tapped into the distilled wisdom of millenniums of human experience. Namely, that real joy comes not from satisfying the basic human needs for food, clothing, and reproduction. To call religious conservatives €œanti-joy€ is deeply ignorant, and shows a bias that is truly pathetic. Read Pope JPII€™s Theology of the Body, and if you can still call official Catholic doctrine €œanti-joy€, I€™ll eat my words.
BTW, I don€™t know your background, but I know your type €“ probably fashion yourself as quite the intellectual. Start reading then €“ I recommend Losing Ground €“ American Social Policy, 1950 to 1980 by Charles Murray. It addresses what type of social policies actual end up helping the people there were intended to. Again, another mind-bender for you, but maybe Ms. Welborn supports George Bush exactly because his economic policies are far more likely to actually improve the lives of poor Americans. Your comment that Ms. Welborn€™s strong advocacy of George Bush (something that I seemed to have missed in my almost daily read of her blog) evidences that she can€™t possibly really believe in social justice is simply unhinged. Social justice now only means ready access to abortion??
Oh well, what€™s the point in arguing with a bitter and ignorant small-towner with an ossified and uneducated grasp of economic policy? Have a nice day.
P.S. Save the rant. I am not a Catholic, nor a biblical fundamentalist. Just a sane independent who enjoys reading a broad spectrum of intelligent commentary, which is why I€™ll keep reading Amy and why today is my first, last, and only foray into this sad exchange.
June 12th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Gee, Anne Laurie, or maybe people just look at the facts about what abortion is and what it does and decide, “Gee, this seems like a pretty nasty activity.” Speaking for myself, I don’t give a hoot about whether the Third World outbreeds the First, doubt very much that Planned Parenthood is deliberately trying to kill of the black race,* have no fear that anyone I know has been sterilized by an abortion, and, if I ever have a wife and we decide to adopt, will be indifferent to the child’s nationality or race. I don’t really have any great liking for babies and am always a little uncomfortable with pro-life arguments that try to capitalize on baby-oriented sentimentality, like precious feet pins.** I just don’t like killing.
* Although Margaret Sanger certainly wouldn’t have minded such an outcome.
** I recognize that this is probably a failing on my part, not a failing of those who make the pins.
June 12th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Also, I agree with AC. Amy made occasional anti-Kerry posts, but there was no endorsement of Bush until she did so on Election Day itself (not that enthusiastically, and, as I recall, without even mentioning Bush by name).
June 12th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
I remember reading, back in the ’50s, the Baptist Standard, to which my mother subscribed. It seemed that every issue had articles about the horrid Catholics, and the terrible things the priests were doing to the people. It was ludicrous, even to me as a child of perhaps 10 or so. Even then, I could see the hypocrisy and vitriol, and it did not make me want to be a Baptist. Sadly, things have changed very little.
June 12th, 2005 at 4:43 pm
Lance is wrong, and James and AC are correct — Amy never directly advocated for Bush, and if I read between her lines, I believe she thinks he’s a fool, but a useful one. However, I’d say the anti-Kerry posts were more than “occasional.” They were regular occurrences, and pounded him on his failure to take an abortion-is-murder position. Which is fine, I guess. It’s her blog. I’m just puzzled why Kerry and Jennifer Granholm come in for unrelenting you’re-a-bad-Catholic criticism, but Antonin Scalia’s positively bloodthirsty pro-death penalty attitudes are either ignored or defended by those right-wing Catholic intellectuals who can always find an excuse to ignore the church positions they don’t agree with. (Note: Amy doesn’t defend Scalia. But many of her commenters and plenty of other like-minded Catholics do.)
June 12th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
Can Lance and Nance be any more inane?
Is this the American Steet or the American Alley.
I’ve read better on the walls of U of M’s toilet stalls.
June 12th, 2005 at 6:40 pm
My mistake. I should have known that in a race with two major candidates when Amy was saying Whatever you do, don’t vote for candidate number 1, that didn’t mean she wanted candidate number 2 to win. I guess she was pushing for candidate number 3. So Amy was for Ralph Nader right up until the election? Sorry for the error.
June 12th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
Why does anyone care what I think about either bozo? And why am I being brought up when I didn’t ask to be? And my name mocked? I don’t quite get it.
Anyway - Kerry was a subject for one reason: his faith and the way he characterized it and used it. That’s it. I took incredible heat on my blog, and have continued to do so, for saying, more than once, that when it comes to life issues, Bush and the GOP are mostly wind, and they use good-hearted people for their own end: power.
June 12th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
Amy Welborn, November 4, 2004:
June 13th, 2005 at 1:43 am
We seem to have wandered far afield from the intent — my intent, anyway — of this discussion — that is, to ask whether the pre-existing splits between factions of the R.R. might widen enough to be significant for the other side. The right certainly knew what to do when the socially conservative working class confronted elements it felt deeply uncomfortable about within the Democratic tent. Will progressives? All I’m askin’.
June 13th, 2005 at 7:04 am
AC, you suggest we read Charles Murray. Then you say you’re a sane independent who enjoys reading a broad spectrum of intelligent commentary.
Do you really expect to be taken seriously?
June 13th, 2005 at 7:31 am
Nance–
Your question has been at the back of my mind for some time. I was brought up (in the 50s/60s) a fundie Prot. In those days the doctrinal differences between Protestants and Catholics were considered vitally important (the ecumenical movement of the 60s was seen by conservative religious folk of both camps as a betrayal). Not only between Prots and RCs, but between the Prot denominations too, and add in the Jehovah’s Witnesses etc.
Since then, there’s been a shift of perspective in which the differences are held in abeyance. (Even though, as your mission to the RCs example, or fundie missions to the Jews, show, the doctrinal splits still exist, in principle).
I can’t be sure I’m right about this, but I think the essential reason is that the religious right, in the 1950s, was still in a world it felt it had a hold over. And the 60s blew that apart. What I’m suggesting is that what holds the RR together today is a reactionary (in the strict sense) spirit. These people nurse a huge grievance about the changes in the world, in sexual and cultural mores. They are easily persuaded they are victims. And, the more they have worked together over three decades or so, the more they have tasted power.
If ever they could put the clock back, perhaps they would return to inter-denominational squabbling. As it stands, their sense of grievance and their growing addiction to power are strong reasons for them to put dogma on the back boiler (except for dogma aimed at the rest of us, of course…)
As Lance says, it’s not about religion. And, though he’s right they’re killjoys (they are all, without exception, sexually fucked-up), it’s not just that. It’s power. And therefore politics.
June 13th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Well, I guess I was wrong in that Amy did mention Bush by name. Other than that, I was right.
Despite strong competition from Lance and Anne Laurie, afew’s “They’re all sexually fucked up” wins the prize for most absurd and intellectually vacuous comment.
P.S. I sort of consider being born to be a more joyful experience than being brutally murdered beforehand, but maybe I’m the eccentric here.
June 13th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
James Kabbala –
absurd and intellectually vacuous?
I’m simply speaking from experience.
As for the rest of what I tried, in my humble way, to suggest? Any enlightening comments?