Gingrich: or really just the Grinch

I'm in a foul humour. In part because of this tidbit from the paper.

Link: Gingrich, on a Mission, Has No Time to Campaign for ’08 - New York Times.

Mr. Gingrich’s mission, as he sees it, is to save American civilization from the gravest crisis it has confronted since the Civil War. He has also set as a goal what he calls the restoration of God to a central place in American government and culture.

Here's what Gingrich advocates in his new 10 point Contract on America:

Social Security privatization, electoral reform, radical streamlining of government, and “patriotic education” for schoolchildren and immigrants. The document also includes a call to “recenter America on the creator from whom all our liberties come” and to appoint judges who understand “the centrality of God in American history.”

So, his analogy is the civil war. His politics make it seem like he wants a southern victory after the fact. Perhaps he takes the possibility of northern secession seriously. Maybe that's why Southern Republicans are so big on the 2nd Amendment. At any rate, he thinks in terms of a war in a split country. And, his victory involves enriching the rich and sending more of the poor into hopeless, generational misery--neoliberalism's equivalent of slavery.

How to control this society? Fear of God. It's easy, with patriotic education (and people on this blog have criticized me for introducing left wing education camps..tsk. tsk, get with the program, people! educations camps are tres chic these days).

History? Please--Gingrich would leave that to the fact based community, those stuck in reality. Why believe facts when you can rewrite the history of the US as the history of a theocracy. This whole thing reminds me of the mockumentary I saw earlier in the fall about the CSA--confederate states of America. It's like Gingrich took the whole movie as a game plan.

I don't enjoy being anti-religion. I would like to have a religious sensibility. My kids sing in the church choir. I even got a little teary at their Christmas pageant this morning (my son was a shepherd with a speaking part, my daughter was a dancing camel). But with politics like this, anything that smacks of religion leads me into a kind of smoldering rage, a fury and anger that I can't see my way out of it. I know these people are not the only version of religion around, but they are so visible, and they want to turn the country into a theocracy--a sick, perverse, theocracy covering over a neoliberal economy. Sinthome has been talking about a similar frustration.

For crying out loud, that's like trying to have capitalism without capitalism, a Darwinian market with out the disintegrative social effects. Z readers (and most Marxists) know that the attempt to have capitalism without capitalism is another word for fascism.

 

Comments

[Sinthome]

Hear! Hear! I'm getting tired of pussyfooting around this religion issue. I was brought up high Episcopal, have a fetish for the Catholic church (no doubt due to my mother's Catholicism), and have a good deal of respect for the univeralism and attention to the marginal I find in many parables and sayings of the Gospels and in Paul. But increasingly I see exactly what you're here discussing, and I find myself infuriated by the way in which this is given by a free pass and by the bizarre manner in which those whom I'm politically allied with on a number of issue, but whom belong to the religious studies or theology camp, nonetheless defend these phenomena or dismiss them as "not real religion" when they're brought up. Apart from numerous other things, I would like to see thorough highschool and college teaching of American history with an emphasis on how Enlightenment thinkers thoroughly and pervasively influenced the Founding Fathers. I would like to see discussions of American history that actually explain what the Enlightenment was in concrete philosophical detail and why it was important with regard to European religious conflicts and monarchial forms of governance. I posted this the other day over at Larval Subjects and was roundly dismissed (I think, I couldn't even get clear on my interlocutors argument, with whom I often find myself sympathetic):

http://larval-subjects.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-i-get-frustrated-with-religious.html

I can't understand why this menace isn't both immediately recognized and roundly denounced.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Well I wouldn't say I dismissed you, I disagree with you. Let's see if I can get to the heart of it here.

What about Newt Gingrich's position is religious? Near as I can tell the word God or a belief that God has something to do with this nation. It seems to me this is religion without religion. Belief in God in such a deterritorialized Protestant mode (ie. without any kind of meaning, practices, tradition, Catholicity in the broad sense) is religion without religion.

Of course people denounce this kind of religiosity (without religion)! I do. Adam does. It's not like I've ever been of the position that people have to believe in God whenever someone says the word God. But you also get people who ascribe to religious belief filling in the gaps. Newt Gingrich's God is essentially an empty signifier because it is not attached to any religion, and yet it has meaning depending on who hears it. That is dangerous, surely, but I think it can't last and is ultimately not going to be the hegemonic power in the world. I honestly don't think you will ever have a theocratic America. That would necessitate a kind of determinate religious practice, instead what we have is a quasi-religious fascism of the mind.

My issue is that purely secular liberal critiques aren't going to solve the problem. Speaking of religion as if it is that thing there only and not the Catholic-Pagan beliefs that provides a kind of power for the people of Chiapas as well is myopic and intellectual vacuous. So, of course everyone should be disgusted with this kind of thing (the Gingrich thing), but I still don't think that means we understand what religion is. It deserves a deeper investigation than the pundit denunciation of bloggingdom that comes with rejecting certain religious phenomena.

So, to recap a little bit in some simple statements (sorry, I know I'm not often clear, it's a weakness of mine):

Yes, what Newt Gingrich is advocating has a religious element to it. However, it is not religion in and of itself. It should be denounced politically. But that should not excuse us from the actual investigation of religion anymore than we should give up the study of socialism because of the gulags. My point has always been that though we think we know what we mean by the word religion, we do not.

[Sinthome]

Then what you are discussing is entirely irrelevant to this issue, and while, perhaps, an intellectual amusement, has little to say or offer with this particular set of practices in the United States. By intervening in this way, you simply cloud the issue and function as a needless impediment to discussion.

[Sinthome]

Additionally, I'm not in the business of legislating people's identities. If Gingrich describes his motivations as religious in character, then I take him at his word. I also recognize that there are a number of other religious tendencies in the United States that are quite opposed to Gingrich's platform and particular understanding of Christianity. I'm quite happy to let them go their way, and have no interest in "disproving" their beliefs or showing that their a group of ignorant rubes. It is phenomena such as what Jodi describes in this post or that I've described that are of concern to me, regardless of whether they fit with your armchair conception of what religion is.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

"Then what you are discussing is entirely irrelevant to this issue, and while, perhaps, an intellectual amusement, has little to say or offer with this particular set of practices in the United States."

That's pretty much bullshit. That I have to explain why that is bullshit annoys the hell out of me. Anytime you discuss politics I'll have to point out that it is only an intellectual amusement and has nothing to do with actual politics. Anytime you discuss individuation I'll have to point out that it is only an armchair conception of individuation and has nothing to do with real individuation.

"Additionally, I'm not in the business of legislating people's identities."

I know that's not true, as I've been on the receiving end before.

"If Gingrich describes his motivations as religious in character, then I take him at his word."

Yeah, so did I! Jesus Christ man! My point was, "What does that mean?!" Something being religious is completely indeterminate and so you have to question it. Do you just want to disagree with me until I scream, "You're right! Religion is just a social organization that leads to violence and we'll only be saved when the secularists round them all up, the Gingrich's and the Pagans, and re-educate and/or kill them all!" It seems to me that what this comes down to is that you think religion is X and anyone who disagrees with you is ignoring the facts on the ground. Except, as I've tried to point out numerous times, you don't seem to have any conceptual matrix with which to interpret those facts on the ground. You have taken a moralistic position with regard to religion, whatever it is that you think it is (and I've noted at least three distinct things you've noted as being 'religious'), where religion is essentially the root of all evil and the only good things in religion are just liberal values with religious language, but that have nothing fundamental to do with religion itself.

If you want to get down to it, if you want to talk about brass tacks, about the reality on the ground, you are going to have to give more ground to religion, and Christianity in the Western context, than you want. Perhaps you take a naive view of the Enlightenment and you believe the picture usually told that there was this thing called the middle ages where everyone was batshit insane and then this amazing thing came along that was essentially atheistic and if everyone could have just gotten over their idiotic religious nature we would have world peace.

And, frankly, I don't know that Gingrich is all that wrong. Perhaps you missed all the God language in the founding documents of this country? Remember how I called that essentially religion without religion, a theocracy far more devious than a Church dictated one (and remember the opposition to Catholics in this country from the start)? Why are you not denouncing that? Do you honestly believe the revisionist history that the founding fathers didn't 'really' believe all that? Let's try and remember, please, that Jefferson was one person in the founding of the country and even he was a proponent of this religion without religion (which, for the last fucking time, is a variety of the religious but neither constitutes nor exhausts what exactly religion is).

But this is all armchair reflection, unlike the bitching about religion (because, again, we all know what that is!) that goes on at secular blogs (where everyone believes that they don't believe). Bitching about bat shit insane religious folks, now that's politically effective and philosophically interesting. And, I assume is done from chairs lacking arms.

[Sinthome]

Take a deep breath and go back and carefully read what I wrote in these comments and in the comments on Larval Subjects. I'm more than happy to agree with your thesis enunciated often that "religion" is a concept that only admits of family resemblances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance

It so happens that I'm talking about a *particular* member of the family of which Gingrich is an example. Unfortunately language being what it is, all I can do is qualify what I say (as I've repeatedly done), as no language is adequate to picking out a specific referent. Nowhere have I suggested that religion is the source of all evil. This is a claim that you've attributed to me, just as you've attributed to me the claim that I'm discussing religion in some catch-all universal sense that would include all religious activities. I suspect that this is because you *expect* to hear a certain sort of critique when these issues come up or because you project a certain vision of the person hostile to religion and therefore you ignore everything in the person you're addressing yourself to that contradicts that expectation. You're quite reactionary on these issues and more than a little sophistical in your arguments. At any rate, it is not the theology and whether or not x is true that is under discussion here (at least not for me, I can't speak for Jodi), but rather a particular social group with particular aims. As for your remarks about history... Well I guess you're to be excused given that it is not your area of study. Frankly I'm surprised that you would evoke the "founding document" argument, which is specious to say the least. Jefferson wasn't alone in his sentiments.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Perhaps you are under some illusion that the words you've written on these mattes present some kind of sophisticated, well argued position. They don't. I have read what you've written as carefully as they demand and frankly I don't think you know what you're talking about concerning religion. You're accusing me of creating some other in my head that is hostile to religion, yet I you say that there are people who try and give everything a free pass. Am I wrong in thinking that you are in part referring to me? As to the ad homs, whatever. You think I'm being sophistical and reactionary. I know you are but what am I? Come on! And then you go on to say that it's not theology or religious belief, it's about a social group. That's not sophistry? You don't see the obvious problem in your claim?

As to your other insult, the one about my not knowing history (you really love the academic card pulling), are you trying to tell me that the creation of this government was built on atheistic arguments? That there wasn't an appeal to both the God of Nature and a personal, creator God? I think you’re confusing the Church with religion, again. Jefferson, while wanting separation from the Church, seems very much to have believed that there was a God that rooted all laws in natural law which constitutes a kind of natural religion and an implicit theology. Now, I'm not in support of this, in fact I'm calling it religion without religion and this is not a positive term to me. I just point this out to show that you seem to be confused on religion and the American polis.

So, look, here is the bottom line. You can either decide to continue making bizarre claims about me or we can have a conversation. The third option is that we just don't talk about it. I'm guessing you'll go for three since you seem to have decided on what I am for this particular conversation (religious studies camp?).

[Sinthome]

Here's some bits from Jefferson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance

Anthony, I'm not interested in having a discussion about religion, I'm really not. I could care less. My only interest in this topic is the social and political impact of certain groups in the United States. These groups happen to call themselves religious so for lack of a better word I refer to them as religious. I don't know how many times I can tell you that I do not take it that these groups are definitive of all who call themselves religious. You keep making this an issue of what religion is or what Christianity is. That's not my affair.

You write: ". They don't. I have read what you've written as carefully as they demand and frankly I don't think you know what you're talking about concerning religion. You're accusing me of creating some other in my head that is hostile to religion, yet I you say that there are people who try and give everything a free pass. Am I wrong in thinking that you are in part referring to me?"

Look at what you wrote previously: "Yeah, so did I! Jesus Christ man! My point was, "What does that mean?!" Something being religious is completely indeterminate and so you have to question it. Do you just want to disagree with me until I scream, "You're right! Religion is just a social organization that leads to violence and we'll only be saved when the secularists round them all up, the Gingrich's and the Pagans, and re-educate and/or kill them all!" It seems to me that what this comes down to is that you think religion is X and anyone who disagrees with you is ignoring the facts on the ground. Except, as I've tried to point out numerous times, you don't seem to have any conceptual matrix with which to interpret those facts on the ground. You have taken a moralistic position with regard to religion, whatever it is that you think it is (and I've noted at least three distinct things you've noted as being 'religious'), where religion is essentially the root of all evil and the only good things in religion are just liberal values with religious language, but that have nothing fundamental to do with religion itself."

Now let's see Anthony, how would I arrive at the conclusion that you're projecting something onto me? Could it be that you say above that I'm suggesting that all religion is evil and the source of all suffering and that the world won't be safe until religion is eradicated? An ad hominem is an unjustified personal attack; but Anthony I believe my observation is warranted in this case. What Jodi has posted here refers to a very specific person (Gingrich), who has made very specific religious claims. These are claims I assume you don't advocate. Yet strangely in criticizing these claims you seem to assume that you're in the crosshairs and that all religious is in the crosshairs. Similarly, over at Larval Subjects I was referring to a very specific set of phenomena, yet strangely you seem to see yourself as the object of this criticism. There are only two possible conclusions here: either you identify with these things and that's why you're defending them, or you're missing what the issue is about.

[Sinthome]

ack, the link should have been:

http://nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

[Sinthome]

And some other nice tidbits from other Founding Fathers on religion:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/fathers_quote2.htm

[Jodi]

This seems pretty much like a continuation of your debate from Larval Subjects. What I find surprising, Anthony, is your reaction. If you reject Gingrich and agree that he is a bad guy, then how is it that you are interpellated by the post in such a way that you think you need to defend religion? In other words, what is at stake for you?

[Sinthome]

Apologies for the continuation, Jodi. Didn't mean to be a blog hog!

[Jodi]

not necessary at all--I should have been more alert to the fact that others have been writing on this theme

[pebird]

Getting upset at religion because of Gingrich is like getting upset at socialism because of National Socialism.

[Jodi]

PE Bird--do you really think this? I find the analogy farfetched. The Christian right has been on a crusade in the US--they want Christian judges, the teaching of intelligent design, school prayer, faith based government programs. They want to deny gay marriage and stem cell research and abortion--arguments they make on the basis of religion. And, there is also our war in Iraq--Bush'e mission from God.

Gingrich is here explicitly arguing for placing religion at the center of US policy/practice. It seems to be that the analogy that works would be "getting upset at religion because of Gingrich is like getting upset at nationalism because of national socialism."

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Sinthome

"Hear! Hear! I'm getting tired of pussyfooting around this religion issue."

"I'm not interested in having a discussion about religion, I'm really not. I could care less."

That should be enough said, but I’ve got a big mouth. As to your "specific phenomena" claim: you've repeatedly claimed that you want people to strongly condemn the religious right, you've denigrated theology as a 'nice hobby', and made claims about how religion should be understood. I don't see how you can pretend in the light of those facts that you somehow were being specific. Sounds to me like you're at the level of religion itself. The only thing I'm asking is that if you're going to examine it that you do so with respect to the level of your intelligence.

Jodi

I wasn't going to respond until Sinthome mentioned "those in the religious studies and theology camp" as defending this kind of thing. I have never defended such a thing, only said that a pious secularism is hardly a response. That if we are going to change this, we have to think about religion instead of assuming we know what it is. Frankly, the post just looked like another complaint about the religious right. You said it took you into a blind rage against all religion. That's fine, I'm OK with emotive responses, but it's not politically or intellectually sophisticated. Your field is politics whereas mine is religion. So, of course, I hope the level of understanding is elevated concerning it. To me this kind of discourse sounds like The Valve on Leftist politics. Does that make sense (ie. do you see what I'm getting at with such a comparison)? That being the case, I would have ignored it, but my name was intended.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Jodi,

Do you really believe that? You're equating religion with nationalism. I guess getting upset at analogy because of an insulting analogy is like getting upset at vegetarians for the Holocaust.

[Jodi]

Anthony--I didn't have you or anyone from our little corner of the blogosphere in mind when I wrote the post. But I see now that you had in mind Sinthome's post earlier and his comments here. My post is just another complaint about the religious right. And, I agree, there is nothing sophisticated about my affective response. I was just interested in the fact that I have an affective response to it and one that travels from the political sphere so as to make me all the more edgy (my son was taught about Moses in a social studies class on Egypt--this has upset me a great deal; my father uses a great deal of religious language and is highly expressive about his spiritual 'path'--given the politics of the day, it is ever more difficult for me to be react with tolerance and grace).

I don't know what you mean about the analogy. I'm not upset by PEBird's analogy--I just think it is wrong (not least because it links to the economic dimension--'socialism' rather than the dimension of collectivity articulated to the economic). I do think that religion in the US context is filling in for nationalism (plus religion) in the construction of American fascism (capitalism without capitalism).

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Jodi,

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I responded because Sinthome refrenced something I took to deal with me. I fully support your right, or whatever we want to call it, to have an affective response. I agree that a kind of religion is filling the void of nationalism, but my view is that it has filled that void from the beginning even with people like Jefferson. The thing is, I call it religion without religion. I found the analogy upseting becuase you equate religion as such with nationalism as such, wheras the point of PEbird, I think, was to say that socialism and national socialism have nothing in common. Gingrich is entrenched in a kind of religion, so I suppose I disagree with the analogy as well.

[pebird]

Look, the analogy was intended to mean that the object of criticism is misguided. Just as National Socialism had nothing to do with socialism, Gingrich and what he proposes to put in place have absolutely nothing to do religion other than in name.

But he uses the language of religion to gain political support, just as the Nazi's used the language of socialism to gain power.

Anyway, I've had this conversation before with Sinthome re: me asserting that there is some core of religion that is being perverted/subverted politically and he doesn't buy it. That's OK, I had that position before and am rethinking. "Religion" is a v.broad term - I don't believe in "real" religion, but there is something of value that is very easily taken over and used against it's teaching. I find that fascinating psychologically and poltically - I don't pretend to know how it operates; it just seems too dismissive to say - well, that's just the way religion is. In fact, isn't is striking that religion can be so easily perverted? Something people assume to be at their core of being is so easily manipulated? That was also part of my reference to the National Socialists.

I agree that in the US "religion" is filling in for nationalism - but we're arguing about labels. And these judges are about as "Christian" as DeLay and Foley.

And we have a responsibilty to call BS when people mislabel themselves. It is not correct to say "I take him at his word". You wouldn't if he called himself a Lacanian. It's only because he calls himself religious (which I guess we could substitute "dog shit" - as in "I don't care if calls himself dog shit). The lack of respect is pretty thick. But we fool ourselves if we think this is religious feeling at work. If we call ourselves critics and psychologists and political analysts, we need to figure out how these mechanisms work and expose them so they lose their power to persuade.

[Jodi]

PE Bird--It isn't clear to me why we should deny that Gingrich, or G W Bush, say, are religious when they say they are religious. I can criticize their version of religion (and I take this to be part of a great deal of debate and discussion among Christians, the rejection of some fundamentalist versions for their hatred and cruelty, and the offering instead of Christ's message in terms that involve 'so ye do unto the least these do ye also to me). But, it seems to me that to deny them their claim to religion is to say from the get go that they are manipulative, hypocritical, and possibly insane. And, this doesn't strike me as politically promising.

[Sinthome]

Anthony writes:

""Hear! Hear! I'm getting tired of pussyfooting around this religion issue."

"I'm not interested in having a discussion about religion, I'm really not. I could care less."

That should be enough said, but I’ve got a big mouth. As to your "specific phenomena" claim: you've repeatedly claimed that you want people to strongly condemn the religious right, you've denigrated theology as a 'nice hobby', and made claims about how religion should be understood. I don't see how you can pretend in the light of those facts that you somehow were being specific. Sounds to me like you're at the level of religion itself. The only thing I'm asking is that if you're going to examine it that you do so with respect to the level of your intelligence."

Let's see if I can go round 15. I don't know about you, but I was brought up with the rule that you are never to discuss another person's religious beliefs, that these are sancrosant and off limits. The consequence of this principle is that anyone who advances a political platform on the grounds of religious beliefs is beyond question and critique, as religious belief is treated as unquestionable. It is my belief that the religious right has used this principle to its advantage, so as to advance a set of positions that pertain to *public* matters under the raidar. When I say "I'm tired of pussyfooting around the religion issue", I'm saying I'm tired of this free pass where *political* matters are concerned.

When I say I don't want to have a discussion about religion, my point is that in this context I'm not interested in questions of whether or not god exists, whether Jesus was the son of god, whether Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, and so on. My concerns are the same ones Jodi mentions: the appointment of rightwing Christian judges (and no I don't believe that all Christians are rightwing), the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, faith based programs, denying gay marriage, stem cell research, and abortion. It so happens that it's a particular well organized and well funded group that is advancing this agenda: Rightwing fundamentalist Christians. Not all Christians are rightwing fundamentalist Christians, and I don't have any objections to these other Christians. I've tried to emphasize this repeatedly and have said a number of positive things about religion in all of my posts, yet inexplicably you still claim that I'm talking about all religion. A good deal of my training has been at religious schools and I'm proud of the Episcopal church's history of progressive engagement as the first to appoint female clergy, one of the first to initiate interfaith dialogues, and the first to appoint a gay bishop. I believe the Episcopal church arrives at these positions legitimately through a certain reading of scripture, not despite scripture. I also find the universalism of the Catholic church admirable: it's consistent support of pacifism, it's stance against the death penalty, and general support of the poor and struggling... Though I dislike the attitude of the Catholic church towards women and sexuality.

I don't know what else to tell you to convince you that my bone is with the Christian right as a social movement. When I express frustration with the religious studies crowd, this is because I believe their tendency to make this an issue of theology obscure the issue, which I see as a matter of a particular social and political movement that has had a massive impact on how the United States is governed. I applaud those religious thinkers who try to show that the religious right has a mistaken reading of scripture and who actively seek to organize a social movement that counters this movement. What I don't understand is your apparent defense of what I posted on my blog and what Jodi has posted here, nor do I understand why we're even having this conversation or why you're demonizing me for being fed up and disturbed by things like this. It's as if the criticism of *anything* religious is prohibited by you, and as if you support *anything* that speaks in the name of religion. Throughout this exchange you've continuously posed a false alternative: religion or atheism. For instance, you write this:

"If you want to get down to it, if you want to talk about brass tacks, about the reality on the ground, you are going to have to give more ground to religion, and Christianity in the Western context, than you want. Perhaps you take a naive view of the Enlightenment and you believe the picture usually told that there was this thing called the middle ages where everyone was batshit insane and then this amazing thing came along that was essentially atheistic and if everyone could have just gotten over their idiotic religious nature we would have world peace."

Where have I said anything like that and where have I made it a matter of atheism? If I say that the religious right makes me sympathetic to Dawkins, then this is because hearing Gingrich make false claims about American history or the likes of Pat Robertson claiming that Hurricane Katrina is Gods punishment for homosexuality and sexually loose lifestyles makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and commit the whole thing to flames. But once again, just as I think those who make this an issue of theology are asking the wrong questions, conflating what is essentially a social movement requiring sociological analysis with a metaphysical dispute, I also think the atheist that makes it an issue of disproving God or the divine is engaged in the wrong sort of project. I've denegrated theology as a nice hobby as I don't see it as responding to the issues I'm talking about.

As for my desire to see the story of the Enlightenment impact on the Founding Fathers told with greater force and clarity in the United States, the point here isn't one of religious belief versus atheism, so much as critical inquiry and a rejection of superstition and authority as grounds of knowledge. This spirit very much animated the Founding Fathers. You correctly point out that the Enlightenment can't be treated as an atheistic movement. Some Enlightenment thinkers were believers, others were not. However, there was a tremendous difference in the nature of their belief (most Enlightenment believers were deists and saw Jesus as a moralist, not the son of God). The nature of their relationship to scripture was a far cry from what we get from the religious right with its emphasis on the apocalypse, judgment, punishment, and divine miracles. Not only do I think this story more accurately represents the founding principles of the United States, but I also believe it generates a very different, far more positive politics.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I don't see the point in continuing as we're still speaking past one another. Not sure why or how to remedy it, but we both seem to think that we're being considered something we're not.

I will end by saying that I find no difficulity in hating both Dawkins and Robertson, without one making me feel any sympathy for the other.

[Adam Kotsko]

Sinthome, in your very first post, you essentially said that "this Gingrich thing == religion" and that some mysterious "religious studies" people are blind to this. Then when pressed you said it's not your job to define religion, when in point of fact: you did.

But just so you know: I unequivocally denounce and reject Newt Gingrich and the entire religious right. I wish that they had no power or influence over society whatsoever; in fact, I think that many of their leaders are pretty much criminals. I was raised in a "religious-right" environment and decisively rejected it.

I did not reject all of Christianity, even though it is undeniable that they are practicing a form of Christianity. Christianity is much bigger than the contemporary American religious right movement; this isn't a value judgment, but a simple fact. There is a lot of awful stuff going on in Christianity, and there is also a lot of great stuff. Recognition of that prevents me from taking a position on "Christianity as such."

So you should probably stop being so knee-jerk and say "religious right" when you mean "religious right." When you're opposing the "religious right," I am 110% on board with you -- in fact, I probably oppose them MORE passionately than you do to personal issues. There's no need to make insinuations about people who are drawing distinctions that you refuse to draw.

(I find the term "religion" to be completely unhelpful and so am limiting my remarks to the specific "religion" that is relevant to our context.)

[Adam Kotsko]

I also note that some stupid after-the-fact remarks by Pat Robertson make you want to consign religion to the flames, but apparently the gulag does not have any effect on your faith in the beneficent effects of secularism. In fact, for all the hand-waving about the destructive effects of religion, no one seems to want to acknowledge that the *really* big bloodbaths have been due to good old nationalism, scientific racism, or international communism.

People are fully capable of killing each other en masse without God being involved. WEIRD, I KNOW.

[Sinthome]

Adam I'm glad to hear this, as it's all that really perplexed me about Anthony's remarks. You write, "In fact, for all the hand-waving about the destructive effects of religion, no one seems to want to acknowledge that the *really* big bloodbaths have been due to good old nationalism, scientific racism, or international communism." I'm not sure how this is being denied. There are lots of human formations that generate horror. I will say that nationalism has often beed deeply tied up with certain forms of religion. Hitler, for instance, appealed to Christianity a good deal in his speeches. All of these sources of horror need to be addressed. There has also been good that's come out of communism and science, just as there's been good that's come out of religion. The question is under what conditions do these things turn bad. As for the size of these bloodbaths, I tend to think this was the result of technology more than anything else: the ability to kill on a larger scale than ever before. I don't see much difference between the Salem witch burnings and the Soviet Gulags.

Over at Larval Subjects you write: "If you need to vent, that's okay. Venting is cool. But your doctrinaire atheism is blinding you to necessary distinctions and to potential allies." I don't believe I've said whether I'm an atheist one way or another. First, I think my numerous posts in response to this diary and the diary over there indicate that I am making the distinctions you're calling for. Second, suppose that I am an atheist and we share many of the same values. Are you suggesting that our alliance is dependent on me sharing your beliefs in divinity? Is it possible for someone to believe those beliefs are mistaken-- as one might think another philosophical position is mistaken --and still have an alliance based on similar aims? One example of such an alliance that comes to mind would be the alliance between NOW or the National Organization of Women and the Christian Right years ago, where they crusaded together against pornography. What is it, exactly, you want from the atheist? Should the atheist cease trying to promote secularism in order to be your ally?

[Jodi]

Adam--I find your last point strange, as if you think that states should be religious. In other words, it seems as if you are criticizing some regimes on the grounds of their secularism/atheism, which suggests that you might entertain the possibility that 'good' states are those founded on or motivated by religious convictions and principles. Is that your view?

Also, it seems factually wrong to say that no one acknowledges (or wants to acknowledge) bloodbaths caused by nationalism, scientific racism, or international communism. Part of this very thread invokes national socialism (which can count for both nationalism and scientific racism). On 'international communism,' I'm more skeptical since I don't think that term is synonymous with either the worst excesses of Stalinism or the cultural revolution in China.

[Sinthome]

Ack, I should emphasize that I'm not endorsing the NOW/Christian-right aims, just giving it as an example of radically opposed ideologies able to form an alliance.

[Andrew]

A sideways rant from someone with no academic credibility or credentials:

I think what is most reactionary about blanket criticism or dismissal of religion (by American secularists) is the way it loops back to a valorization of the Founding Daddies.

Only delusion or deliberate obfuscation would posit the U.S. and American nationalism as anything but uniquely and irreducibly Christian in character. The Right is right about this, historically and empirically: the U.S.A. is a Christian nation.

The "City on the Hill" shit is just as operative as it ever was, it's just refracted through a different discourse.

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/124245.htm

The secular appeal to the letter of the Law enables one to bracket the operative cultural logic and discourse of the country (ie, actually-existing America) only, as I say, to valorize genocidal imperial-liberalism.

An honest inquiry must think liberalism and Protestant Christianity together, not artificially separate them.

Making a fetish of secularism, meanwhile (not saying anyone here's done that), leads to fuckers like Sam Harris advocating torture of Muslims and pickled dipshits like Hitchens advocating imperialist slaughter while--big surprise--publishing half-baked hagiographies of Jefferson.

It's neither Dawkins nor Gingrich for me, too. But I am an atheist, if that matters.

[Andrew]

Hrm, irreducibly is okay, but I think I meant something quite different, such as inextricably, in the above.

What's Derrida's formulation in another context? "Irreducibly but irrevocably," I think. That works.

[Adam Kotsko]

Emphasis on the "doctrinaire." Go ahead and be an atheist all you want. I don't mind. I personally don't practice any particular religion right now and have no concrete plans to restart.

On the Hitler point, there's a difference between manipulating people based on their religion and actually founding your political program on that religion. Religion did allow people to be more easily fleeced by the Nazis, but there is no sense in which the Nazi program was "based on" Christianity -- in fact, the ideology was an attempt to reassert a kind of paganism over against Christianity. And although Christian anti-Semitism predisposed people to look the other way, it was not the motivating force of the powers who implemented the policy -- they were using principles of scientific racism, etc., that cannot plausibly be called the responsibility of Christianity.

Also, claiming that Stalin was more like "religion" is just ridiculous. It's just a way of asserting "secularism == good" and then defining out anything that contradicts it.

Jodi, I don't have any particular view on how states should be founded. I'm just saying that secularists and atheists have a whole lot of blood on their hands and that worrying about the huge violent capacity of "religion" is a red herring. Again, religion can be used to manipulate people -- and that's something that needs to be critiqued and corrected -- but there's a difference between its use as propaganda and its use as an actual basis for policy.

[Sinthome]

This is just false:

"Only delusion or deliberate obfuscation would posit the U.S. and American nationalism as anything but uniquely and irreducibly Christian in character. The Right is right about this, historically and empirically: the U.S.A. is a Christian nation."

America was founded as a multiplicity. There were those among the founding fathers that were deeply Christian and there were those who were deeply suspicious of organized religion. It cannot be unequivocally stated that "America was founded as a Christian nation."

[Sinthome]

Adam writes: "On the Hitler point, there's a difference between manipulating people based on their religion and actually founding your political program on that religion. Religion did allow people to be more easily fleeced by the Nazis, but there is no sense in which the Nazi program was "based on" Christianity -- in fact, the ideology was an attempt to reassert a kind of paganism over against Christianity. And although Christian anti-Semitism predisposed people to look the other way, it was not the motivating force of the powers who implemented the policy -- they were using principles of scientific racism, etc., that cannot plausibly be called the responsibility of Christianity."

I'm unable to make the distinction you make here. Insofar as I can't read Hitler's mind and plumb the depths of his true motives, I can only go on the basis of what he said and wrote, and must therefore take this as one of the forms that Christianity can take. I'm glad that it takes other forms such as that articulated by you when you aren't caught up in a phantasmatic heroic crusade defending Christianity against the wickedly maurading atheists, bent on destroying belief.

You write: "Emphasis on the "doctrinaire." Go ahead and be an atheist all you want. I don't mind. I personally don't practice any particular religion right now and have no concrete plans to restart."

Again, how are you arriving at this conclusion based on what I've written? Hopefully your university emphasizes the virtues of careful reading as a part of critical thinking. Quit attributing claims to me that I haven't made, such as this little chestnut: "Also, claiming that Stalin was more like "religion" is just ridiculous. It's just a way of asserting "secularism == good" and then defining out anything that contradicts it."

[Andrew]

"America was founded as a multiplicity. There were those among the founding fathers that were deeply Christian and there were those who were deeply suspicious of organized religion. It cannot be unequivocally stated that "America was founded as a Christian nation."'

I said, or at least it was my intention to say, that America is and has always been a Christian nation. That is not quite the same as saying "founded as a Christian nation." But again, the operative logics of the U.S.--manifest destiny and American exceptionalism--cannot be thought apart from Protestant Christianity. There is no U.S.A. without Christianity, and to suggest that the MOST Christian nation on earth (check the stats, for what they'e worth: something like 80% of Americans believe the Bible is the revealed word of God) is in fact secular is patently delusional. The State can say the nation is secular, and encode separation of church and state in law, just as the USSR could call itself a "Union" of "Socialist" "Soviets" when it was nothing of the sort. I'm talking actually existing, yo.

[Adam Kotsko]

Sinthome, DUDE! Nazi ideology is not exactly shrowded in mystery! Surely it's possible to draw the line between propagandistic lip-service and the actual agenda. Your faux agnosticism is ridiculous.

Also, you compared Stalin to the Salem Witch Trials. And in every damn conversation I've had with you, you've behaved as a doctrinaire atheist. I call them like I see them. You are knee-jerk anti-religious in all cases that I have ever seen. The only time you toned it down was once when I got really mad at you.

[Sinthome]

"Sinthome, DUDE! Nazi ideology is not exactly shrowded in mystery! Surely it's possible to draw the line between propagandistic lip-service and the actual agenda. Your faux agnosticism is ridiculous."

How would I go about doing this? Accepting the Deleuzian thesis of immanence, the only thing I'm capable of going on is what people actually say. I can't read into the hearts of men, nor, I think, can you. Can I look at Hitler and say that was a mighty unChristian way of acting in terms of how I understand Christianity? You bet. But just as little as I can determine whether the beliefs of my analysands are genuine, can I determine whether or not Hitler's motives were genuinely religious.

"Also, you compared Stalin to the Salem Witch Trials. And in every damn conversation I've had with you, you've behaved as a doctrinaire atheist. I call them like I see them. You are knee-jerk anti-religious in all cases that I have ever seen. The only time you toned it down was once when I got really mad at you."

I think this is a misunderstanding on your part. The only time I get worked up is with regard to religious right issues, and that is my only dog in this fight. The gulag/witch-trial point wasn't to indicate that Stalin is religious, but that both crimes are equally atrocious, despite the difference in scale. The broader theme of my political concerns isn't religion, but certain forms of identification. *Certain forms* of religion are just one instance of these types of identificatory structures. I've found that you have a marked tendency to ignore these qualifications I make and the admiration and praise I express in other regards and connections. Not quite sure why that is, unless you're *expecting* to be attacked.

[Sinthome]

No disagreement with your statistics, Andrew. The question is not one of statistics but how the meme "America was *founded* as a Christian nation" functions to legitimate a certain politics.

[Adam Kotsko]

It's against Deleuzian philosophy to make obvious inferences about motivations?!

[Sinthome]

It's against Deleuzian thought to refer to transcendent standards or what is not given in the given.

[Adam Kotsko]

Let's compare this to the contemporary situation. Republicans pay lip service to the moral concerns of the religious right, then cut taxes for the rich. Are we to assume there's some form of Christianity that encourages lying and reckless fiscal policy, or do we infer that Christianity is being used instrumentally? If it's the former, then what possible use is the label "Christianity"?

[Adam Kotsko]

Okay, cross-posted -- I don't know what to think, other than that you're trying to use really high-flown philosophical concepts to cover up the fact that you're empirically wrong on this point.

Just concede! It'd be so easy. I'll be gentle with you, I promise.

[Sinthome]

Empirically wrong on what point? Empirically I don't believe in a doctrine of transcendent forms that would allow us to distinguish true Christianity from false Christianity. We only have what various groups of people call "Christianity". As Forrest Gump would say, religion is as religion does. The trick has always been to believe that there's some pure inner essence beyond the social actuality. Here I think the final chapter of Lacan's 11th seminar is relevant: In you more than yourself. Your job is to take that actuality and turn it into something quite different in a socially potent way. Absent that, all this high theological talk about the true inner essence just functions like a fishing lure to rationalize that which shouldn't be. I suspect we have very different ideas as to what is "empirical".

[Adam Kotsko]

Oh, come on!

I'm not saying something like "Nazism can't be a form of Christianity because Nazism is bad" -- I'm saying that the self-understanding of the Nazi movement was explicitly anti-Christian, though for practical purposes they co-opted the Christian churches. I do not have to search into the recesses of Hitler's mind or into the ontological essence of Christianity to know this -- it's all a matter of public record at this point.

[pebird]

Not to step into the middle of an exciting discussion, but I would like to respond to Jodi's:

"It isn't clear to me why we should deny that Gingrich, or G W Bush, say, are religious when they say they are religious."

That is a very tough point. On the one hand by granting them their claim, we forgo that ground; we don't want to play on the terrain of the religious. So we grant them authority over a critical social context. On the other, on what grounds do we deny their claim? By pointing out they are not acting in accordance to doctrine? That doesn't seem very powerful.

I do think in the last election the public got a whiff of their cynicism & hypocricy (if not insanity) - perhaps Gingrich's statements were a way to test the waters - where is public opinion, how hard should we push, etc.

I certainly don't wish to grant these characters some moral high ground - even when seized in so blatant a manner. Even if it is not a position I wish to hold/control.

Perhaps we should neither grant nor deny their claim, be a little Bartleby about the matter. It's hard to criticise their version of religion when we deny religion any legitimate place in politics.

I said once, somewhere, that religion was politics by other means. I meant it as a complement; I see politics as the highest form of social human activity.

[N. Pepperell]

I have to admit, I'm a bit confused on this:

"Accepting the Deleuzian thesis of immanence, the only thing I'm capable of going on is what people actually say. I can't read into the hearts of men, nor, I think, can you."

Which is then glossed with this:

"It's against Deleuzian thought to refer to transcendent standards or what is not given in the given."

First, in that I think it's certainly fair to analyse forms of communication and action that transcend speech (and, in particular, speech that takes place in a specific context, and may even contradict speech, let alone the communicative value of other forms of action, in other contexts).

And, second, in that I'm not clear how the first relates in any direct way to the second. I am also generally loathe to make, e.g., reductions from "essence to appearance" (along the lines of, e.g., "they may say their motives are religious, but in reality, they are financial", etc.) - I tend to take seriously the values in the names of which people say they are acting (without, however, discounting that actions can be overdetermined, so to speak). I think this can be an important, and sometimes neglected, dimension of understanding the emergence and perpetuation of any social movement. But I'm not sure I would suggest that "what is given in the given" is quite identical to taking someone at their word? Or that we are claiming to read someone's heart, when we are interpretation a wide range of "communications" of various sorts?

Sociologically - and speaking very, very gesturally here - I tend to think at least one contributing factor to the periodic surge of these particular kinds of religious movements is a strong ascetic core within capitalism, which creates an experiential reservoir that can then be articulated or inflected into more rigid theologies - accentuated in particular historical periods by the closing off of other possibilities for effective collective action...

I don't see this (and I don't imagine you do, either) as an issue of "religion", but as a kind of recurrent vulnerability generated by the structural consequences of some quite secular practices - which doesn't mean that those who have the power to articulate and propagate these visions of religious practice hold no blame for the part they play in mobilising this vulnerability in a particular form...

But the important issue isn't really allocating blame, but determining an effective political response. My guess would be, short of fundamental structural transformation, effective responses would be multifaceted - and your suggestion that we need to rehabilitate the critical and anti-traditional elements of Enlightenment thought is not intrinsically incompatible with approaches that wish to advocate for alternative visions of religious identity and practice (among other things, I'm constantly surprised about how confused people seem to be about the need for a secular state - as though these forms of governance emerged as some kind of recent favour to atheists, rather than as a much older consideration to non-conforming religions... - intervening to reinforce this level of historical awareness could actually capture some of the strange perception of victimisation that permeates certain movements...).

Apologies for what are probably somewhat scattered thoughts on the issue - in part, I'm trying to get to the bottom of the discussion, which feels to me like something I'm entering in medias res... Apologies if I've missed too many earlier rounds to intervene meaningfully...

[Andrew]

Sinthome: "The question is not one of statistics but how the meme "America was *founded* as a Christian nation" functions to legitimate a certain politics."

Oh Christ, now with Dawkins' meme-theory!

I kid.

Not that my credibility matters, but putting the "America was founded" bit in quotation marks suggests it's a quotation from the discussion, when it's not. I never said that. But I might have.

Clinging to the fact that some of the founding bourgeois elite weren't explicit theists, hardly seems like a not knock-down argument against the overall role and influence of theological categories and Christianity itself in the founding of the American nation. And Anthony Paul Smith's gesture toward natural law, etc, is on the money by my reckoning.

More to the point: if the "America was founded" meme legitimates a certain politics, mightn't the Gingrich/Bush are exemplary of Christian religion meme legitimate a certain conception of religion or Christianity? (ie, one opposed by many religious people or Christians).

I may have this wrong, but I see you (Sinthome) defending the republic in the same terms you rebuke Adam or Anthony for defending Christianity ("defend," "Christianity," etc, may not be the best terms here, I realize). That is, if "religion is as religion does," than "republic is as republic does," and the republic acts as the most Christian(ized) society and population in the history of earth.

Crying out that Jefferson didn't want it that way--that the TRUE ESSENCE OF AMERICA IS SECULAR--is no different than suggesting present-day Christianity-in-action is unrepresentative of its founding spirit.

Same argumentation, different argument or vantage.

Maybe the reason you guys talk past each other is because you speak exactly the same language (only from different starting points).

[Andrew]

I wrote: if "religion is as religion does," than "republic is as republic does."

Wrong thEn. Apologies.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Sinthome,

Wow... that was kind of nuts. I don't know what you're quite getting at with the 'method of immanence' since many Nazi speeches were anti-Christian, the party was anti-Catholic, the SS created their own kind of pagan liturgy for official ceremonies, etc. It is quite immanent to the situation. I'm not sure where you got the impression that he was making a transcendent argument. No where is he saying "True Christianity is good, Hitler's is not true, etc." He's saying that religion was used, not that it wasn't, but that this was not constitive of a theocracy or Christianity being at the heart of policy planning. You seem to actually want to critisize Jodi, since if Stalin and Mao saw themselves as practicing or believing in international socialism who are we to question that?

Andrew,

Could be.

[Sinthome]

"He's saying that religion was used, not that it wasn't, but that this was not constitive of a theocracy or Christianity being at the heart of policy planning. You seem to actually want to critisize Jodi, since if Stalin and Mao saw themselves as practicing or believing in international socialism who are we to question that?"

Anthony, we're not... Stalin and Mao were practicing one form of socialism. That's very different than claiming that *all* forms of socialism are what Stalin and Mao were doing, or that all forms of socialism lead to the Cultural Revolution and the Gulag. I can't speak for Jodi, but I'd be surprised if she rejected this. This is an example of what I mean by a "sophistry". You choose an example that's really bad-- "Stalin!" --to manipulatively place your interlocutor in the situation of choosing between better and worse. It's a bit like the argument that if you are critical of military solutions to terrorism, you must support terrorists. One can both be opposed to Stalin, recognize that Stalin's regime was one form socialism took, *and* believe that better forms of socialism are possible.

Similarly, there are ugly moments in the history of democracy. The first principle of sociological thought as that you take groups as they describe themselves. If the Ku Klux Klan describes itself as a Christian movement, I take them at their word. It's perfectly legitimate for me to point out that this is not how I conceive Christianity or what I think it means to be Christian, but it doesn't change the fact that they conceive themselves as Christian. In engaging in a sociological analysis of national socialism, I'm required not to ask whether or not their Christianity was genuine, but only how it functioned *for them*. Likewise, if I have an analysand that is high Pentacostal, as I have had, it is not for me as analyst to determine whether or not it's true that this person receives "rays of God" when they lift their hands in worship, only to determine how this particular way of conceiving one's relationship to god functions for them. Zizek makes the point well apropos Pascal-- It is the actual practices alone that are here relevant.

Similarly, I am unable to determine whether Hitler was using Christianity cynically to manipulate the German people or whether he genuinely believed in it. You allude to pagan practices as one criteria, yet there are many moments in the history of Christian practices where various groups could be construed as pagan in one way or another. One might evoke the horrendous acts of the Nazis, yet certain sects of Christians have also done horrendous things.

There's a nice passage from Lacan's 11th seminar that gets at the point I'm trying to make: "In the classical tale of Zeuxis and Parrhasios, Zeuxis has the advantage of having made grapes that attracted the birds. The stress is placed not on the fact that these grapes were in any way perfect grapes, but on the fact that even the eye of the birds was taken in by them. This is proved by the fact that his friend Parrhasios triumphs over him for having painted on the wall a veil, a veil so lifelike that Zeuxis, turning towards him said, 'Well, and now show us what you have painted behind it'" (103).

The veil in this little proverb *fascinates* by leading us to ask what is behind it, in much the same way that Adam and Eve were never capable of being naked until they *first* put on clothes. When Deleuze evokes an art of the surface in _The Logic of Sense_ and elsewhere as a principle of sense, he is enjoining us to look at the immanent organization of the surface, and not to participate in the metaphysical lure productive of identity that asks what's behind the surface. Take the case of Heidegger for instance. Heidegger is able to identify with the Nazi movement by believing that there is more in Nazism than what presents itself at the surface, that it hides some hidden truth that justifies all its other facile and horrifying actions.

The point is the same with Christianity. If we say that Christianity is something more than the various social actualizations of Christianity in the social sphere, that there's some deep and sublime inner essence against which actualizations of Christianity are measured as adequate or inadequate, we're engaging in a Platonizing metaphysics that behaves in much the same way as this parable of the veil. It's precisely this belief that there's something behind the veil that attaches us to these movements. The German Christian, no doubt, said "well I don't feel that this measures up to everything I believe to be Christian, but nonetheless the inner essence of Christianity hides behind these things and besides, the world is not a perfect place, so we must balance our yearning for perfect Christianity against what is actually available."

Fortunately for the Christian there are many other forms of actually existing Christian social practices that are not of the sort practiced by the Nazis or Pat Robertson or the people of Salem. It seems to me that one of the problems with tis discussion is the inability to acknowledge that both Nazism and these other practices are forms that religious practice can take. One uses, for instance, pejorative terms like "that's just paganism!" as a way of dismissing and ignoring what is disliked. There seems to be a lot of black or white, either/or, thinking going on in this discussion. "Either Christianity is good or Christianity is bad." Symptomatic of this is Adam's most recent post over at the weblog where he portrays me as making the inference that because a particular form of religious practice is bad, religious practice tout court is bad: "The main point I'm trying to make is that the jump from a denunciation of the religious right or the various "fundamentalisms" to a denunciation of religion tout court is illogical." I've never once made such a claim, not once. Yet the fact that Adam so readily perceives me as making this claim is symptomatic of the whole problem with this discussion. Every post I've written in this exchange has been qualified, including the first post over at Larval Subjects, yet still, somehow, it's perceived that I'm denouncing all religion. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that for Adam the criticism of *any* religious practices is off limits. When I expressed frustration at the religious studies crowd in my first post, it was this that I was getting at. Rather than focusing on the excesses and problems of the religious right, which we all seem to agree is pernacious (at least which Adam and I agree, you haven't come out against this surprisingly), we've instead engaged in a non-starter discussion for 49 posts on whether the wicked secularists are trying to tear down religion tout court. I suspect these secularists just want to be left alone.

[Sinthome]

"More to the point: if the "America was founded" meme legitimates a certain politics, mightn't the Gingrich/Bush are exemplary of Christian religion meme legitimate a certain conception of religion or Christianity? (ie, one opposed by many religious people or Christians)."

Here I think you're reading more into things than has been claimed. I don't think I've anywhere said that Bush/Gingrich are *exemplary* of Christianity anywhere. In fact, I haven't even mentioned Bush anywhere, though Anthony Paul Smith saw fit to say that I was talking about Bush over at Larval Subjects. I'm only interested in their claims because they happen to intervene in American life in a particularly noxious way. The issue isn't one of Christianity tout court, but of a particular group that calls itself Christian that is trying to effect a certain change. The implication of your remark seems to be that this shouldn't be discussed at all.

"I may have this wrong, but I see you (Sinthome) defending the republic in the same terms you rebuke Adam or Anthony for defending Christianity ("defend," "Christianity," etc, may not be the best terms here, I realize). That is, if "religion is as religion does," than "republic is as republic does," and the republic acts as the most Christian(ized) society and population in the history of earth."

This is a very good observation and I don't have any rejoinder to it. On the one hand, I'm only interested in how the phrase "America was *founded* as a Christian nation" has functioned rhetorically to legitimate a certain way of understanding the Constitution and the relationship between church and state. I've heard this phrase all my life, I wasn't attributing it to you. On the other hand, the best one can do is try to "seed" other historical conceptions as a way of contesting these things. Just as this is always an available gesture when talking about the republic, this is also always an available gesture when talking about religion. For instance, rather than dismissing the Pat Robertson view of Christianity, one can instead give a different reading of scripture and the history of how it's been read as a way of producing in actuality a different Christian practice and community. I take it that this is some of what Adam is engaged in. What I don't understand is why one would concede so much to the "America was founded as a Christian nation" rhetoric, when this rhetoric has been used in such a noxious way.