This writer finds it curious that some times the most religiously aligned political actors use their political power to suspend the morality of their own religion.  Our current President is criticizing and denouncing Catholicism’s leader for speaking out in support of Catholic biblical morality.  Christianity’s New Testament teachings in morality are in clear apparent conflict  when it comes the cruelty and warring minds of our current administration. To our President’s chagrin the new Pope has sided with morality in this time of USA’s surge of political amorality.  The Pope using his genuine pulpit for the promotion of  morality. I believe is what is supposed to happen when political man’s Bully Pulpit jettisons morality, so I wonder at the surprise.

Let face it, religion and politics are often at odds and sometimes  the tension of this conflict is necessary to force the crafting of solutions that are at once moral and powerful. The creation of that tension is exactly why the founders of our Constitution put the separation in our system.  The separation of the human practice of power and religion allow both political power and religion to reconcile and move forward.  Politics is power and one can almost count on any politician who wants to merge religion with the power of politics is at odds with the morality of that religion because they lack the patience and skill to reconcile what is needed. The Department of Defense (can’t even call it Department of War for that name is a temporary aberration) is a case study.  Our leader in that department can only use his religiosity with so little internal conflict because it seems he has stepped aside the moral requirements of his religion in exchange for the prestige of secular power. That could be called the Devil’s Bargain.  Between him and his boss, this very religious nation is acting with near a perfect amorality visible to the entire world while we seem to have become blind to ourselves.

Modest Proposal for Good

I used the conflation of new/old because we Americans are newly acting out the oldest error in history. This should be obvious in this country with so many Christian citizens because their Jesus died in the teeth of the politics/religion conflict.  Scan the globe and its many diverse religious traditions and you will find this tragic play being acted out over and over, time after time.  This Project is simply pointing back to the separation of church and state. We, as a nation, have made many mistakes in the practice of creating a tolerant, respectful negotiating space between church and state and had succeeded in the process to maintain an uneasy peace.  With this administration we have lost ground because tolerance is hard and requires leadership skills and respect requires . . . well, . . .respect. Good tolerance and respect are the necessary thresholds for this pluralistic very diverse religious nation. They are the virtues that could save us which would be good.