Today's Coffee-Spew Moment- Believing That Oklahoma Is "God's Country"
If that's the case, God- if She exists- has a wicked sense of humor, don'tchathink? Have you been to Oklahoma?
It is my sincere desire that my research and hard work will help create a world where we all learn to walk this Earth, safe, enlightened and free from the perils of cruelty, ignorance, and all the other dark and sinister forces, which make assholes possible.
Alexei Maxim Russell, Alexei Maxim Russell's Field Guide to Assholes
For those of you who are Evangelical Christians or slept through your high school Civics class, what I’m about to tell you will seem inconvenient. You may not think this is an actual thing, but the separation of Church and State is absolute, as is the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Both of those things prevent our government from providing preferential treatment to one faith tradition.
Of course, I recognize that many are willing to overlook this inconvenient reality on their way to creating a fascist theocracy. Just know that what you’re trying to do has nothing whatsoever to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Or the Constitution.
While WPN founders, right-wing activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick, often use the program as a conduit for the promotion of wild conspiracy theories, Wednesday night’s program featuring a conservative Christian political strategist named Aamon Ross who runs a political consulting business called Kingdom In Politics, the purpose of which is to “prepare and inspire believers to take an active role in politics.”
Ross revealed that he got involved in politics in 2016 after literally hearing the voice of God instruct him to do, prompting him to team up with his good friend Kevin Stitt to run Stitt’s successful campaign for governor in Oklahoma.
“I was in the business world for 20 years,” Ross said. “On a half mission/half business trip to China back in 2016, [I] was walking along the Great Wall and heard the voice of God—literally—and it scared me to death. He said, ‘Aamon, you think too small. You don’t think generationally,’ I came back to the states, meeting with one of my really good friends and shared that. He said, ‘What do you think it means?’ I said, ‘For some reason, I feel like God wants you and me to put godly leaders in positions of authority in the political sphere.’ He said, ‘Don’t tell anybody, but I’m thinking God’s calling me to run for governor.’ So I ended up leaving the business world and ran his campaign for governor with zero political experience. … He won the general election, so he’s actually now in his second term as governor of Oklahoma, doing an incredible job bringing Kingdom ideals there.”
What I’d like to know is how one determines whether it’s God talking to them or if it’s merely the aftermath of a few bad tacos. ‘Cuz isn’t it convenient how God is always telling people to run for positions of power? You never hear about how God tells people to become gardeners or janitors; it’s always about how God told someone how to become a politician or a fierce, determined athlete.
“I feel like God wants you and me to put godly leaders in positions of authority in the political sphere.” What if you’re missing the point and run for office when God really wanted you to become a public school janitor? Not that there’s anything wrong with that vocation, of course. It’s honorable work…which is more than can sometimes be said about politics.
But my point is that people credit God for pushing them to do “BIG” things, like politics or taking and making the last shot in a championship game. Truthfully, God doesn’t put anyone in those positions. We choose to be there.
Nor does a politician have the right to “claim” a state or any other political entity for God, Jesus Christ, Allah, Snooki, Lisa Simpson, or Lebron James. Because the separation of Church and State is still a significant and essential part of our system, even if many Conservative Republicans refuse to believe it.
No, “separation of Church and State” never appear in the Constitution. However, one needs only to read the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the Treaty of Tripoli, and Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists to know that the precedent is well-established.
America is not a Christian nation, and American governance is secular.
That makes the current trend of working the erase the barrier separating Church from State that much more offensive. An entire class of bigots and haters- White Conservative Christian heterosexuals- believe their God should be our government.
Of course, Gov. Stitt’s pious display plays well in the Midwest. Despite Jesus’ admonishment against public displays of prayer as ostentatious, Republican politicians (see Cruz, Ted) are ready to hit their knees instantaneously if they think they’ll get some air time out of it.
Never mind that this discounts and devalues their constituents who aren’t Christians. It’s a numbers game, and, especially in the Midwest, the overwhelming majority of voters are at least nominally Christian. Hence, Gov. Stitt’s public piety.
In Oklahoma, one can never have too much Jesus.
I still contend Aamon Ross may want to consider that it could’ve been bad tacos. But I’m an atheist. So, what do I know, right??
What’s scary about Ross is his willingness to ignore a basic constitutional tenet to create a functional Conservative Christian theocracy.
Gilead, anyone?? How ‘bout we hang a few non-believers on the wall to set an example and let people know will happen to those who decline to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and caddy?
Ross’s reference to putting “godly leaders in positions of authority in the political sphere” seems to be a reference to Seven Mountains dominionism, which Garlow and Bramnick promote, and that movement’s intention to put right-wing Christians in authority over every “mountain” or “sphere” of cultural influence in society, including government….
Ross then revealed that it is the goal of his organization to recruit “1,000 churches to commit to run one person for school board” and to “raise up 100,000 believers to run for office over the next 10 years.”
Ross declared that it is imperative that conservative Christians begin to see serving in government at all levels as a “mission field,” which means penetrating an area of society for the purpose of spreading Christianity and implementing its teaching.
“They are trying to cancel Jesus,” Ross declared. “We want to be leaders, and we want to set the tone and set the country on a path to kingdom [principles]. The Lord’s Prayer, right? Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. How does that happen if we’re not the ones bringing Heaven to Earth? … What if the world of politics is the next big mission field? What if we viewed this as we’re sending missionaries into city council, we’re sending missionaries into the state House or Senate, we’re sending them to Congress. If we started viewing the world of politics like the next big mission field, I think we could make a dramatic difference in just a couple of short years.”
First of all, no one’s trying to cancel Jesus. The church has no place in our government, just as our government has no place in anyone’s church. So the argument that someone’s trying to “cancel Jesus” is equal parts bullshit and propaganda. The world of politics is not anyone’s “next big mission field.”
Government is, as former Democratic Congressman Barney Franks used to say, “what we decide to do together.” And “we” is meant to be inclusive, as in “all of us,” regardless of race, creed, culture, or faith tradition- that even includes Packers fans. If one ultra-Conservative minority faction of the majority religion succeeds in seizing power, America will cease to be a democracy, which is what the American Taliban is after.
Do we want a government owned and controlled by Seven-Mountain Dominionists, who will have no problem excluding others who fail to meet their ideological/theological purity standard?
If we want America to remain the democracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers, we must be willing to do what is necessary to maintain it. That means two things at a minimum:
Stay informed
Vote
That’s it. If we can convince more Americans to do those two things, it won’t matter what the anti-democratic Christocrats have in mind. They can pray to their non-existent God until the rivers run with blood, and it will change nothing.
On this Memorial Day, I have to believe that those who died for our country didn’t do so for radical Right-wing Christians to turn America into their exclusive playground. They died to maintain freedom and democracy. We can’t allow those sacrifices to be dishonored.
Because this is OUR country and not THEIR church. We must work to keep it that way.