distinguishing between theists and theocrats
Here is my letter-to-the-editor in response to an unsigned editorial in the most recent issue of The Advocate.
Thank you for your editorial "Freedom and Its Limits" about the danger that fundamentalism poses to freedom. I think, however, that more care should be taken to distinguish theists from theocrats. "Christianist" is a useful term in this endeavor, for which we can thank several bloggers (particularly Andrew Sullivan) who have begun to popularize its use. Goldberg makes this differentiation in her book, writing that “Christian nationalism and Christianity are two very different things,” and noting that the word “Christianism” can be used to parallel how “political Islam is often called Islamism to differentiate the fascist political doctrine from the faith.”Although we may disagree with others’ religious opinions—as an atheist, I regularly do so—we must recognize that believers are a large majority of this nation. They gave invaluable support to the movements for abolition, suffrage, and civil rights; they may do the same for gay equality if we don’t drive them away by conflating their honest faith with the Christianists’ power-hungry demagoguery.
Many fair-minded religious Americans are dismayed that homophobic hate-mongers like Fred Phelps have become the public face of their faith. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Michael Lerner of Tikkun (authors of God’s Politics and The Left Hand of God, respectively) are the most obvious examples of religious progressives, and there are far too many others—drawn from Reform Judaism and the Unitarian Universalist Association to the United Church of Christ and the Metropolitan Community Church—to list here. Reconstructionists, Dominionists, and other Christian nationalists may get the most press, but a large proportion of religious believers have not closed their minds to modern knowledge about sexual orientation.
We slight them and their faith at our peril.