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EmailObama's shout-out to heathen "non-believers" at the inauguration was a great moment for the godless — or those who believe in many gods. But is the new president the harbinger of a new paganism in America? Some right-wingers think so, but not necessarily because of his inaugural rhetoric.
Back in November shortly after the election, Newsweek magazine ran a column asking, "Is Obama the Anti-Christ," with no tongue in cheek. Writing as if this is even a half-way legitimate question, the story described the Anti-Christ this way:
He will be a sweet-talking world leader who gathers governments and economies under his command to further his own evil agenda. In this world view, "the spread of secular progressive ideas is a prelude to the enslavement of mankind," explains Richard Landes, former director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. No wonder, then, that Obama triggers such fear in the hearts of America's millennialist Christians....
The people who believe Obama is the Antichrist are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they're not nuts: "They are expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared," [Liberty University's Mat] Staver says.
Perhaps? Not nuts? Well, I guess if the faculty of Liberty University is concerned, then so must we all be. (Personally, I thought the whole Anti-Christ controversy had been settled by Seattle Weekly years ago: It's Dubya.)
The only surprise to me is that no one has yet blamed Obama for the attempted human sacrifice on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill. Candle-lit altars? Female victims? Yes we can!
Obama's policies are also underscoring religious suspicions. National Review Online contributor Michael Novak wrote recently that Obama's pro-gay, anti-torture, and abortion-friendly policies were the signs of something big:
From these announcements we learn that President Obama recognizes no difference between the Jewish-Christian covenant between a woman and a man (a covenant that they will have and nurture children, if they are so blessed), and a civil contract between two persons of any sex, in order to set up a household of affection and sexual favors. This is a relapse into paganism.
That's right, Obama's liberalism is ushering us into a New Pagan Age. If only. Why is it conservatives seem to forget that pagans invented democracy? In my humble opinion, America needs a lot more paganism of that sort.
Is paganism ready for prime time in America? Our TV is already filled with the bloodsport of the arena (reality TV, football) but the Judeo-Christian God seems well ensconced, especially in sports where some quarterbacks carry Bibles. One commentator asks about this weekend's Super Bowl:
What if some Cardinal or Steeler were to be named Most Valuable Player come Sunday and lead off his interview in front of the entire world, by saying, "I'd just like to thank L. Ron Hubbard and the church of Scientology?" Or, "I'd just like to express gratitude to my dark lord Beelzebub?"
That player would likely have to postpone his trip to Disneyland because the "separation between sports and state" has not yet been fully achieved. Football might trace its smash-mouth roots back to pagan Rome, but it's the pagans who'd be eaten alive if they came out of the closet on national TV.
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Comments:
Posted Sun, Feb 1, 12:59 p.m. Inappropriate
And I thought the Rocket had it right with Ronald Ray-Gun.
The god squad is a contributing factor to my lack of interest in the NFL, though I have taken to attributing the loss of one team to another as "god's will". It is a source of amusement for me, when talking with the Sunday two-steppers. I do not believe in god or football.
Your team may lose not because your god did not make it so, but because it was god's will and you believed the wrong thing and even prayed for the wrong thing.
To the bigger point, those that prepare for the end times should embrace the situation to confirm their beliefs (it had to happen sometime, why not now), they might get rapture, and I might get universal health care, win-win.
Posted Mon, Feb 2, 10:47 a.m. Inappropriate
Okay I finally accept that today's my-way-or-the-highway political uber-Christians are just different from normal people.
It has been obvious for years they as a group are not loyal to the ideas this country was founded upon, the Bill of Rights, and Constitution, and now I accept why, they just don't get it, their eyes glaze over, critical thinking is too demanding, groupthink is too comforting, following along like a sheep is much less complicated.
For a big national magazine like Newsweek to seriously ask a question about Obama being the anti-Christ not only demonstrates why I stopped reading it years ago, but how after so many years of media consolidation the line between journalism and propaganda, in this case right wing propaganda, has become blurred.
After the revelations of the past eight years we have to ask ourselves if Newsweek ran this story of their own volition, or did some interest group like the Pentagon, or Liberty U. pay them to run that story? If they no longer make a distinction between journalism and propaganda, then why not?
Happily my on going faith in human nature tells me that superstitious political/religious bogey man stories don't work on everybody.
Posted Mon, Feb 2, 3:46 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you for pointing out that democracy was invented by pagans. I’m so tired of the right expressing the certitude that the creation of the United States or the penning of the Constitution was inspired by the Judeo Christine god in the same manner that St. Agustine was inspired by his angel one sunny morning in a hung over daze. (Or at least so he said.)
So the question remains, did Kurt Warner’s deity desert him in the last 3 minutes of the super bowl? Or did the Steelers have more effective prayer circles?