For the most part, the Tea Baggers haven't made a big deal out of religion -- they have generally focused on things like taxes and the size of government. That there is an important and even essential element of theocratic religion was made manifest during Glenn Beck's rally in Washington D.C.
"Something that is beyond man is happening," Mr. Beck told the crowd, in what was part religious revival and part history lecture. "America today begins to turn back to God." ...The overwhelmingly white and largely middle-aged crowd Saturday was a mix of groups that have come together under the Tea Party umbrella. While Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism, not religion or social issues, the rally was overtly religious.
Mr. Beck imbued his remarks with references to God, and he urged a religious revival. "For too long, this country has wandered in darkness," Mr. Beck said. "This country has spent far too long worrying about scars and thinking about scars and concentrating on scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America." ...
Becky Benson, 56, traveled from Orlando, Florida, because, she said, "we believe in Jesus Christ," and Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare. "You cannot sit and expect someone to hand out to you," she said. "You don't spend your way out of debt."
Source: The New York Times
It's not surprising that the Tea Baggers would start turning more and more towards extremist religion. Opposition to higher taxes -- especially when it's opposition to higher taxes for other, much richer people -- isn't enough to motive lot of people for very long. Religion, though, is great at motivating people. This is especially true when you use religion to cloak yourself in righteousness while lambasting everyone who disagrees with you as being spawns of Satan.
You know, like Glenn Beck and so many conservatives in American tend to do.
There are secular conservatives and there are atheist conservatives, but they are a minority. The most powerful, influential conservative people, institutions, and organizations in American tend to at least have a strong religious component and often are overtly if not exclusively religious. It's very difficult to separate conservatism in modern America from conservative, evangelical Christianity. I think that's deliberate on the part of Christian Right leaders -- they want to be indispensable to the Republican Party.
“…..Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare.”
Uhhhhh, Jesus would have been against welfare? Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong copy of the bible…
Right, “render unto Caesar,” wasn’t that the line on taxes?
And didn’t Paul say we ought to obey the authorities, since they’re put in power by god?
The bogeyman of the tax-and-spend liberal democrat can never be enough to scare conservatives for long. Eventually you have to invoke race or religion to keep your constituency casting life-and-death votes the way you like. So once again we have social conservatives voting for republicans who promise to fight the creeping menace of the liberal, socialist, marxist (and therefore g-g-godless!) elite that is ruining this Christian nation. But those politicians never really get around to any of the issues they got voted in for, like abortion and immigration. But they did manage, again, to find time for tax cuts for their rich buddies, reduced government oversight of industry, gutting unions and social programs, killing pensions and environmental regs, and otherwise bloviating about how we just need to get back to God and everything will by wonderful. I haven’t seen any social conservatives wake up from their paranoid nightmare yet, I guess Teabaggers won’t either.
That might be offensive to people if any of them even knew what Theocratic meant.
If you really want to understand what is happening in our country right now go to a tea party. It dosen’t matter if you believe in God or not, you will at least leave there better informed than you have been. You don’t have to open your heart, just your mind.