President Bush should fight this campaign on religious faith, and he should fight it in a way that shows just how intolerant and bigoted Leftists are about religion.

Bruce Walker wrote the above for Mens News Daily. Arguing that politicians should use religion to divide people in a political election demonstrates just how tolerant he is when it comes to religion. Using religion to score a political victory isn't the slightest big bigoted, right?

It is the message of The Passion of Christ that infuriates Leftists. Americans overwhelmingly believe that Jesus was crucified for the sake of mankind. Mel Gibson has done nothing more than restate and defend what the American people believe.

Notice how Bruce Walker fails to note that many devout Christians of different denominations have objected to Gibson's movie, not to mention members of other religions like Judaism. Is it because he is innocently ignorant of the debates, or is deliberately hiding the truth? One of the key arguments against the film is that Gibson hasn't simply restated what Americans believe; instead, he has presented a theological position which some Christians share and some don't. Again, is Walker just ignorant of people's disagreements or his is consciously begging the question?

It's interesting that Walker seems to think it appropriate to conflate "Americans" with "Christians." Consider:

The Republican Platform ask for a constitutional amendment that requires the words "Under God" be included in the Pledge of Allegiance, that the phrase "In God We Trust" be on all American currency and coins, and that the existing references to God in our national anthem remain. ... President Bush should endorse this amendment and point out that the amendment threatens only the agenda of those people who wish to remove all symbols of God from our existing federal government. 

Here we come back to Bruce Walker's desire to turn differences in religion into topics for political electioneering. The fact that not all religious people would agree with such an amendment doesn't matter. The fact that not all Christians would agree with such an amendment doesn't matter - even the conservative Christians who don't agree with such an amendment are dismissed.

Walker's proposal is to help Bush win overwhelmingly, thus he must be assuming that an overwhelming majority of Americans would favor imposing their religious beliefs on the entire nation through an amendment to the Constitution. That he believes this is a good thing is a sign that he is intolerant when it comes to religious differences. The idea that a politician should deliberately divide the electorate along religious lines invites civil conflict.

That he thinks there would be such massive support for his amendment is, in my opinion, a sign that he needs to get out more. Americans are more religiously diverse than Walker thinks - "American" is not synonymous with "conservative, evangelical Christian" - and not even all of the latter group would agree with Walker's political perspective.

It is time to ask Americans if they want a government based upon their sovereignty and their faith in a Blessed Creator or if they want a government based upon the sovereignty of judges and other bureaucrats and their faith in atheism.  If the question is asked, the good guys - that’s us - will win.  Let’s ask. 

Actually, Bruce Walker is only half right. The half he is right about is that he is proposing a to define the American system of government as being based upon a particular type of religious faith in a particular type of god currently believed in by a certain segment of the American population. The half he is wrong about is the idea that the alternative is a government based upon "the sovereignty of judges and other bureaucrats and their faith in atheism."

In reality, the alternative is what we currently have: a system of government based upon the sovereignty of the people. Thus, the choice is between a theocracy as defined by people like Bruce Walker and a secular government as defined by the people. I agree with Walker: if the question is asked, the good guys (not the theocrats) will probably win.

Like I said, Walker needs to get out of the house more - if he did, he'd discover that most Americans aren't actually theocrats - and even those who are disagree on what sort of theocracy they want. Taken together, that helps ensure that the American government remains secular rather than religious. If Walker prefers to live under a government based upon faith in God, he should move to one which already has such a system - like Saudi Arabia.

Read More:

• News and Commentary on Mel Gibson's The Passion
• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Christian Nationalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Wahhabi Islam
• Religion in Saudi Arabia
• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101