http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=185&lid=1575#n1
6 April 2005
Hillary’s spiritual advisor denounces religious right takeover
STAFF REPORTS
Humanist Network News
April 6, 2005
A crowded meeting at the United Nations heard an American with firsthand
experience of both church and state warn about the religious right's threat
to the U.S. Constitution.
The March 31 meeting on "Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State
in the U.S." was chaired by Matt Cherry, executive director of the
Institute for Humanist Studies and president of the United Nations' NGO
Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief. It was the second in a series
of meetings organized by the NGO committee to address the nexus between
religion and nationalism [To read about the first meeting, see: U.N.
humanists discuss religion and nationalism, (story by HNN, March 9, 2005).]
The speaker was Dr. Donald G. Jones, Emeritus Professor of Social Ethics at
Drew University. Dr. Jones is author of nine books, including the
well-known anthology, American Civil Religion. But he is perhaps best known
as Hillary Rodham Clinton's "spiritual advisor." Starting as the youth
minister at the 13 year-old Hillary Rodham's Methodist Church, Don Jones
has maintained a close relationship with Hillary that included eight visits
to the Clinton White House.
In a speech that any freethinker would have been proud to give, Dr. Jones
argued that the claim that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation was
"total nonsense." He said that at the time of the Revolution, America was
"distinctly unchurched" with only 5 percent of the population belonging to
a church. Examining the beliefs of such Founding Fathers as Franklin,
Washington, Jefferson and Madison, Dr. Jones showed that none of them were
Christians: they were all Enlightenment rationalists who completely
rejected the evangelical Christian notion of a personal relationship with
God. But the clearest possible evidence that the U.S. was not a Christian
state was, he said, the Constitution itself.
Speaking on the day that Terry Schiavo died, Dr. Jones did not pull his
punches in talking about the religious right and its threat to America's
secular heritage. He described the congressional intervention in the
Schiavo case as a "unique infringement of the separation of powers" and
denounced the Republican party's use of religion for political gain.
Although unabashedly partisan, Dr. Jones did welcome signs of a Republican
backlash against extreme right theocrats. He was encouraged that it was a
Republican, Christopher Shays, who said in the Congressional debate over
Schiavo that "This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of
theocracy."
Dr. Jones took especial exception to the war-like language House Majority
Leader Tom Delay used in denouncing opponents of the radical religious
right. "When Delay talks about 'the enemy', he is talking about secular
humanists, he means Matt Cherry here!" said Jones. He said that the
religious right's hatemongering about secular humanists was reminiscent of
the Nazis' demonization of Jews as the "enemy within."
In an interesting aside, Dr. Jones referred to research by Amy Sullivan of
the Washington Monthly, which revealed that George W. Bush rarely went to
Church. He also said that the president, a fellow Methodist, exhibited a
remarkably weak understanding of scripture.
In a lively question and answer session, Dr. Jones predicted that the
pendulum would swing back toward greater separation of religion and
politics. He said that the widespread public opposition to the
congressional intervention in the Schiavo case showed that appeals to
conservative religiosity could not trump bedrock American values such as
respect for the right to privacy.
In talking about the legitimate role of religion in politics, he said that
it was right and natural for politicians with a personal faith to be
inspired by that faith in their public service. For instance, the Clintons
were inspired by Jesus' call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and tend
to the sick (Matthew 25:35). But, Jones argued, in public policy debates,
these goals, and the policies to achieve them, should be justified with
secular arguments not religious ones.
Listeners were left with the impression that if Hillary Rodham Clinton's
political views are at all inspired by this religious advisor, then she
will be a strong supporter of the separation of church and state.
[However, she was on the steps in front of the Capital recitign the Pledge
saying "under God" along with all the other elected clowns in June 2002, I
don't turst she will do anything that will cost her votes. --
buckeye-ELO]
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