What Do You Do With a Chocolate Jesus? (32 page)

We sometimes hear that America needs to renew its Christian commitment to save it from decline and doom. But Rome officially recognized Christianity starting in A.D. 325; that didn’t save the Empire from disintegration. Nor did the millennium of Christian kingdoms that followed revive democracy, individual liberty, or religious tolerance. During the faith-saturated Middle Ages, religious freedom was regarded as a vice rather than a virtue. Stray from the path of Christ and you were a “freethinker.” Not good. Yet today, people credit God with the ideals of free thought, democratic government, and religious tolerance. Why?

The Religion of Communism

Well, you can partly blame the commies. They routinely obliterated freedom and then told everyone they were (gasp!)
atheists.
People naturally concluded (with the urging of their churches) that atheism led to oppression because it didn’t recognize our God-given rights. Godless rationalism produced evil! Evolution led to Soviet gulags! You know the drill.

Sorry, but no. Evil oppressors have come in all stripes—atheist, polytheist, monotheist, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, and religions long forgotten. They’ve all had their shot.

In the Old Testament, God demanded total conquest. (Check out
Exodus 17:14, Numbers 33:51
or
Deuteronomy 7:2.
It’s enough to make your toes curl backwards.) We’ve seen what Roman persecutors did to the early Christians, and what the later Christians did to heretics. Islamic armies, Christian Crusaders, Mongol hoards, Viking raiders, Spanish Conquistadors, Sikh warriors, Latin American death squads, and the armies of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were all murderous, whether they killed for the state or for God, or for both.

What’s more, Marxism itself was a religion. It didn’t involve a personal god (many religions don’t) but it functioned as a faith, which is why it was intolerant of other beliefs. It sought to define morality, guide human thought, and control behavior—a religious agenda. Sure, the Reds
claimed
to be rational and atheistic, but all they really did was gussy up mystical beliefs in scientific lingo.

Marx created a religion, which is one reason why it caught on in retrograde Russia instead of the modern, industrialized West as Marx had predicted. As with any faith, it was never practiced in its true form, which would be impossible. But there are parallels aplenty between communism and theocratic government.

In Marx’s universe, events were guided by something called “the inevitable forces of history” that would lead to a global communist society. Turns out history wasn’t so inevitable, primarily because those “forces” existed only in his head. But for the faithful, they constituted an unseen, higher power that drove history forward through a process called “dialectical materialism.” Two opposing forces would clash to produce the next chapter of history and ultimately lead humanity down one unalterable path to a utopian future—the perfect communist state.

Naturally, only an elite minority understood this higher power. They became the Communist Party, which had the unique authority to define the truth, interpret current events, establish doctrines, and even dictate personal behavior. They had their saints and their sacred texts, none of which could be questioned. And they demanded more than mere obedience. They wanted a personal commitment to the official mindset. If you refused, and strayed off the one, true path, you became an outcast; a counterrevolutionary.

The result of all this was an authoritarian society led by one absolute ruler. He usually reigned for life and, when he died, the Party elite would go behind closed doors and, through a secret process, select one of their own as the next absolute ruler.

This, of course, is precisely how they choose the pope. He and all other Christian leaders also believe in an unseen, higher power called God, who is guiding history according to his inevitable Divine Plan. History is a dialectical clash of Good and Evil, leading humanity down one unalterable path to a utopian future—the Kingdom of Heaven.

Again, only an elite minority, the priesthood, understands this higher power. They constitute the Church, which has the unique authority to define the truth, interpret current events, establish doctrines, and dictate personal behavior. They have their saints and their sacred texts. And they, too, want a personal commitment to the official mindset. If you refuse, you become an outcast; a heretic.

Both communism and Christianity are controlled from the top, even if, ideally, everyone is supposed to be equal. Both expect everyone to march lockstep into the future without challenging their leadership. Both seek to remake hearts and minds in their image; nobody asks for a show of hands before an edict is issued. They want team players, not independent thinkers. Freedom just throws a wrench into the gears.

Contrast these belief-based systems with a secular democracy, where there
is
no inevitable destiny for man. All futures are possible and each individual has a say in which one comes about. We are all the authors of our fate, which is determined by free debate, open elections, and just living our lives. No unseen powers need apply. If someone strays off the one, true path…well, there
isn’t
any one, true path. Therefore, there’s no outcast status such as heretic or counterrevolutionary. You get to participate no matter what kind of useless jerk-wad you are. Even if you
hate
liberty and democracy you still get to vote.

In a democratic country, you can live by the Bible’s teachings if you want to. But you don’t have to—and that’s the point. It’s optional. The difference between a government that
recommends
a way of life and one that
requires
a way of life is the difference between having an advisor and having a warden.

Ten Commandments vs. Ten Amendments

So, when we run down the list of Constitutional values, we don’t find many of them originating with the Bible. What if we approach this from the opposite direction? When we walk through the Ten Commandments, how well do they square with the Bill of Rights? Today’s morality police want to post the commandments in courtrooms and classrooms in the belief that our laws and justice system stem from this list of rules. But is this really the case?

1. Thou shall hold no other god before me.

This commandment is a cornerstone of religious intolerance, which is why it’s unconstitutional. In America, I can hold as many gods before me as I want. I can worship a lawn jockey if I feel like it. Or nothing at all. Certainly the founders would have chosen God over yard ornaments. But, for the first time in history, good Christians set up a government that left this decision up to me. The first commandment and the First Amendment represent opposing philosophies.

2.
Thou shall make no graven image.

The United States Government has a Bureau of Engraving.

3. Thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.

If they could throw us in jail for this, half the public, most of the army, and all of Congress would be serving time.

4. Thou shall honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Cops, firemen, missile base commanders, ESPN cameramen and pizza delivery boys work on the Sabbath. No one seems to object.

5. Thou shall honor your father and mother.

Do you really want the government busting you for falling short on this one? Mother’s Day visits would be a legal obligation, like jury duty. It’s too much like that already.

6. Thou shall not kill.

At last, we’re half way through the commandments and we finally have agreement between the Bible and the Constitution. Both regard murder as wrong. But this agreement is not because the Constitution is based on the Bible. It’s because a ban against murder is a basic ingredient of
every
civilization. Nowhere in history has a culture, regardless of its faith, allowed just any bozo to go kill someone without consequence. America’s founders didn’t need a commandment to clue them in on this point. If anyone can kill anyone, you don’t have a civilization. You have barbarism.

Murder is not illegal in America because Scripture commands it. Scripture commands all kinds of things that can’t become the law of the land, and judges can’t cite the Bible as a basis for their rulings. Murder is illegal because the founders wanted a country where you could get through the day without a knife in your back. It was about self-interest, not obedience to God. It was a political principle called the Social Contract—a mutual agreement among the citizens that everyone would be better off if murder was outlawed. It reduced stress.

Yes, the idea certainly jibed with the religious views of the framers. And that was nice. But God’s disapproval isn’t enough for the U.S. government to forbid something. God disapproves of people worshipping other deities and eating shellfish but, in America, there’s nothing he can do about it.

7. Thou shall not commit adultery.

There are many bits of good advice that shouldn’t become law because they’re nobody else’s business. This is one of them. How many governors would be in prison if this were legally enforced?

8. Thou shall not steal.

Like the ban against murder, this is a universal idea. Even the communists, who opposed private property, didn’t let anyone just walk into your house and swipe the golf clubs. For one thing, commies didn’t play much golf.

9. Thou shall not bear false witness.

It’s perfectly legal to lie, so long as you’re not under oath or telling your customer that the Hummer he’s eyeing gets eighty miles per gallon and floats. If you do lie under oath, it’s punishable not because it offends God but because it offends the rights of the people you’re lying to or about. Being sworn in may intimidate you with the fear of God’s wrath, but its real purpose is to hold you legally accountable for what you’re about to say. And if you’re caught committing perjury, the government isn’t going to wait for God’s judgment.

10. Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s property.

Forgetting for the moment that “property” included wives and slaves, coveting your neighbor’s stuff is the engine that drives the American economy. Look at any TV commercial. It’s all about keeping up with the Joneses, and the Joneses buy a
lot
of shit.

Three outta Ten ain’t Bad

So, when we add it all up, the sixth, eighth and sometimes ninth commandments agree with the Constitution. But that’s really it. Conclusion: the American Constitution can’t be based on the Ten Commandments when it’s clear that seven-and-a-half of them are unconstitutional. This is not advanced political science.

The Ten Commandments and the Constitution stand on separate foundations. The commandments exist to prevent people from offending God. The Constitution exists to prevent people from offending other people. God isn’t involved.

One big problem with linking government to religion is that it gives churches the tools of government—the power to tax, to throw you in jail, to regulate speech, to start wars, or to suppress other churches. You really want to go back to those days?

Separating church and state effectively de-clawed religion in the West. If churches no longer use force, it’s because they have no choice; the law forbids it. Believers may still fear divine fury if their country refuses to grovel sufficiently (a constant problem with the ancient Israelites), but the only tool they can use today is persuasion. Preachers can scream hellfire all they want, but they can’t punish you for ignoring them. You can take your business elsewhere.

The Joys of Secular Humanism

Pilgrims’ Regress

Among those who understood the downside of religious oppression were the Puritans of 17
^th
century England. These were strict, reform-minded Protestants who felt the Church of England wasn’t sufficiently un-Catholic. The English Church, allied with the Crown, pushed back at them with stern rules. This got the Puritans packing for the New World.

A major reason why Americans are sometimes confused about their country’s “Christian values” stems from events like this. It started with our earliest settlers—the Pilgrims—a pack of old-fashioned religious kooks who made the Puritans who followed them look almost post-modern. Contrary to popular legend, the Pilgrims did not need to flee to North America to find religious liberty. After leaving England in 1610, they spent a decade in Holland, free to live by their almost medieval beliefs. The Dutch, being largely merchants and traders, were too interested in making money to break a sweat about God issues.

But the “saints,” as the Pilgrims modestly called themselves, were religious radicals who didn’t want their kids picking up the worldly ways of the Dutch. So, in 1620, they booked a voyage on the Mayflower with a few soldiers of fortune and sailed to a remote continent. There, they established a cozy, isolated little theocracy that didn’t recognize religious tolerance, democracy, or even private property at first. But at least there were no dangerous free thinkers or non-believers to influence their children. (The Indians didn’t really count.)