Warship built out of Twin Towers wreckage

By Tom Baldwin
In a shipyard in New Orleans, survivors of one disaster are building a monument to another
IN A city still emerging from the floods of Hurricane Katrina, a ship has begun to rise from the ashes of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Bringing together America’s two great calamities of the 21st century, the USS New York is being built in New Orleans with 24 tonnes of steel taken from the collapsed World Trade Centre.
There is no shortage of scrap metal in New Orleans these days, but the girders taken from Ground Zero have been treated with a reverence usually accorded to religious relics. After a brief ceremony in 2003, about seven tonnes of steel were melted down and poured into a cast to make the bow section of the ship’s hull.
Some shipworkers say the hairs stood up on the backs of their necks the first time they touched it. Others have postponed their retirement so they can be part of the project.
One worker, Tony Quaglino, said: “I was going to go in October 2004 after 40 years here, but I put it off when I found out I could be working on New York. This is sacred and it makes me very proud.” Glen Clement, a paint superintendent, said: “Nobody passes by that bow section without knocking on it. Everybody knows what it is made from and what it’s about.”
The ship is being built by Northrop Grumman on the banks of the Mississippi. It should be ready to join the US Navy in 2007.
Later vessels in its class will include USS Arlington — named after the section of the Pentagon that was also hit by an airliner on September 11 — and USS Somerset, in memory of United Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, on the same day as passengers struggled with al-Qaeda hijackers.
Mr Clement said it would be fitting if USS New York’s first mission was to capture Osama bin Laden. He said: “They hit us first, but out of a tragedy a good thing has come, in that we’re building a ship which can help take those people out.”
The $1 billion vessel is one of a new generation of amphibious assault ships capable of landing a 700-strong Marines assault force on a coastline almost anywhere without the need for a port.
Woody Oge, Northrop Grumman’s director of operations in New Orleans, was keen to play down suggestions that the ship might be used to spearhead invasions.
He pointed out that LPD vessels had been used as much for humanitarian assistance as for war. One such ship, USS Boxer, was dispatched to help to deal with the aftermath of Katrina.
Although the hurricane smashed its way through the shipyard last summer, the half-completed New York survived intact. The same cannot be said for the homes of some of its builders. About 200 are still living at the shipyard in the hastily set up “Camp Katrina”.
They include Earl Jones. More than eight months after Katrina, he does not know if his home in the Lower Ninth ward will be rebuilt. “The insurance company won’t even talk to us,” he said. “We’re having to hire lawyers to chase ’em. I don’t like this, but I don’t want to be out of work.”
Mr Jones’s wife was evacuated to Baton Rouge and is seriously ill with breast cancer and pneumonia. He said: “She ain’t handling very well me being away all the time.”
Katrina and 9/11 are two disasters that continue to produce very different responses from America. Mr Jones does not want his old home enshrined in a $1 billion fighting machine, but a small cheque from the insurance firm might help.

Scalia Tells Congress to Mind Its Own Business
By Charles LaneWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, May 19, 2006; A19
Justice Antonin Scalia rebuked fellow conservatives on Capitol Hill yesterday, saying they have gone too far in trying to prevent the Supreme Court from using foreign law in its constitutional rulings.
Scalia dissented vigorously from the court's recent decisions that invoked foreign law to help strike down the death penalty for juveniles and laws against consensual homosexual conduct. In Congress, conservative Republicans responded angrily to the rulings and introduced bills that would either condemn or ban the court's use of foreign legal authorities.
But in his speech to a National Italian American Foundation luncheon attended by several House members, Scalia said, in effect, that he does not need any help.
"It's none of your business," he said, referring to Congress. "No one is more opposed to the use of foreign law than I am, but I'm darned if I think it's up to Congress to direct the court how to make its decisions."
The proposed legislation "is like telling us not to use certain principles of logic," he said, adding: "Let us make our mistakes just as we let you make yours."
It was not the first time Scalia had publicly questioned the proposed legislation, but it was his most categorical statement. Previously, he focused on what he considered the bills' inappropriate acceptance of legislative history as a tool of judicial interpretation.
Scalia's remarks came about three months after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of the use of foreign law, denounced members of Congress who oppose it, saying that their condemnation of the court might have contributed to Internet threats against the court by extremists.
Though Scalia did not echo that sentiment, his comments showed that, for all their disagreements, he and his colleagues on the court have a shared institutional interest in judicial independence.
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who has co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution against the use of foreign law, said that Scalia's comments were "like being told your favorite baseball player disagrees with your approach to hitting."
Scalia's "brilliance," Feeney said, "has not convinced a majority of the court. He needs our help, even if he doesn't want it."
Feeney said that Scalia's remarks may have damaged chances for his resolution's passage, since they will probably be quoted by its opponents.
Ginsburg and other foreign law supporters on the court, including Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer, say that citing foreign authority helps build transnational links to other courts and informs U.S. judges but does not bind them as U.S. law does.
Scalia has argued that his colleagues have used foreign law to support decisions that would otherwise have no basis, and that they cherry-pick foreign precedents that support their views. "You will never see foreign law cited in any of our abortion cases because we're one of the few countries that permits abortion on demand," Scalia said yesterday.
He seemed to enjoy the irony, though, of chiding congressional conservatives, joking that "part of my charm is that I tell people what they don't want to hear."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

FROM BELMONT CLUB

As it was in the beginning
The last words uttered by Adso of Melk in the Name of the Rose come from Bernard of Cluny: "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus." (Yesterday’s rose endures in its name, we hold empty names). The reader's final glimpse of the teenage assistant to William of Baskerville in the novel is that of an old man who no longer knows what it all means. Even the dramatic events in the Library that he recounts are put down to chance. They too had no meaning. Not for nothing did Eco choose Bernard of Cluny's poem, "On Contempt for the World", for both his title and closing.
The De Contemptu Mundi ("On Contempt for the World") contains about 3,000 verses, and is for the most part a very bitter satire against the moral disorders of the monastic poet's time. He spares no one; priests, nuns, bishops, monks, and even Rome itself are mercilessly scourged for their shortcomings. For this reason it was first printed by Matthias Flacius as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of the medieval Church (Varia poemata de corrupto ecclesiae statu, Basle, 1557), and was often reprinted by Protestants in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This Christian Juvenal does not proceed in an orderly manner against the vices and follies of his age. It has been well said that he seems to eddy about two main points: the transitory character of all material pleasures and the permanency of spiritual joys.
Bernard differed from the fictional Adso of Melk in that Adso did not in the end believe even in spiritual joy. He had concluded that the universe was loveless and silent. What mysteries it kept and what it purposed were never to be revealed -- at least to Adso. The old Adso is ironically the reverse of the youth who had the answer to everything as he accompanied the older William of Baskerville; with a verse and citation for every eventuality. Even Adso's touching teenage concept of celibacy was cruelly transformed by Eco into a geriatric pederasty. All, Eco seems to suggest, is ultimately corrupted by knowledge. The more we know, the less we like.
What knowledge then did the wiser William of Baskerville seek? What was so important about solving murders in the Abbey or discovering a book about laughter if, as Adso later held, everything were conjuries of chance? A small, still voice argued that we 21st century bloggers too no longer know what it is all about; and least of all those who formerly had an answer to everything. The really perilous thing about September 11 was that it opened the door into the wide world; raised our eyes from the orderly spectacle of New Year's Day TV football to the sights of Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan. September 11 not only took away lives, it took away innocence: no longer was it possible to repose confidence in the rationality and goodness of man. Not after seeing Zarqawi; not after watching people kill each other for no apparent reason; not after witnessing the madness that passes, in certain circles, for piety. Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
Like the fictional William, we must know better than to seek answers on Adso's terms. We can have knowledge only if we renounce the demand to understand it all. And that is why, I think, blog authors who want solve murders, help children, tell a joke, fight the enemy -- are far better off than those who hanker after certainty. The imaginary William of Baskerville, Eco tells us, died in the Great Plague. But while he lived, he lived. And may live still in some meaningful sense, at least to those interested in solving murders. Those passing familiar with Jesus' teachings know He taught that the path to the Father led through the ordinary. Those who prefer other metaphors may wish to think of a heterogenous universe, where meaning and love imperishable exist side by side with cruelty, horror and absurdity. And we must choose whether to try and understand it all or create and defend a bubble in which love and meaning truly do exist.
For these somewhat fanciful reasons I hope that the blogosphere will become less a cockpit of argument and ideas -- though it will always be that -- and more a forum for action: a place to facilitate meetings between real people, develop actual applications and accomplish physical tasks. There never was a flower, a glass of beer or a child's laugh that was ever truly futile. Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
posted by wretchard at 4:35 AM links

The Belmont Club
History and History in the Making
Saturday, May 13, 2006
A still small voice
Years ago, while with Mangyan tribesmen I concluded that these hill people could read an alphabet unknown to me. The foliage, sounds, the shift in airs, scents -- all of these -- spoke to them as directly as words in a book, though I scarcely imagined how. Later I discovered that psychologist Julian Jaynes had advanced the theory of the bicameral mind, which helped explain what I'd seen. His book, the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind suggests that our ancestors were instructed by voices and visions. They understood through a process of unconscious thinking as perhaps the Mangyans still do. Nature spoke to them, and they heard.
Jaynes asserts that until roughly the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, Jaynes argued that the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands believed to be issued by external "gods"—the commands which were so often recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts; these commands were however emanating from individuals' own minds. This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which "sang" the poems: Jaynes argues that while later interpretations see the muses as a simple personification of creative inspiration, the ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and poetry.
Jaynes inferred that these "voices" came from the right brain counterparts of the left brain language centres—specifically, the counterparts to Wernicke's area and Broca's area. These regions are somewhat dormant in the right brains of most modern humans, but Jaynes noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations cause increased activity in these areas of the brain. For example, he asserts that, in The Iliad and sections of the Old Testament in The Bible that no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and he argues that there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware.
However that may be, Jaynes' theory intriguingly suggests that hunches, guesses and intuition may hold some validity. They are the end result of a logical process inaccessible to the waking mind. My own hunch is that in the last two or three months there's been a change in the tone of the blogosphere. Nothing definite, simply a change in atmosphere in proportion to the degree of abstract tendencies of the blogger. Authors who trafficked in ideas and concepts have altered the most. Some have paused to take stock, pleading disgust or confusion; still others have returned to writing as seemingly different persons; others seem to be suffering a kind of nervous breakdown, obsessed with hatred for one or more public figures or inventing new words and finding conspiracies in everything they see.
The least affected are authors who are largely descriptive. For example Michael Totten's review of Arabs in Israel is one of those blogposts which describes what it sees even when it finds apparent contradictions. His latest post asserts that Arabs in Israel are the subject of discriminatory attitudes; yet despite this they would rather live there than anywhere else. The Lost in Space robot Model B9 had a phrase: "it does not compute". And yet of course it does. Anything computes which has an actual existence. There are other examples. Publius Pundit is opposed to Evo Morales' oil nationalization policies yet understands the history of Latin American class and racial warfare that politically drive it. The Big Pharaoh is able to cheer for Alaa and the Egyptian opponents of Mubarak while aware that the Muslim Brotherhood might be the ultimate beneficiary of an upheaval in Cairo. The ever-humorous Tim Blair points out there are things we want which we may actually dread: high fuel prices because it will wean us off imported oil and high prices because we must actually pay them.
My own theory is that all the old divisions so sharply erected between September 11, 2001 and April, 2003 have been slowly eroded by the uncertainties of the world. The Left and the Right have seen their champions turn out to be all too human, and are confounded. Issues which are a wedge on both sides of the spectrum -- like immigration or Darfur -- have scattered interest groups around like balls after a billiard break. New issues like the resurgence of a hostile Russia, the spread of Marxism in Latin America -- even the malicious buffoonery of the Iranian President -- are crowding at the fringes of the now comforting world of the War on Terror. The old play is ending and yet the new one has not yet begun. And this bothers abstract intellectuals far more than it does the men in the field. A soldier can write with perfect conviction that "the world was a slightly better place every time I pulled the trigger" because he lives in a world of specificity, but the agonized thinker can find no such comfort in cold abstractions; abstractions now in need of repair under the weight of experience.
The need to keep mental furniture in order is the curse of the abstract thinker. A recent visitor from the Philippines told me -- not in so many words, but clearly enough -- about how the famous old Communists of the 1970s and 80s had all gone essentially crazy. Not clinically. But they were all of them gnawing at the ends of old plots, editing unread journals, scheming from miserable academic departments; haunting the peripheries of political life. He described this in quiet tones as we sat at some seaside saloon, a grey mist and rain having fallen over the bay; the perfect time he said "for Godzilla to come popping out of the water". And of course there was a better chance of Godzilla actually materializing than that those dusty old Commies should ever succeed at what they were doing. They knew it and that was the madness. It was better, I thought, to keep watching and have another beer. The Mangyans would have understood what the Comrades would never: that truth comes tiptoeing in upon a whisper for those willing to listen.
Elijah came there to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" ... "Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh." Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. It was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Text of Iran’s letter to George W. Bush>By Reuters>Published: May 9 2006 17:46 Last updated: May 9 2006 17:46>>
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written U.S. President George W. Bush an 18-page letter discussing religious values, history and international relations. Following are excerpts from an unofficial translation from the original written in Farsi:

“Mr. George Bush, For some time now, I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena ... Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him), the great Messenger of God, Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism and a civilization model, Announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, Make “War on Terror” his slogan, And finally, work towards the establishment of an unified nternational community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, But at the same time, Have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze?
Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around 100,000 people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps 50 years.
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Full text courtesy of Council on Foreign Relations>Click here
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Of course, Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him; the anointed goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. President, You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me, how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the traditions of Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness.
There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.
...
Young people, university students and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.
Throughout history, many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.
Students are saying that 60 years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say, try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel. ...
Mr President, I am sure you know how -- and at what cost -- Israel was established: Many thousands were killed in the process. Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
...
A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison.
...
Another big question asked by the people is why is this regime being supported. Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) or Moses (Peace Be Upon Him) or liberal values?
...
Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations?
...
Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture and you do not like to be lied to.
...
Mr. President, September 11 was a horrendous incident ... Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies ... September 11 was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services -- or their extensive infiltration? Of course, this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attack been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And why aren’t those responsible identified and put on trial.?
...
American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place ... Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?
Some believe that the hype paved the way -- and was the justification -- for an attack on Afghanistan.
...
Mr. President, History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted the fate of men to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices. Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.
...
The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of world leaders ... The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries. The people are disgusted with increasing corruption. The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families ... the people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because their rights are not advocated by these organizations.
Liberalism and western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
Mr. President, whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.”

Lillian Gertrud Asplund, last U.S. survivor of Titanic sinking, dead at 99
Canadian Press
Monday, May 08, 2006
BOSTON (AP) - Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, has died, family and friends said Sunday. She was 99.
Asplund, who was five years old that night in 1912, lost her father and three brothers - including a fraternal twin - when the "practically unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. "She even said she saw the ship slip into the water," said Philip Maloof, her lawyer and close friend. "She was the last one (left) in the world to actually see the disaster."
At least two other survivors are living, but they were too young to remember what happened. Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, was 10 months old and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, was two months old.
Asplund died in her sleep Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, outside Worcester.
"She was good up until the end," said her cousin, Alden Carlson, 59.
The Asplund family had boarded the ship in Southampton, England, as third-class passengers on their way back to Worcester from their ancestral homeland, Sweden, where they had spent several years.
Asplund's mother, Selma, and another brother, Felix, who was three, also survived the Titanic sinking in the early morning of April 15, 1912.
Selma Asplund told her daughter it was not good to talk about the catastrophe, and she rarely did.
Instead, Asplund lived a quiet life, working as a clerk for an insurance company in Worcester. She never married and never got a driver's license.
Asplund and her brother, who also remained single, bought a home in Shrewsbury and moved their mother there, who was ill.
Selma Asplund died on the 52nd anniversary of the sinking in 1964 at age 91. Felix Asplund died on March 1, 1983.
After retiring, Asplund lived alone, gardening and watching soap operas on television. She continued to heed her mother's advice and rejected requests to talk about what happened on the Titanic.
Privately, however, Asplund opened up. Maloof, her lawyer, said she broached the subject voluntarily as the pair became friends.
"She told me that she saw her father standing on the Titanic," Maloof said. "She didn't say specifically that she was in a lifeboat, but she must have been."
Still, Asplund refused to sit for interviews, even if they offered to pay her.
"Why do I want money from the Titanic," Maloof recalled Asplund saying. "Look what I lost. A father and three brothers."
Three or four yeas ago, Asplund did talk to a reporter from The Washington Post, Maloof said. Even then, she remained reserved, rebuffing the interviewer's requests to take photographs or tape record the conversation.
Asplund's mother described the sinking in an interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspaper shortly after the accident.
The family went to the Titanic's upper deck after the ship struck the iceberg, Selma Asplund said.
"I could see the icebergs for a great distance around . . . It was cold and the little ones were cuddling close to one another and trying to keep from under the feet of the many excited people . . . My little girl, Lillie, accompanied me, and my husband said 'Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats.' He smiled as he said it."
Because they lost all of their possessions and money, the city of Worcester held a fundraiser and a benefit concert that together brought in about $2,000 for the surviving Asplunds.
A memorial service is scheduled for Wednesday.
© The Canadian Press

My Problem with Christianism

A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda

By ANDREW SULLIVAN
Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.
The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?
Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?
So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.
That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
Visit Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, at time.com