Doing the Jeebus Dance

So the candidates for the office of Preznit of these here Yewnighted States have been (one assumes) at least electorally coerced into participating in yet another tedious evangelical dog-and-pony showthe, ahem, purpose-driven summit. The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg has the pre-game warmup, letting the famously jovial Warren swing the fungo bat to his heart's content. After the usual round of boilerplate questions, and Warren's predictable digressions into the importance of civility -- or at least the veneer of it -- the interview caps thusly:

JG: Some people wonder why this event is happening in a church.

RW: I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion. Faith is simply a worldview. A person who says he puts his faith on the shelf when he's making decisions is either an idiot or a liar. It's entirely appropriate for me to ask what is their frame of reference.

Let's cut through the horseshit and deconstruct this a bit -- when people of Warren's ilk talk about "the separation of church and state", they mean the inequitable relationship where the state stays out of their business (and as always, business is good) while they proffer various electoral carrots and sticks based on the premise of a monolithic flockbloc. It is an unmistakably distinct bargain, whether it is being proposed by Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, or in this case Rick Warren.

To his credit, Warren seems to be much less dogmatic than his ideological ancestors, but still, there is no mistaking the deliberate conflation of politics and superstition. All that stuff about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's apparently does not apply, or else it doesn't mean what they think it means (or hell, what I thought it meant, and it seemed pretty clear).

This is not to say that one's political views can't be informed by the moral underpinnings of their faith. But conversely, Warren and the rest of them need to internalize the fact that agnostics and atheists can and do have very serious and rigorous moral precepts as well. Implicit in their meanderings is that since that code is not inscribed in an ancient, often abused collection of Levantine superstitions, it cannot exist, at least not to the more, um, tangible extent their divinely-ordained text says it does.

The position of imperial manager, while largely figurehead, does have some important components. This is a pivotal moment in this country's history; all our relationships and fortunes are at key points that can easily change for the worse if we continue to fuck around with encouraging people to drone out and vote their gut, or "pray for guidance" or whatever piffle they're being spoon-fed. Given that context of seriousness (even if, like me, you believe the system's rigged in the first place), why are we fooling around with belabored tautologies, waiting for some megachurch proprietor's imprimatur? Maybe Goldberg should have considered asking that question.