Michele Bachmann's False Religiosity

I've note many times the hypocrisy of the Christian Right which wraps itself in the Bible, pretends to worship Christ but then utterly ignores the Gospel message and defines itself bu the hatred and discord which are the true hallmarks of the those who constantly proclaim their religiosity. Indeed, these "Christians" - using the term very loosely based on the behavior - make the Pharisees so roundly condemned by Christ in the Gospels look like pretty nice guys in comparison. The hypocrisy of these false Christians is enough to make one vomit - and want to avoid being defined within the Christian moniker at all costs. Michael Gerson has a column in the Washington Post that looks at Michele Bachmann's feigned religiosity and f*cked up sense of morality. The piece is 100% on target, but the condemnation applies to most of the so-called Christian Right that claims to honor Christ yet preaches a message of hate. Here are highlights:

[A]t a campaign stop in Iowa, Bachmann was asked by a Latino college student what she would do to help the children of undocumented immigrants. The presidential candidate responded: “Their parents are the ones who brought them here. . . . They did not have the legal right to come to the United States. We do not owe people who broke our laws to come into the country. We don’t owe them anything.”

Bachmann is not just making a political point but a moral argument. She asserts that children — who have committed no crime themselves — should be denied assistance because of the legal status of their parents. Her point is made without qualification. It doesn’t matter whether the children of illegal immigrants are hungry or sick. This standard rules out everything from emergency room treatment to elementary school education to prenatal care for the unborn. Bachmann’s pro-life convictions, evidently, only apply to children covered by a green card.

It is difficult to determine what tradition of moral reasoning Bachmann is drawing upon. Her argument seems to involve a mix of extreme nationalism and utilitarian lifeboat ethics. Christian morality, in contrast, affirms that human worth is intrinsic and universal. Men and women are created in God’s image, which is equally present in every tribe, race and nationality. Governments have a responsibility to honor human dignity in the application of law, even when it comes to noncitizens. Children, along with others who are particularly vulnerable, have a particularly urgent claim to care and protection.

Nations have the right to control their borders and enforce their laws. But when it comes to human beings — and especially when it comes to children — it is never permissible to say, “We don’t owe them anything.”

Bachmann’s candidacy represents a digression in the quality and seriousness of evangelical political engagement. . . . . the warnings found in Matthew 25, where Christianity’s founder defines the proper Christian attitude toward the hungry, the sick, the prisoner and the stranger. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these,” he said, “you did not do for me.”

Bachmann holds her faith deeply and understands its political implications poorly. Her campaign is increasingly discrediting to causes — including the pro-life cause — she seeks to serve.

Personally, I believe that the only thing Bachmann truly seeks to serve is herself and her delusional ambition. Like so many of her kindred hypocrites, she wears her supposed Christianity on her sleeve yet preaches a message totally at odds with the true Gospel message. Bachmann is but a symptom of the sickness within conservative Christianity and today's Republican Party.