The GOP's Fake God Talk

I frequently bemoan the take over of the Republican Party by the knowledge rejecting, creationism embracing, modern day Pharisees of the Christian Right - the Christofascists  - who seek to impose their foul and toxic version of religion on all Americans.  Its a version of Christianity that I suspect Christ himself would view with revulsion since it is exemplified by selfishness, hatred of others, flagrant lying, self-congratulatory false piety, and greed - especially amongst the professional Christian and televangelist set whose most fervent goal is to enrich themselves.  Indeed, other than lip service, today's "conservative Christians" in the GOP are about as far from living the Gospel message as one can get.  The only positive from it all is that the younger generations are fleeing religion entirely because they want nothing to do with the hate, bigotry, and ignorance that are prerequisites to being both a Republican and a "godly Christian" of the far right mold.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the falsity of all the GOP/Christofascist talk about God.  Here are highlights:

There are two Americas today. One is ecstatic about another four years of President Barack Obama. The other America is licking its wounds and coming to terms with the fact that lies don’t always make for good political campaigns.

Mitt Romney’s campaign could not decide who he wanted to be, and Romney lied at every possible turn. In the quest to court the Tea Party and the religious right for votes, Romney forged political alliances based on disdain for President Obama, and his “socialist” policies. 

Following the lead of John McCain, who jumped the shark with Sarah Palin, he capitulated to conservative religious groups. Romney actually went one better, making the marriage between the Republican Party, religiously conservative ideologues, and its chattering pundit class at Fox News complete.

Now, Rove and the RNC’s fates are linked with the hard-line religious ideologues whose power is on the wane.  From Akin’s “legitimate” rape to Richard Mourdock’s “semi-omnipotent God,” the party looks like a version of Inherit the Wind without the monkeys to provide levity. No matter how much Glenn Beck believed that Romney could win, or Billy Graham’s pretense that he never believed Mormonism was a cult, nothing will take away the demographics that are against the party, or their religious conservatives.

Fake God talk doesn’t cut it with Americans. Everyone sees through it. For Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and a host of others, the last four years have been a confidence game, a careful calculation that if they could just promote themselves, their god, their America, and Obama as a socialist just enough, the tide would turn their way and the money would flow. It didn’t. Many Americans want gay people to have the right to marry, recognize that rape is rape, and view women’s reproductive rights as important.

Americans are tired of racist remarks and the denigration of the office of the President of the United States simply because an African American with a dual heritage and a white mother cracked and decoded the American dream.

In the end, Mitt Romney was the right candidate for the Republicans. His good looks, his CEO cred, and his ability to lie at the slightest turn were tailor-made for what the Republican party and its religious operatives have become: a bunch of capitalistic prosperity grifters who have turned their backs on the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Gospel of Ayn Rand. Even his running mate, Catholic Paul Ryan, was eager to grift by proposing an untenable budget. Rather than “do unto others,” they raised millions to disenfranchise, to sow hatred, and to bask in a smug cocoon of self-reliance while Americans suffered foreclosures, job losses, and anguish. Now, they have lost. 

I hope that Mitt Romney does some deep soul searching with members of the Mormon faith. In the quest to gain the world, he clearly has lost his soul. What’s worse is that he’s taken 57 million people with him.

It is a harsh assessment, but one that seems 100% on the mark.   The world will be a better place the sooner this version of Christianity and the GOP it now controls ceases to exist.