For those of you out there who don’t live in these parts and wonder just what it is like, here is a sample of opinion submitted to the Joplin Globe from someone from Lamar, Missouri, birthplace of Harry Truman.  This opinion, unfortunately, represents the thinking of a lot of folks here in the Ozark foothills.  For lack of a better word, let’s just call it hillbilly tolerance:

Like so many others, I too long for the days of old when politicians behaved more like statesmen. But in those days, most of them were at least nominally Christian, not like today when so many in both parties are, at best, Christian in name only.

The last time I checked, “nominally” meant something like “in name only,” so essentially what the writer, Dave Spiering, is saying is this:

In the good old days, most politicians at least called themselves Christians, not like today when so many in both parties, at best, call themselves Christians.

Get it?  Neither do I.

In any case, I suppose the worst of what Mr. Spiering had to say was the following:

So who’s to blame? John Adams, our second president said: “Our system of government is designed for a Christian people, and is wholly inadequate to govern any other.” If we as Americans refuse to humble ourselves and return to our creator, how can we expect any better than gridlock and demagoguery?

Forget for a moment the breathtaking audacity of claiming that any gridlock or demagoguery in our political system can be attributed to a refusal—especially on the part of our politicians—to prostrate themselves before “our”—meaning, of course, the author’s—creator. 

Often, it is precisely an unwarranted reliance on the dubious dictates of divinity that leads to gridlock and demagoguery, since politicians often stake out uncompromising positions that conform to their religious convictions, real or imagined.

But let’s look at that John Adams quote again:

Our system of government is designed for a Christian people, and is wholly inadequate to govern any other.

Now, as an online commenter pointed out, that isn’t exactly what Adams said.  Here is the quote in some additional context:

Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

“A moral and religious people,” and not “a Christian people.”  That’s quite a difference, don’t you think?  Especially if you were “a moral and Islamic American,” or “moral and Jewish American.”

I don’t know if Mr. Spiering ever bothered to check the Adams quote out himself or whether he just copied the erroneous version from some right-wing Christian publication or website, but it is an example of the narrow-mindedness and intolerance of conservative Christianity. 

Here is another example from a less-Ozarkian, but still intolerant, source, Coral Ridge Ministries, founded by Dr. D. James Kennedy.  On its website, under “Truth #4,” we find the above quote plus two additional quotes:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  — John Adams

Religion and morality are necessary to good government, good order, and good laws, for when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.        — William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution from New Jersey

So far, we have three quotes from allegedly infallible “founders,” and so far we have exactly zero evidence that by “religion” or “morality” these men referred exclusively to the Christian faith.  Yet, like the claim by Mr. Spiering from Lamar, we find this erroneous conclusion advanced by Coral Ridge Ministries:

The Founders understood that Christian morality was essential for both the preservation of liberty and the stability of law. They knew that if Americans ever abandoned the biblical standards of morality, there could be no fixed boundaries to maintain either liberty or law. Consequently, there would be no end to the possibilities of national evil. They saw that the future of the nation was dependent upon the vitality of religion and the exercise of biblical morality.

All of that nonsense* was extracted from a few quotes about morality and religion, which contained no references to Jesus or the Bible.  As you can see, these religious zealots take this stuff seriously.  It’s either their way or doom.

But I like what the anonymous commenter on Mr. Spiering’s letter pointed out:

Our country will be better when politicians don’t even have to be a ‘Christian in name only.’ Why should someone have to put on a religious facade to be viewed as a person with morality.

The entitlement to deceit that Mr Spiering has shown with his misquotation, is just a small example of how religiosity doesn’t imply righteousness.

Amen.

____________________________

*Nonsense?  Yes. For anyone who has ever read the Old Testament accounts of Yahweh-sanctioned murder and mayhem, this quote is ridiculous:

They knew that if Americans ever abandoned the biblical standards of morality, there could be no fixed boundaries to maintain either liberty or law.

Which “biblical standards of morality” would we be talking about?  Those that allow for the killing of innocents in the name of the religion of Yahweh?

Nonsense, indeed.