 | Tennessee Republicans Pray For Divine War Against Democrats |
Over the last few weeks, several people have visited Irregular Times and asked why we’re so uptight and persnickity about the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Yes, the First Amendment clearly states that the government isn’t supposed to be doing anything to establish religion, and there’s supposed to be a separation between church and state, but why can’t we just relax, and just stop worrying about it when politicians promise to use their religion as a guide for the way that the government will be run? What’s so wrong with mixing religion and politics?
What’s so wrong about it? Let me give you an example of what’s so wrong about it. Republican Jim Bryson’s campaign for Governor of Tennessee is a great example of what’s wrong with mixing religion and politics.
Jim Bryson is so keen to mix religion and politics that his campaign is working with a group of people to organize Christians across the state of Tennessee to pray for a divine war against Tennessee Democrats.
No, I am not making this up. This is not a satire. Here’s what the Bryson Prayer Force is being told to pray for: “Pray for an open heaven over Jim and his team in each Tennessee county they visit… Pray for a warring, Angelic Guard to go before them, clearing the way and surrounding them, and being their rear guard as they move throughout the State.”
These people are being asked to pray to God to send a “warring Angelic Guard” down into Tennessee to mess with the Democrats. You read that right - they want God to send angels down from heaven to go to war against the Democrats in every county that Jim Bryson visits. This isn’t just some kind of sprinkle of heavenly fairy dust from an episode of “Touched By An Angel” we’re talking about here. This is war that they’re praying for - a divine war with warrior angels using their supernatural powers to rid Tennessee of all its Democrats, and to do it all for the sake of one politician who, presumably, after God’s army has killed or driven away everyone who would vote for his opponent, will sit in the Governor’s chair in Nashville and preside over some kind of little Christian kingdom of Tennessee.
The team of people that Jim Bryson is working with are so keen on the idea that God is a Republican, and wants Jim Bryson to win the election, that they have appointed someone to the official position of Senior Intercessory Advisor to the campaign. A Senior Intercessory Advisor is someone whose job it is to intercede with God on behalf of the campaign.
What are they going to do next - slaughter a ram on an altar?
These people are not just crazy, they’re dangerous crazy. It won’t take too long for people who believe that God is going to wage a divine war against their political enemies to stop waiting for the angel warriors to appear, and start doing the bloody work themselves.
They’re praying for holy war. The Muslims have a special word for that: Jihad. The people working with Jim Bryson’s campaign are American Jihadists, hoping for the real elimination of anybody that stands in the way of their campaign to create a government of Christianity, for Christianity, by Christianity.
This is just one example of why it’s a very bad idea to mix religion and politics. Once you get politicians claiming to campaign for public office in the name of the divine creator of the entire universe, things get dangerous very quickly.
Contact Us
Considering that Harold Ford Jr. is the prominent Tennessee Democrat of the moment (though not running against Bryson), you would think Bryson and Co would realize they don’t have a lot of progressive opposition in the state. Whats a liberal Tennessean to do?
Comment by robert — 8/16/2006 @ 2:28 am
What’s a liberal Tennessean to do?
Do what I did, after living in Memphis for 6 years. Pack up and leave the state for some place more healthy, and more sane.
There is no winning against the forces of hate and bigotry there. I gave it a good shot during my time.
Comment by J. Clifford — 8/16/2006 @ 7:08 am
Fine idea, there, Jim, but some people (myself included) have a vested interest in an area that is populated by “the forces of hate and bigotry”. For one, my home is here…all bought and paid for in full. Secondly, I work here as a Drug/Alcohol Counselor. Thirdly, I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ll be damned if I will let the SOB’s run me out of my own home town. (I know, I’m a stubborn old curmudgeon, my wife reminds me every day) I fully understand your position, and your move, but I have found that these folks are EVERYWHERE…one cannot get away from them. So, perhaps, what I attempt to do is show that there are people out there with a different point of view who are just as American as they profess to be. I can’t change the world, I know…I learned that many years ago. But if I can change a few minds, maybe I’ve accomplished my purpose here in this incarnation.
Comment by Mike — 8/16/2006 @ 12:22 pm
That’s jclifford. I’ve never lived in Tennessee, although I’ve visited jclifford there.
Comment by Jim — 8/16/2006 @ 12:29 pm
Mike, you can give it a shot, but you know that you’re pretty much on your own. The Tennessee Democratic Party isn’t exactly working overtime to defeat the Religious Right.
As for nasty right wingers being everywhere, well, that’s true, but there’s a much higher concentration in some places - like Tennessee.
Comment by J. Clifford — 8/16/2006 @ 4:46 pm
Sorry! I seem to have misled people. I live in the notrhern Central Valley of California, not (thank God!) Tennessee. Our area is home to such luminaries as Rep. Wally Herger, various murky members of the KKK and the White Aryan Resistance (known for their infantile propensety of spray-painting WAR on every available overpass and water tower). We have here, locally, 120 churches, of which 98 fall into the “Fundamentalist” camp. In living memory, I haven’t seen a Democrat elected to any office here, nor has the Democratic vote ever been above 12%. This is the part of America that John Steinbeck wrote about in “The Grapes Of Wrath”. I run into people every day that reflect Steinbeck’s definition of a Bolshevik in Northern California. Incase you don’t remember, “A Bolshevik is any son of a bitch who wants 25 cents an hour, when I’m only paying a dime.”
Comment by Mike — 8/16/2006 @ 8:30 pm