HuffPo: One Third of Americans Favor Christianity as State Religion | Second Thoughts
HuffPo: One Third of Americans Favor Christianity as State Religion | Second Thoughts
The Huffington Post is running a story based on a recent poll asking “Would you favor or oppose establishing Christianity as the official state religion in your state?” One third of their respondents were in favor. Is this a surprise? Not really, though one would be forgiven for being exasperated – not because one disapproves of religion, but because it is quite obvious those who approve haven’t thought it through.
The most glaring problem is, which Christianity? Even discounting extremist groups such as the Westboro Baptists, there are an incredible number of denominations and sects. Most importantly, would this Christianity be Catholic or Protestant? If Protestant, would that indicate a return to discrimination, even subtle, against Catholics? If Protestant, would it be Presbyterian or Lutheran? If Presbyterian, would the state senate chaplain have to be from the PC(USA), the EPC, or the RPCNA? Et cetera.
The other question is, what would a state religion mean for government and life in that state? Would it actually make any difference, or simply be words on a page? Would all government workers have to be Christians? What about teachers? People who receive state aid?
The problem is not that there are too many questions, per se. The fact that there might be difficult decisions involved is not itself grounds for dismissing a course of action. But these questions, I think, are not questions the surveyed would want to have to answer. Too soon their approval of Christianity as a state religion would run up against their belief in “freedom,” whatever that might mean to the average American. Regardless of the truth or falsehood of any given religious tradition, these questions are practical questions that could not be successfully resolved without resorting to outright dictatorship.
On a side note, at the time of this writing, the HuffPo article has 10,399 comments. What, may I ask, is the point of allowing 10,399 comments on an article? A thread with over 100 comments is hard enough to follow meaningfully, even without the imbecile and vitriolistic comments so endemic to the average political post, especially on Huffington. A comment thread with over ten thousand comments is nothing but the masses thinking they have a “voice.” (Of course, that’s almost as true for blogs too.)
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