Pen Points

There Is A God... The Lettertorial To be published in the February 2002 issue of The Letter, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender newspaper published in Louisville, Kentucky. By David Williams, Editor, The Letter Pat Robertson: Perhaps the last of his breed? One of the more encouraging signs in these dismal political times came in December after Pat Robertson resigned as chief warlord of the Christian Coalition. No, it wasn't his resignation we found encouraging: some new idiot is just going to take his place. Our hearts were more greatly warmed by some of the sentiments expressed by other leaders of the religious right in the weeks that followed. Such luminaries as Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer are now sunning in victory, not because they necessarily hated the old bastard, but because, in Bauer's words, the position of leader of the religious right "has already been filled." By whom? St. George the Bush, of course. "For the first time since religious conservatives became a modern political movement, the president of the United States has become the movement's de facto leader," writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. According to Milbank, the Christian mass media, not to mention its preachers and activists, believe the skies have opened and a dove has descended on Bush's head. We can only hope it had mulberries for breakfast. All we need now is for Rev. Al Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to lead a procession of palms to Washington, anoint Bush's forehead with precious oils, and place a jewel-encrusted crown on his head while America's newly formed peasant class dances with glee in the pot-holed streets of Washington Northwest. Normally we'd recoil in horror at these thoughts were we not so steeped in the study of history. How many forgotten countries down through the centuries have looked upon their leaders as if they were God's messenger? And how many of those messengers actually believed such nonsense? Of course there's also great irony here. Protestantism was born in anti-papist and anti-royalist fervor. It's taken only 483 years for it to embrace the kinds of popes and kings they would just have soon thrown into the Tiber in the good old days. That's about the same amount of time it took for early, people-oriented Christianity to morph into royal papism. We don't think Bush considers himself the second Son of God. As the saying goes, he may be dumb, but he's not stupid. But we do wonder if he's grasped the concept of the presidency yet. This president is acting as if he's the CEO of a Texas oil conglomerate, not the leader of a democracy. Every chance he's gotten, he's tried to circumvent the laws of the land or the hard-fought regulations of previous administrations. When he can't get his way with the Senate, he stamps his feet, whines on the radio, and if that doesn't work starts calling senate majority leader Tom Daeschle names. The religious right and the big corporations may eat that stuff up, but the rest of us are beginning to starve for a little attention out here. Bush, here meeting with Pope John Paul II, likely won't look at himself as being God on Earth History shows what happens when you attempt to imbue leaders with divinity. Sooner or later it goes to their head and disaster ensues. Bush's arrogance, combined with his stubbornness and a healthy dose of ignorance about how a democracy works, is the perfect recipe for a Nixonian fall. The first sign, we believe, is already in the heavens, somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico. We believe it begins with the letter E. In hoc signo veritas.

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