{"id":6012,"date":"2011-06-09T05:27:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T05:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=6012"},"modified":"2011-06-09T05:27:22","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T05:27:22","slug":"ayn-rand-as-scarecrow-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/ayn-rand-as-scarecrow-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayn Rand as Scarecrow (3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Time\u2019s Amy Sullivan (she is the religion writer who dreamt up the story<\/a> that Republicans were drumming up Obama-as-antichrist rumors during the 2008 election) was also thrilled<\/a> by Paul Ryan\u2019s encounter<\/a> with a member of the religious left:<\/p>\n

These days, when people question a politician\u2019s \u201cmorality,\u201d they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they\u2019ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she \u201cpromote[d] the ethic of selfishness.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A broad coalition. Really? <\/p>\n

It is, however, certainly a dishonest one. As its members well know, it\u2019s quite possible to pick and choose what one admires about an author without agreeing with everything that he or she said. After all, there\u2019s some pretty rough stuff in the Bible. Are we to take it that this posse of \u2018progressive\u2019 clerics has signed up for everything that is in their holy book?<\/p>\n

But back to Amy Sullivan:<\/p>\n

Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as \u201cThe Ayn Rand Budget.\u201d Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget \u201cdoes not pass our test\u201d of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget \u201cdrop Ayn Rand\u2019s books and pick up their sacred texts.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who, I wonder, is Father Kiley to set \u201cour\u201d test? As for the infinitely patronizing suggestion that supporters of the Ryan budget should \u201cpick up their sacred texts\u201d, well, those supporters should just pause to ask themselves how much tax this church of Kiley\u2019s pays and move on. <\/p>\n

Andrew Sullivan discusses some of these issues here<\/a>. There\u2019s an enormous amount with which to disagree, not least his implicit rejection of the syncretic nature of Christianity, a religion that, after two thousand years, amounts to rather more than the possibly apocryphal words of its presumed founder, but this, in particular, caught my eye:<\/p>\n

It seems to me that one of the core messages of Jesus was that his kingdom was not of this world. Politics is a necessary evil, but it is not a spiritual vocation. Between a life in the world and a life that is otherworldly, it is hard to see Christianity in a political mode. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s a distinction that holds up. Thus Father Kiley may believe that his agenda is spiritual, but it sure looks political to me\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time\u2019s Amy Sullivan (she is the religion writer who dreamt up the story that Republicans were drumming up Obama-as-antichrist rumors during the 2008 election) was also thrilled by Paul Ryan\u2019s encounter with a member of the religious left: These days, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[167,796,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6015,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012\/revisions\/6015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}