{"id":8908,"date":"2013-12-04T06:23:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T06:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=8908"},"modified":"2013-12-05T22:24:33","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T22:24:33","slug":"poperush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/poperush\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope, Rush"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jesuitreduction\"<\/a>One of the many advantages of not being religious is that I don\u2019t have to spend any time wrestling with the \u201ccontradictions\u201d of my faith. <\/p>\n

Christianity has\u2014stretching from its murky beginnings to its wildly syncretic present\u2014quite a few of those.<\/p>\n

Writing on his always fascinating (if sometimes infuriating) blog, Andrew Sullivan takes Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to task<\/a> for making insufficient effort to reconcile their views on Pope Francis\u2019s demagogic attacks on free markets with the Christianity that the two also profess. I don\u2019t have a god in this fight, but read what Andrew has to say, and judge for yourselves. I should say that this this was one of his high-octane days, and that can make for a rough ride, but I\u2019ll admit that this made me laugh:<\/p>\n

In the Church of Limbaugh, there is no greater heretic than Saint Francis. Francis even believed in the sanctity of the natural world, regarding animals as reflecting the pied beauty of a mysterious divinity. Sarah Palin, in contrast, sees them solely as dinner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And how right she is.<\/p>\n

\u201cPied beauty of a mysterious divinity\u201d, or just beautiful in pies?<\/p>\n

With apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins<\/a> (and pun-hating readers), I\u2019ll take the latter.<\/p>\n

Andrew concludes:<\/p>\n

Christianity is one of the most powerful critiques of radical market triumphalism. And it\u2019s now coming \u2013 more plainly and unmistakably in our lifetimes \u2013 to a church near you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, \u201cradical market triumphalism\u201d is a mistake, but one that is more talked about than real: for the most part it is a straw man. On Andrew\u2019s broader point, we\u2019ll have to see whether the religious left is indeed going to enjoy another surge. Maybe, maybe not. It won\u2019t be the first time. Or the last. But, there is a slight something in Andrew\u2019s tone\u2014a shadow, no more than that\u2014which is a reminder that when such surges occur, liberty frays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the many advantages of not being religious is that I don\u2019t have to spend any time wrestling with the \u201ccontradictions\u201d of my faith. Christianity has\u2014stretching from its murky beginnings to its wildly syncretic present\u2014quite a few of those. … 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":[15,711],"tags":[1048,143,998,403,16,1046,279],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8908"}],"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=8908"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8921,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8908\/revisions\/8921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}